A Tale of Two Cities

Written by: Thibault Pan

Guanghua 2015 IMBA Class

Guanghua-ESSEC Double Degree Program

Six months have passed since I arrived in France. ESSEC is pretty tiny, and every morning, with the first beam of light penetrating into the campus, voices arise. Different faces in different colors coming from all over the world gather right here and discuss in all kinds of languages, through which you can even observe the collision of their wisdom. As a famous business school known by every French household, ESSEC maintains a very high level in both academy and campus atmosphere, and studying here offers you a deep understanding of the business world, especially the European economy, and an opportunity of meeting young potential business leaders from different countries of the world.

Experiencing the charm and sense of Paris is another advantage of studying here. It is quite a profitable investment to repeatedly watch the flow of the Seine, to discover the romance of Champ-Elysees, to contemplate the melancholy of Eiffel Tower, and to admire the solemnity of Triumphal Arch, etc., because, eventually, you will find your own sense of art sublimating. In China Town, for example, people are busy hanging up the lanterns and putting on classical Chinese decorations; fireworks high jetting into the sky, the Chinese New Year showed up on time, and as expected. However, the essence of the festival is lacking some familiarity here in Paris; so every memory about the other side of the world came back, and I started to miss everything in Peking University, in Guanghua.

It feels more at home at Guanghua, and there is so much to say about that year that we spent together with my fellow classmates. In my opinion, the most significant change that we made to ourselves is that we learned to be proactive and willing to change in a real sense, which I consider as the fundamental pedagogical focus of Guanghua’s MBA program.

Furthermore, we learned every aspect of the business world, which enabled us to talk with credibility and insight even with the top professionals in the business field. We also learned professional behaviors and business manners through attending various business events, as well as making fine and confident presentations. We exchanged with different faces in different colors from different places every day, making friends for life and pursuing our dreams together.

But above all, and more importantly, we learned how to think – from the communications of diversified cultures, from the brilliant ideas expressed by each individual, from the reflection-inciting lectures given by the professors, and from the self-meditations, our thinking is gradually updated into a more mature, more profound and more instructive one. This has led us to new knowledge about the world in front of us, through which we have gained a better understanding and prediction of the path lying in our future.

Personally, I believe that many attributes of Guanghua’s MBA program have already attained an international level of excellence. Surely you can also receive such experiences in other business schools, but that received in this particular campus at the heart of China, which combines the cultural essence of Peking University and the academic sanguinity of Guanghua, is what makes the experience at Guanghua unique and special.