Reported by Ke Wenqiu
My exchange semester at HEC Montreal eventually came to an end when I left the classroom, finishing the last exam. Looking back to the date of arrival, four months has gone and I am surprised how much I have grown up, in terms of both psychological and academic aspect.
Montreal, Quebec is a bilingual city while most of the signs and notification are in French only, which makes the staying here kind of an adventure. We found the apartment by on facebook and had to take the metro to school every day, which is quite different from Shantou University. All kinds of grid stuff which are always arranged by family or college before but we have to deal with them on our own now, including paying bills and going to the doctor when feeling sick. All of them seem to be no big deal but they are when put in a French environment. This would encourage me to handle issues in my life in the future by believing that if I can make it here, I can make it everywhere.
My major is International Economy and Trade and I had finished all course at home school so I took some finance courses at HEC. The four I took are Information Technology in Organization(ITO), Risk Management(RM), Futures and Options(FF) and International Business. Each course is lectured in a featured way and I enjoyed all of them overall.
The ITO introduces ERP system by holding a couple of simulations through the semester. We need to purchase an account in a SAPsim system to get access to all function. To do two assignments, I team up with local students. ITO is exciting because it raise challenging tasks, like creating a promoting poster for a chosen product and building a dashboard for the final stimulation. None of us have done that before so we learn from the scratch. It was then I realize that it dose not matter whether I know it before, but whether I can learn it quickly and efficiently or not, which addresses the importance of transferability.
As for RM and FF, one goes by case analysis and another features at workshop following in every single session. With cases, we have a better understanding of a new-learning concept or a new instrument of measuring the risk, while the two parts are mostly separated at home school. Besides, workshop is the best way to truly get the hand of complicated computation in FF, in my opinion. In each session, we spend half and one hours on lectures, introducing the main idea of the chapter. At another half and one hours, we may team up or do it on our own to solve the related problem with excel. For example, to transfer the continuous compounding rate to compounding rate, calculating the price of put option step by step, with questions set nicely. Futures and Options is my favorite one because I can test myself through the workshop and the professor is always responsive and patient.
Outsides the classroom, there are tables for discussion everywhere in the building. Every time I pass by the tables heading to my classroom, I can see students sitting around to work on a project. Same to the study room. All you need to do is to reserve in the system and go to use it. No need to go to a counter to get a key.
Though each professor has office hour but communicating by email is pretty convenient and they normally response quickly. In this case, I always feel excited and secure about because I have all I need to make a discussion and professor are always available when needed. Whenever there are issues coming out, professors and teaching assistant are always there for help, which do help me focus on my academic tasks.
Overall, I am so grateful to both Business School of Shantou University and CIBC for providing such a great chance for me to take an exchange semester at HEC Montreal. Not only did I experience the exotic lifestyle in Montreal, but I also acquire different professional skills which found a broad platform for choosing my future career. I hope more students would benefit from this program.
