Recruiting in Asia – 2011

Southwestern University of Finance and Economics (SWUFE) has a new main campus which is on a sprawling expanse about 1 hour’s drive from our hotel. The campus currently has about 22000 students, most who live on campus. We were met by Ms. Ellie Zhu from the Office of International Affairs of the School of Business Administration. Ms. Zhu led us to a meeting room where we were greeted by Dean Dr. Dan Yang, Dean of SWUFE’s School of Business Administration, Dr. Ye, Director of the Department of Logistics Management, Dr. Xiao, Assoc Professor of International Business and Dr. Chen, Assoc Professor of HRM. We discussed the long relationship between Baruch and SWUFE, the tremendous things SWUFE is known for, and their goals for the future of their school. Dean Yang was extremely proud as he told us of all the wonderful SWUFE alumni in very high places in banks and large corporations around the world.
We talked about SWUFE students studying abroad and what is required for them to be successful. SWUFE has a number of wonderful relationships with fine educational institutions around the globe and, besides Baruch, they currently have students studying at institutions such as Texas A&M, Carnegie Melon, Cornell, Oxford (UK) to name a few.
We ended the discussion having shared a lot of ideas, and promising to either continue the conversations – or at least to seek out the right contacts at Baruch to move the conversations along.
After lunch I addressed a group of both undergraduate and masters students. They wanted to hear about how to apply to graduate schools in the US, what programs Baruch / Zicklin has to offer, and what we look for as we review applications for our various programs. Standing in front of that group of young people, I couldn’t help but think of how difficult it must be to make the decision to leave your family and your country to study abroad. Many looked excited as they thought about the prospect. I hope we see many of these wonderful SWUFE students at Baruch soon.
Tomorrow we’re off to Beijing …

We had another wonderful day in Chengdu – thanks especially to our hosts from SWUFE. We began with a visit to the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding. This base was established in 1987 with 6 Giant Pandas rescued from the wild. Today there are close to 100 Giant Pandas living there. We were lucky enough to see many of them – especially the latest group of about one dozen three month olds. It is interesting to note that Giant Pandas do not easily mate – and when they are successful, since the babies are so incredibly small, many times they do not survive. The base has done much research in perfecting the ability to artificially inseminate the Giant Panda. If you want to learn more about the Chengdu Research Base visit their web site at http://www.panda.org.cn/english/index.htm.
Our next stop was a “typical” Chinese lunch. For all of us from the US – I’m not sure where our idea of Chinese food came from. Nothing here looked anything like what we get from our local Chinese restaurant. Everything we ate was delicious – and probably much healthier than what we get from the US Chinese restaurants. When we asked our guide if the meal would be ending with a fortune cookie, he had no idea what we were talking about!
In the afternoon, we visited the Wuhou Temple. The temple was built in the 6th century to commemorate Zhuge Liang, known for his great wisdom. We ended the day with a stroll through JINLI Street – an ancient street which was recently restored and opened to the public in 2004. I has many wonderful shops and places to relax and eat.
I think that we have now seen everything our Baruch students from Chengdu advised were “must see” places. Tomorrow we finally get to visit SWUFE.

After a good night’s rest, we were met in the lobby by our guide, Shen Tao. What a lovely young man he is. His “American Dream” is to study at Baruch. He hopes to eventually do his PhD and become a professor.
Today we visited Jinsha Site Museum – an amazing museum build over the ruins of the 3000 year old kingdom of Shu. If you are interested in learning more go to www.jinshasitemuseum.com. Later today we visited China Lane (a street of wonderful restored shops and restaurants).
For my friends from SWUFE who kindly visited or emailed with many suggestions before I left NY, you will be happy to know that we ended the day in Huang Cheng Laoma (please excuse me if this is not the correct spelling) supposedly one of the best HOT POT restaurants in Chengdu. Since we had no idea what we were doing, Shen Tao handled the ordering – after I warned him to be sure to order the least spicy option! It was truly delicious and a delightful experience.
Chengdu is a very interesting city. I did not realize how incredibly big it is. SWUFE has a new campus – about 45 minutes outside of the city. Shen Tao tells me he prefers the old campus in the downtown area since it is much closer for students who may be interviewing for jobs here. The traffic is insane. It seems there are absolutely no rules – cars, buses, bicycles and people (even mothers with baby carriages) are all going in every direction – each seemingly oblivious to all the others. Somehow most get through unscathed. Interestingly there is no requirement to have auto insurance. When we asked Shen Tao what happens when there is an accident – he said people just shrug and say “I’m just not lucky”.
The sky has been overcast all day, but I was shocked when Shen Tao told us that it is always this way. He says they never see a blue sky.
Tomorrow we’ll do one more day of learning about Chengdu – and then I begin to work – after all that is why I came.

After close to 30 hours of travel (door to door) we arrived at our hotel in Chengdu, China. It was indeed a long day — which included a layover of approximately 6 hours in Hong Kong Airport. If you’ve ever been there you know that it is massive and really very nice. However, when your body is telling you it’s approximately 3 am, the stores become less enticing! I did learn, however, that even I can get comfortable sleeping across chairs in an airport.
We were met at the airport by Tao Shen, a smiling, enthusiastic 4th year student from SWUFE, who will be our guide for the next few days. His smile did wonders for two very exhausted travelers.
We look forward to a good night’s sleep.

Hello World! I’m ready to embark on a fantastic three week recruiting trip to China and Taiwan. This is my second recruiting trip to Asia. This year I thought it would be interesting to write a blog to keep you informed of the progress.

After weeks of intensive preparation and scheduling we leave tomorrow morning on Cathay Pacific Airlines. Over the course of about 2 1/2 weeks I will be meeting and interviewing 18 prospective Zicklin Graduate students in 5 different cities. 1st stop (after approximately 24 hours of traveling) will be Chengdu where I will be doing a presentation on Wednesday, Nov 2 at Southwestern University of Finance and Economics (SWUFE). Our hosts at SWUFE have been extremely gracious so, after getting caught up on some sleep, we will be taken around to visit the sights. Current Baruch students who are from SWUFE all tell me I must not leave unless I have “Hot Pot” – but they all warn me that it is “spicy”. Professor Martell tells me that I should be sure to ask for “negative spice”.

After Chengdu we will visit Beijing, Shanghai, Taipei and finally Hong Kong. I’ll keep you updated as much as I can.
Until next time … Fran Murphy, Director, Graduate Admissions, Zicklin School of Business