Exchange Diary (CityU Students)

The School of Graduate Studies (SGS) organized Waterfront Welcome to all new graduate student. This welcome session was held off campus on northern part of Hamilton, near Ontario Lake. When each student arrived, one would get his/her own name card with an animal sticker you like. This was a good talking topic when you want to know each other by asking the reason that you chose the animal. Besides, the GSG provided snacks and drinking in the welcome session, which is tasty. I enjoyed eating with my new friends. Also, they held a competition about building an architecture with marshmallows and toothpick as high as possible and awarded the top, second and third groups. This small game helped us know each other quickly. Finally, some officers of graduate studies also came to the stage to welcome us. This is a good chance for me to know new friends.

There are two buildings for DeGroote School of Business, McMaster University. One is located on the main campus, Hamilton, which is for teachers’ offices, undergraduate student and part of MFin program (graduate student). The other is shown in the picture, Ron Joyce Center, located in Burlington, about 30-minute bus drive, for MBA students. All of my courses were taken here. There is a shuttle bus, designed carefully according to the class schedule, traveling between two buildings. This is a four-storey building with information desk at the gate. Here, two things impressed me most. To begin with, when I first came to the building and saw the screen showing stock market information opposite the entrance, the business atmosphere is coming. Then, you would find that almost everyone in the building wore at least business formal. I was amazed at first and then knew that there were lots of meetings, mock business cases, and networking. Sometimes, companies would come to give an interview to students. As a business student, wearing formally shows a respect and professional image to others. So, students would come in formal dress in the class, and catch every chance. I agreed and was deeply impressed by this idea.

    The BizX Classy Night is held by DeGroote Business School for both incoming and outgoing student. There was a dancing at the beginning, helping to know each other. Then, teachers and some students shared their experiences and feelings about exchange life. Most of the students are undergraduate. Followed by a dinner, we talked a lot from hometown to food, from traveling to learn experience. One thing worth mentioning is that Christy (undergraduate) and I (postgraduate) – the only two students from CityU to McMaster met tonight! What a luck!

Friday 25-11-2016

The professor Richard Deaves taught me Behavior Finance this semester. Even though, it is high workload, including previewing with small tests before each class, a presentation with an essay, and two exams. The course is worth taking. The professor taught this course for more than 10 years. The course is well designed, and Dr. Richard explains definition and concepts clearly and easily to understand, which attracts me in class. It opens a door for me to understand finance not only from a traditional financial statement, figures or mathematical-related model but also from psychology area. I really enjoyed his class. I think CityU could also consider offering a course related to this field, which would open a new world to finance student.

ESCP EUROPE was established in 1819 and became the first business school in the world. As a result, I look forward to visiting the school before I arrived in Paris. Visiting students welcome day was on 5^th September this year, and it is my first time to step into ESCP EUROPE Paris campus, I felt so exciting. The welcome party was started with traditional French breakfast- croissant, pain au chocolat and coffee or juice, they were pretty delicious.  I also met students from different countries and several Chinese students who were studying overseas, such as Japan, USA, and UK. Through communication with them, I found many interesting ideas about the differences between France and their home countries in weather, transportation and education system. After then the officer of the exchange program made a general presentation of ESCP EUROPE Paris for us and showed us around the campus. Finally, we enjoyed a hearty lunch in the canteen as French did.

Tuesday 2016-10-04

During my campus life, I took part in many activities held by Shuffle ESCP which is the official on-campus international student society at ESCP EUROPE.  For example, In early October we went to Normandy for traveling. Before I started the trip, Normandy reminded me of Normandy Landing which is a fierce event during World War II. However, when I was there, I saw people were enjoying their peaceful life: they run along the beach, walked around the city with their family and practiced horse riding and surfing. Moreover, I ate French steamed mussels with wine and seafood salad there, they were so delicious that I can still remember today~

Wednesday 2016-11-09

During early November, I started my first alone traveling in my life. At the beginning, I thought it would be a little bit unsafe and lonely, so I made a very detail plan before I went to Copenhagen. However, luckily for me, I joined a free walking touring group and made many new friends. The leader told us history about Demark and Copenhagen and much interesting design in the city, for example, the weather forecast machine, which located opposite to the city hall of Copenhagen, has two woman model inside a box on the top of a tower, when it is rainy day, one of the models would get out and raise an umbrella and when it is sunny day, the another model would start to move around the box by bike. The design is really interesting and people in demark felt proud of it.

Thursday 2016-11-03

Every Thursday in Paris, I attended a course called consultant behaviors. One day the professor arranged a transaction game for us: Every student plays as a buyer or a seller in apple market who need to reach an agreement about the price of apples and make a deal about it. Each of us would get a price from the judge, the buyer tried to buy apples for a cheaper price while the sellers try to sell apples for a higher price, and all of us should try to reach more transactions so that they can get higher profit in total. I played the role as buyer and try my best to sell for apples. Finally, I reached agreement ten times and get around 100 ERO in total. About twenty minutes later, we were required to disclose our profit. To my surprise, the person who won the game only complete three transactions with others, which means that he was willing to spend time in finding the cheapest apples or almost the cheapest apples in the market and then buy them rather than buying the apples if the price if lower than he expected. That is interesting and worth thinking about it.  

Friday 2016-12-05

Different from CityU, ESCP EUROPE Pairs offered many free language courses for students, so that I have the chance to learn French there. The teaching style and method is totally different from my English course. French teacher tried her best to speak French with me instead of English and she started course with several common sentence in different situations. However, my English teacher taught me in Chinese and I started my English learning with basic English grammar, and then common English words and sentence. For that matter, I felt unfamiliar and cannot understand what teacher said, but she was so nice and patient. Sometimes she even draw several pictures to help me remember meaning and pronounce of French words, I felt so appreciate!