The Shanghai Sojourn

We arrived, settled and started the semester with a lot of enthusiasm- both from the students as well as the university. I can never forget the three-day orientation that Fudan organized for us. The accommodation – Tonghe International Student Village – lived up to its name by proving to be a truly international experience.

The S3 Asia MBA is a very unique course in more ways than one. On one hand is the wealth of knowledge that a student stands to gain from studying in three amazing universities, and on the other is the priceless opportunity to live in places like Shanghai, Seoul and Singapore. I embarked upon this journey with a lot of preparation. I had tried to imagine the various situations that I might land in and how I would deal with them. In retrospect, I was being utterly stupid! For nothing I could ever imagine would have prepared me for what was in store for me.

The first thing I felt upon landing at the Pudong International Airport, Shanghai was a rushing sense of being an Indian. It was my first international travel experience and, as destiny would have it, I was in China. Here, I looked different from everyone else. They spoke a language that was nothing like anything I’ve ever heard before. Everything was built gigantic in proportions, the traffic was right-handed and the food- well, let’s leave that for later.

The route everyday from Tonghe to the School of Business gave us an opportunity to walk past the GuangHua Towers. At least to me, the towers remained an awe-inspiring view throughout the semester. The entire Fudan campus has this amazing energy and sense of purpose about it which is reassuring and humbling at the same time. Then the classes started.

With classes, came group studies, assignments, exploring the surroundings, and of course, parties! Tonghe is the perfect place to live as an international student studying at Fudan. The place is perfect in terms of amenities, location and independence. You can study at anyone’s apartment, meet at Chartre’s Deli for a quick meeting over coffee and party like there’s no tomorrow. If you want to cook, there’s a kitchen in every apartment and if you want to eat out, there are plenty of options around to choose from. I would like to make a special mention of a little joint called Hannah’s near Tonghe run by an angel of a lady called, well, Hannah. In case you are an Indian and want to eat healthy food outside on a regular basis, Hannah’s is just the place for you. The lady, thanks to some of our friends, had become so fond of Indian students that she prepared a separate Indian menu with stuff like vegetable rice and chicken curry rice in case you are selective about what meat, if any you wish to eat.

Shanghai has the reputation of being one of the best cities in the world and it totally lives up to it. The city has everything for everyone, there’s great transport, amazing infrastructure, an exciting nightlife and all that jazz that makes any cosmopolitan worth living. There will be small issues sometimes like communication or cuisine if you are conservative like me in the kind of food you eat but, the overall experience makes up for all that and does so nicely!

Now comes my favourite part – the people. In my experiences, I found the Chinese people to be extremely friendly, approachable and understanding. From the cabbie who sang Awaraa Hoon to professors who offered to conduct the same paper twice because some students were flying earlier; from the total strangers who would approach you and start talking to the nightclubs that would play Himesh Reshamiya’s version of Ek Hasina Thi (!!!), the people of Shanghai came across as a very affable lot. With the students, there were cultural confusions in the beginning of the semester but as time passed, we started understanding each other better thanks to the various cultural days organized by students from each country and Varun’s dance classes the overall group turned out to be extremely coherent.

As I wait for the next semester to start in Seoul, I sometimes wonder if times or going to get better or worse. After a start like this, your expectations start soaring new heights and that is when the pessimist in you also starts questioning everything. I am really not sure how it is going to be. But, I’m glad that I got a chance to study in a city like Shanghai in a university like Fudan; and that’s something that is going to stay with me always.

Piyush Kumar (Indian)

S3 Asia MBA - 3rd Batch, Class of 2012

'Nanta' and 'Sa-bal-shik' time for Batch 2 at KUBS!

After Shanghai did an appreciative job ‘orienting’ us, I thought there couldn’t be a more structured way of carrying out the Orientation process. Fudan did very well for the end result. We pretty much knew everyone in our batch by the end of those three hectic, but very helpful days.


2nd batch of S3 Asia MBA students

Learning "Nanta" - The traditional Korean performance


When I came to know that there is going to be another Orientation activity at KUBS, frankly, I wasn’t all that excited. Getting acquainted with the school’s processes is a separate thing, but there was nothing new we could know about each other after spending a semester together. Well, that’s what I had thought!

We had a great time learning and performing Nanta at Oak Valley. But what came later just seemed to have taken everyone by surprise and given a few shivers too. Sa-Bal-Shik. Not that we hadn’t heard of the ceremony from the previous batch, but the magnanimity of the event could never have been transpired. And there was no way we could have conspired against it either! All doors were closed and the staff made sure we didn’t escape the activity. As a matter of fact, I am pretty sure no one really wanted to miss the event. The staff needn’t have been there ;)

First taste of "Makkuli" (Fermented Rice Wine)... Definitely not the last!

Well, calling it an activity is actually an understatement. As it progressed, Sa-Bal-Shik was nothing less than an exhilarating and adrenaline pumping mega event. The roars of other KU MBA students and the rhymes of KU Business School cheer leaders were frightening and melancholic, respectively. Such was the atmosphere that I saw a lot of my classmates petrified.

The echoes of ‘An neyong ha ship ni kka?’, Min-Jok-Go-Dae!’ and ‘Ae-Kuk Kyong-Young!’ could have well been easily heard in the whole of Oak Valley. Such was the energy and passion. Well, I was just started to be proven wrong in thinking what else an orientation be like!



Prof. Jaehwan Kim and our dearest Bina, had already started having pale faces awaiting Asia MBA’s batch turn. They had every right to believe that we would be the under-performers! But then, we weren’t going to let them down, at least not Bina who had done everything possible to make every arrangement perfect. Prof, Kim would appreciate this too, as he got a nice suite at the hotel, which seemed unlikely, after he deviated from Bina’s ‘commands’ for a while but was soon back in line ;)



The S3 "family" is created by an alumnus, Lee Dae Young and family at Oak Valley



The first fear was the fear of drinking, but the roaring part clearly took over it. And just when I thought I knew my batch-mates well enough, I saw the wilder side of them. The passion, the vigor and the energy are just mild words. The tiger happens to be the symbol of Korea University Business School, and I saw each one of us roar like one. It was an amazing and unforgettable experience for me, I guess for all. Worth a mention, our Korean friends led the way and the rest followed. Prof. Kim would be proud that none of the Asia MBA students had to ‘repeat the performance’, which is gallantry by the high KU standards.

Well, anyone who had thought you needn’t have another orientation at KU would have had to rethink like I did. And for the batches to come, the ceremony is one of the biggest parts of Asia MBA life. You can see the promise that KUBS makes and makes you make! You start to feel the friendship and love as the most important things with your batch-mates and this is where it stops to be just an MBA degree. It becomes a family!




Akshat Kumar Singh (Indian)

Class of 2011

The first S3 Asians Graduate!

KUBS held the first graduation ceremony in Seoul on Feb 25, 2010. Some of the S3 Asia Alumni who are in Seoul were present for the ceremony.

Prof Bae, former KUBS S3 Asia MBA Program Director, giving a speech to mark the momentous occasion



Left to Right: Chuel Hyo Park, Dae Young Lee, Bae Hyun Lee and Heon Nam Lim

 

Chuel Hyo Park

Bae Hyun Lee

Heon Nam Lim

These robes have a unique meaning for Korea University graduates - the Brown Collar around the robe implies 'Master's or Upper Degree of Social Sciences and Philosophy'.


Dae Kyun Kim (Andrew)
S3 Asia MBA, Class of 2010

The Journey...

This video was created specially for the closing dinner of the first cohort on Dec 2, 2009 in Singapore. The family consists of 31 members representing 6 nationalities. Our unity and affection for each other have been the cause of envy in each of the three universities we studied in. We spent an awesome 463 days - living, studying, playing, traveling and, of course, partying together!

The first part of the video talks of the things we did to overcome all our apprehensions before embarking on the journey - new countries, new cultures and most of all new people! But, we did survive!

The second part introduces the family members that had the time of their lives!

Lets see what makes the pioneering batch of the S3 Asia MBA so special and unique...!

Memories - Vivid...Timeless...

My desire to be part of the yearbook publishing team was simple – to give the best graduation gift to the 30 most beautiful people I have met. A gift that would allow each S³ Asian to preserve the days we have lived together not as classmates but as a family.

Someone rightly said that a picture speaks a thousand words. Then imagine what happens when u have thousands of pictures speaking a million words! Each picture was special, as it conveyed a certain aspect of the life we’ve shared so far! But I hope that the few hundred pictures that we finally printed give a glimpse of our very own Asia MBA experience – an insight into the unlimited memories we have gathered over the past 15 months.

As we move on, from being one single family to becoming individuals moving forward to pursue our own dreams and aspirations, I wish all my dear classmates the very best! You guys deserve each and every bit of your future success. And when you think of your MBA days, I hope that those vivid and timeless memories are sitting right on top of your bookshelf!

- Contributed by Pragnya Kashinath, Class of 2010