Intersecting Minds: Education, Business and Technology at the North Carolina State Jenkins Graduate School of Management

I’m happy to announce that I’ll have some company on this website pretty soon. Hal Lusk, another 2nd year MBA student from my class will be posting here from time to time here. Hal is a really sharp guy with a lot of interesting ideas, and he is going to make a fine edition to the blog. Knowing Hal, I’m sure his contributions will be thought-provoking and entertaining, and I’m looking forward to our interactions.

Welcome, Hal.

A few days ago, I took an opportunity to briefly film the exterior and interior of my residence. Instead of attempting to describe further, I’ll let my narration and the videos do the talking. First the outside:

Then the inside:

Needless to say it’s been an experience in here so far.

Since my summer came to an end so quickly, I didn’t have much time to recap my summer internship experience. In lieu of writing out a long-winded response, I think this short video summarizing my time at Genentech will suffice:

I’ve been a bit behind in updating the blog this past week because there has been another whirlwind of activity the last few days. Instead of covering every detail, here are a few highlights in no particular order:

Danish Culture and Economic System: We attended a one and a half hour lecture on several aspects of Danish culture on Tuesday morning. The most interesting takeaway from my perspective was the fact that the Danes have one of the lowest income inequality percentages in the world. In other words, they have a very large middle class where everyone shares the wealth. This happens because the Danes have tax rates well over 60%, resulting in a very strong federal government who manages everything from the education system to health care to public transportation.

And it’s highly effective. The subways are clean and run on time. The campus is beautiful, people are very happy with their health coverage. It’s a vastly different approach from America, and a highly enjoyable environment to live in.

Bicycles: One of those highly enjoyable activities is bike riding and walking everywhere. Because Copenhagen is such a small city, you can bike from end to end in under an hour and a half. I take my bike everywhere now: to campus, shopping, going out at night, dinners with friends. When I’m not riding, I walk. It’s a lifestyle I could certainly get into back in the States, but there are almost no truly bike friendly cities. It’s a shame too considering how much more exercise people get, and how much less damage they do to the environment in terms of carbon emissions.

The Campus and Schedule Nightmare: CBS has a wonderful campus. There are four main buildings, and they are architectural wonders in comparison to NC State’s all red-brick campus. Unfortunately, managing 15,000 students in four primary buildings makes for an administrative nightmare. The scheduling and class planning is extremely unorganized and creates a headache for a large portion of the students. Classes are scheduled on top of each other, and classrooms are constantly changing. Some people were dropped out of classes due to overbooking students in classes. It’s almost completely up to the student to find courses that fit their needs and their schedules. Many of the exchange students, including me, aren’t accustomed to this approach.

But it is pretty. Below is a picture of the interior of Solberg Plads:

The entrance of Solberg Plads

Classes!: Next week I start my first classes. Even though I’m not taking all the classes I had originally intended to take due to scheduling conflicts, I’m excited. The schedule and approach to education is vastly different from America, and I’ll have more to say about that over the coming weeks.

Finally, after 10 days of meeting a few hundred people, absorbing a new culture, shopping for a new life, and running all over Copenhagen, I’m a bit exhausted. I tell people I talk to that 10 days has felt like 100 because of everything that’s happening. Tonight I’m learning Danish Folk Dancing, and tomorrow getting yet another tour of Copenhagen. It’s been a whirlwind so far, but I’m enjoying the hell out of it.

I finished my first “class” here in Denmark today, a Crash Course in the Danish language, basic vocabulary and conversational phrases. While Danish resembles English grammatically, mastering pronunciation is extremely difficult. There are three additional vowel sounds and the language isn’t spoken anything like it’s written, so it’s hard to gather phonetic clues from the words themselves. Nevertheless, it’s fun to go out and practice with friends and try to use some simple phrases with the locals. And it’s always fun to learn cool phrases in a foreign language, whether it’s Danish, French, German or Korean.

I’ve also had a chance to get to know more of the classmates here. While we’re a very diverse group in terms of age, background, and culture, we share a common desire: experiencing a culture different from our own and learning from each other. It’s almost surreal to think only 250 exchange students are here, and another 500 will arrive this weekend. And that’s on top of 14,000 local students who start classes with us next week.

The past 5 days have been intensely stimulating, trying to learn a new language, trying to learn everyone’s name, and trying to assimilate into a completely new environment. I’m looking forward to a break in the action this weekend before true orientation starts next week and classes the following.

As they would say here: Hej hej! Har en godt weekend.

Earlier this week, I sat down to film three of our best students to talk about their involvement with the National Association of Women’s MBA’s (NAWMBA).

Next week, I’ll be having a conversation with two of our international students who have come from Taiwan and India to the United States about their experience so far. Enjoy