Global Immersion

There are several factors that I believe set the education at Penn State a notch above other similarly ranked programs, namely the work of career services, the respect of the students for each other, the atmosphere of integrity and respect instilled by the Honor Code, and the genuine concern and willingness to help of the professors.  Although I believe that the Smeal program is better in each of these areas than the competition, I acknowledge that other schools probably have good professors, strong career counselors, and values of integrity as well.

But no other program, at least none that I applied to or researched, has anything remotely comparable to Global Immersion.  This is an advantage to coming to Smeal that I do not believe you will find anywhere else.

This week had a great impact on me.  I hope everyone else got as much out of the week as I did.  I have hardly been out of the country at all up until this point.  (I went to the beach in Mexico, but that is clearly nothing compared to what we did this week.  Sunbathing taught me nothing about the culture, history, or people of the country.)

For prospective students, Global Immersion is a one week trip at the end of Module III, right before Spring Break, to another country to learn about its history and business environment.  The choices vary slightly from year to year.  Our class chose between Prague in the Czech Republic, Santiago in Chile, or Shanghai in China.  In my opinion,  Prague sounded like the most beautiful and richest in history out of the three cities, and I have always thought it would be interesting to go to Europe.  I am sure that all of the trips were outstanding, but going to Prague was a great decision for me.  This trip taught me a great deal.

First, this trip taught me about the history of the Czech Republic.  The period of communist control from the end of WWII until the Velvet Revolution has had a profound impact on the people throughout the city.  The speakers referenced the hardships that the Czech citizens endured during this era.  Many of us had an opportunity to visit the Communism museum, where we learned about this suffering and the eventual liberation in greater detail.  The exhibits were moving, stirring emotions of sympathy and compassion toward these people who suffered so much.

The main purpose of the trip from the business perspective was to learn about practices in another country, understand the challenges and learn about the differences of working there compared to working in the United States.  The Czech Republic faces challenges in overcoming the culture of Communism.  The world today is moving toward a culture of teams, innovation, reduced vertical layers of management, and employees working together with supervisors to develop creative solutions to problems.  The Czech people are stuck in a culture of employees performing tasks strictly according to management orders, with no additonal innovation and an inability to think outside the box.  This will be an opportunity area for the Czechs to improve in the future, and they could learn from the United States and other western cultures.   The Czechs are doing some things very well, and I believe we could learn some lessons from them to improve our businesses.  The Czechs are very adept at quantative thinking.  They are skilled at math, science, and technology.  Although I have never been to Asia, and I would have to consult with my friends who traveled to Shanghai, I believe that some eastern cultures also have a reputation for their skills in these areas.  The United States has fallen behind other areas of the world in these quantitative skills, and we will need to get back up to speed in math and science in order to remain competitive.  In my opinion, understanding complex math problems or writing computer code is much harder than writing a paper.  My undergraduate major was political science, and I am pretty certain that my friends in the engineering, accounting, biology, and finance programs at Villanova took very difficult classes compared to most of mine.  Just from taking finance and accounting at Smeal, I can tell that quantitative classes can be quite hard.  We should take a lesson from the Czechs and other cultures, and master these challenging skills in order to remain competitive in the world economy.

In addition to the history and the business lessons, the beauty of the Czech Republic impressed me.  A tour of the Prague Castle on the first day in the city gave us a feel for the beautiful architecture of the city.  An elevator up to a high floor of an observation tower provided a magnificent view of the neighborhoods below.  The cobbled streets and stone buildings give the city a historic feel, unlike any city I have been to in the US.  There was tremendous beauty here, and there is incredible beauty back in the US.  The difference that I noticed was that much of the beauty in Prague involves man-made buildings and architecture, while the great scenery in the US involves natural wonders such as forests, lakes, and mountains.

The final impact of the trip to the Czech Republic was a greater appreciation of my own country.  We saw so many great things in Prague.  We drank some of the best beer in the world, tasted some delicious food, saw some beautiful architecture, and enjoyed some dazzling entertainment.  Still, even though we were only gone for a short time, I occasionally got homesick during the week.  The trip made me appreciate little things about the United States, and made me stop and think how great my country is, how wonderful American music is, how courageous and unselfish American troops are, and how beautiful American women are.  I would imagine many of my friends who came here from other countries hold similar feelings in their hearts about the greatness of their home.  I have to give the international students in our program a great deal of credit.  Leaving your home country for the MBA program must have been a tremendous sacrafice.  This was a brave, courageous decision on your part.  Many kudos to all of you, for not only have you left your home, but you have come to a new country with no prejudice or expectations.  All of the international students I have met have maintained a very positive attitude toward Americans.  I have not noticed any students complaining about our culture or our customs.  I am sure there are many cultural things about China, or India, or Russia, or whatever country you are from, that you miss.  Yet instead of wondering why we cannot be more like the people in your home country, you have made efforts to appreciate the positive things about our culture.  I am not sure that Americans have such a positive attitude when we go to other places.  We sometimes expect other people to speak English, or to have the same things available in their country that we have in ours.  For some, the MBA program in the US was an opportunity to escape from an oppressive culture, and perhaps some have no desire to return to their homeland.  But for many, home holds a special place in the heart.  For this reason, it is important that we continue to have events at Smeal to represent all of our cultures.

One can learn finance, accounting, and marketing at other MBA programs.  One can learn about debits and credits at Maryland.  One can learn about Weighted Average Cost of Capital and Net Present Value at Indiana.  One can gain an understanding of target markets, segmentation, forecasting, and the impact of interest rates on the economy at Iowa or Michigan.

The ability to see positively the diversity of other cultures while developing a greater appreciation for one´s own?  To the extent that this is present at Smeal, I do not believe one can find that anywhere else.

Michael M Meehan
Penn State Smeal MBA
Class of 2010