As you can see, this blog is definitely taking a more personal approach; but I will keep on speaking a lot about tech in the weeks to come, probably essentially on Tech IT Easy.
Today was my first day of class, and I have dreamt my whole life to take courses in a prestigious American university mainly because 1) I wanted to feel like a teenage drama actress (I know, I’m too old for that!), and 2) I wanted to be able to compare French and US education, to try to understand why European university are still lagging behind US ones.
Of courses the main point is that a lot of money is needed to attract excellent professors, not only in terms of wages but also in terms of resources. Why would a professor prefer teaching at a campus miles away from Paris rather than teaching at sunny UCLA? Besides, the available resources in terms of research, networking and cross-functional teams cannot even be compared. So I can completely understand HEC’s challenge, and I think that HEC is finally doing pretty well compared to the level of competition.
But the difference is still striking. Today, when I walked into this class about regulatory environment for small businesses, I had a really bad a priori about it, as I hate dealing with regulatory, accounting and administrative stuff (which is why I made and will probably make again a quite bad entrepreneur). But as soon as the professor started to speak, I didn’t miss a second of it, and it’s almost impossible to miss a second of it. In one hour, he used all the tools a professor can use to capture students’ attention. He spoke about his personal experience as an entrepreneur, he made jokes about the fate of the entrepreneur, about the necessity to support friends from Morgan Stanley showing their paycheck to everyone while the entrepreneur is struggling to make ends meet, he used multimedia stuff (videos), he used sports examples to illustrate legal concepts, he “cold called” students to push them to participate in the discussion…
I realized how great it was when I looked at my notes: the page was almost empty, because I was so concentrated in everything he said that I didn’t even need to take some notes. In a word, American people are really lucky to have an “easier” access to this kind of education.
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Welcome to hands-on education and training! Bye-bye conferences and imposition of knowledge!
So true… Otir, did you make an MBA at UCSB or another type of education? Because I was wondering if this kind of education is the same in all MBAs around the world (and in that case, as I didn’t go to a European MBA I can’t compare), or if it is really the “American educational model” and can be found across all educational programs in the US.
As a matter of fact, Fidji, I graduated from a parisian university (Paris X-Nanterre) and only spent a summer term in UCSB. And at that time (middle-ages… talking nearly thirty years ago!) college credits were pretty much the same as in Europe, with a much better level on the French studies part. But I was studying language and litterature, not business. Which was terra incognita for me.
I wouldn’t use my personal education to compare then, but the systems *are* different and the approaches root in the different cultures too. Using your French culture can be an asset, never forget it! (analytic surveying, envisioning the globalities of a problem, forseeing consequences of a plan, mathematical thinking). Hands-on is good, but also short-term and sometimes too “square” for “thinking out-of-the-box”.
I see exactly what you mean, the only problem is that I’m not sure that my French education “taught” me the things you mention; you’re right when you say that it’s the kind of reasoning that is definitely part of the French culture, but I don’t think that universities and professors capitalize on that to help us gain a “competitive advantage” and make a difference. Whereas the US definitely use their culture (be concrete, go straight to the point, act before you think because your actions can teach you more than theory) in their education.
Welcome to america Fidji
What will be the most difficult to understand will be you ll see american people reading much more french authors than french themselves, and being much more… rationnal than french themselves!
Maybe France forget to be France (Montesquieu, Valery, etc, etc, etc, etc)
I’ll try to bring French rationality and culture into UCLA… mmm, not sure I am the best representant of the French culture: I read Kerouac more than Valery, it’s the wrong way round!
Not worries about it,
you will for sure meet american people reading valery, and willing to know lot of things about it.. from you !
Some cultural exchange I guess..
The best is still to be able to do both, act and think. Sometimes action is necessary and sometimes careful thinking is best, because one has to be able to see the system it takes place in. There are consequences to action, they can be learnt through action, or they can be studied in theory and then be experienced.
It is not really a matter of seeing one system versus the other. It’s a great asset to be part of both cultures. Both cultures have produced very successful things, thinkers and engineers, artists, writers and manufacturers and entertainers. Know what you want, and what are your core values.
That’s exactly what i’m trying to figure out Otir. You know how it is, when you’re young (and probably also after!) the grass always look better on the other side of the fence, and now I’m trying to have a less “rebel” approach and to analyze more rationally what I like, what I want, and what I have to benefit from. But that’s just the beginning!