STU students came back from EBS

I arrived in Paris on 6 September 2015, beginning to live and study here as an exchange student for a semester in European Business School. After registering to the school on September 8, I was showed how to use the campus network and the mailbox by the teachers and I participated in various activities that organized by the International students to get to know more about each other.
We began to have lessons on 18 September officially. The courses I chose for this semester and from which I learned a lot were: International Marketing、Beginners French、Communication strategy、International Finance、Designing the future of an international company and Philosophy of Management.
Generally, the courses in EBS were similar to the courses in my home university. For example, International Finance was about the balance of payments structure, the theoretical reasons for international trade and the opportunity cost. Communication Strategy was about the market segmentations of different target population, online and offline communication and other communication strategies. Philosophy of Management was similar to the one that took in STU, Business Ethics, they both focused on analytical thinking of commercial ethics cases. The assessments included group project and class participation. For example, we were required to choose a brand and create a marketing plan to help it enter another market in International Marketing class. We were supposed to have midterm tests for some courses.

                     

During my stay in European Business School, what impressed me most was the final group project, because we had to use the knowledge we learned in the past semester to analyze and discuss which was not so easy. For example, in the final case from the International Finance course, I used the capital structure to analyze the degree of development of China's capital account, gave some development suggestions towards it considering the European crisis and the Asian financial crisis. International Marketing was one of my favorite course, me and four French students chose a French doll brand, Corolle, and presented a complete marketing plan for Corolle to enter the Chinese market. We had great discussions and our marketing plan included SWOT analysis, PESTLE analysis, Porter's five forces model analysis and other theoretical knowledge, which were linked to the actual business case. I had a better understanding of the commercial modes through this case practice. As for Communication Strategy, I used all the theoretical knowledge that I learned in this semester, such as the market segmentation and online, offline communication strategies, chose a brand of French mobile network service with a student from Hong Kong, Orange. We gave detailed analysis to its communication strategies and our result was, Orange’s leading communication strategy was a great use of variety of social software to interact with customers. It used television, newspapers and other media advertising; it also bundled with other goods at a discount to attract more buyers.
I think the biggest difference that I felt between studying at home university and studying abroad was that the International students that I knew had more open horizons. They not only learned from the textbooks, from classes, they also had certain understandings on fashion products, sports, international news. They visited more regions and countries through which they gained richer life experiences. And maybe that’s why they could actively interact with the professors in class when speaking of many things they were familiar with. Perhaps Chinese students are a little narrower at this level. I couldn’t help to think that what this modern society needs is not someone who only knows how to read and get good marks, what this society needs is a fully developed person who gets in touch with the big world as much as possible, to be ready to meet the various challenges.