Another Perspective on the MBA Career Orientation in Shanghai

At the end of July, I was enjoying the rare cool summer in Shanghai while considering how my upcoming MBA life seemed so far away on the other side of the Pacific Ocean. It soon became very close and vivid to me during the Foster Career Orientation in Shanghai. Thanks to the effort of Dodi, Sally and the MBA Career Management Team, I came to have a comprehensive understanding of the most challenging part of MBA life for an international student: job hunting.

Not only did we gain tremendously helpful networking skills, trans-cultural communication tips and resume methodologies during the two-day orientation, but I also particularly enjoyed the learning process. The orientation was held in the form of workshops, meaning each participant could bring new perspectives into the group discussion. I found this group learning process extremely inspiring and effective. For example, in the resume workshop, we were asked to use STAR principal to assess and polish one of our fellow students’ achievements. Instead of strictly following the principal, one Chinese MBA proposed to add a ‘wow factor’; what’s in this achievement that wows people? His journalistic perspective inspired me, a heavily left-minded engineer, to view my resume as a story rather than purely a list of quantified achievements.

With an even more diversified MBA community in Seattle, I’m sure that I’ll continue to experience similar career, academic and even life inspirations throughout the two years.

~ Guest post by Jun Li, Class of 2016 MBA Candidate