Why Settle for One When You Could Have Two?
Foster is committed to providing students with the knowledge and skills to compete in a global marketplace. Learn about one student’s unique experience pursuing dual MBA degrees in the U.S. and China.
By Robert Gardner, UW Foster Full-time MBA Class of 2013 / PKU Guanghua International MBA Class of 2013. After graduating from Texas A&M University, Robert worked in New York in Architecture, later moving to China to work work in a NASDAQ-listed education corporation before starting his unique MBA experience at Peking University. He is looking to get into international business.
Taking the GMAT, sending in applications, gathering transcripts and getting those verified, paying tuition and finding housing are all a part of the process to getting into an MBA program, but this was the second time, as I was applying for the double-MBA program’s second year at the University of Washington (“UW”). I’m already an MBA student at the prestigious Peking University (“PKU”) in Beijing, China, but I had decided I wanted to pursue the double-MBA opportunity when I first applied to PKU the year before.
Most people have no idea that these programs exist, and when I tell them I’m going to Seattle for my second year, they think it’s just another exchange program. When I explain that it is a dual-degree or double-degree, they ask what the second degree is. It usually takes a little effort to explain it is an MBA from each university.
Why would anyone pursue a program like this? It’s fairly simple, but much more complex at the same time. By obtaining PKU credentials, you get “China Expert” forever written on your resume, while UW credentials show that you have enough stuff to complete a degree in the USA. In China, the PKU credentials are extremely venerated; it is no wonder the PKU Guanghua School of Management has been called the “Harvard Business School of China”.
The program still lasts two years, you spend the first in Beijing, and the second in Seattle; and the result however, is double. PKU has multiple partners set up in this arrangement; there is the University of Texas McCombs School of Business, and the new partnership with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School that grants an M.S. degree in Management in lieu of an MBA. Other options are in Canada, South Korea, Singapore, France and Germany. These programs are really allowing students to expand their education beyond just the one at Peking University, and allowing a China perspective combined with another perspective, creating a truly international MBA experience, and hopefully, allowing me to become an MBA graduate better suited for international business opportunities between the USA and China.
There have definitely been challenges on the way, but it is those experiences that are impossible to convey by words alone that prepare me for doing business cross-culturally. I cannot deny that I am sad my time with my classmates at PKU seems cut short, the truth is many of us will be taking the second year at other schools around the world, either as full-year double-degree students, or one-semester exchange students. In the meantime, I look forward to meeting my new classmates at UW and look forward to the friendships and challenges that will arise in another location.
