On November 19th 2009, the Dean of the Tsinghua School of Economics and Management, Dean Qian Ying Yi, met with the International MBA students of the class of 2009-2011. The event was held at the Ten Years Café near Tsinghua University, between 12:30pm – 2:30pm. Honorable Dean was accompanies by Prof. Gao Xu Dong, director of MBA Programs and members of the MBA Programs and CDC (Career Development Centre).

A lunch was provided for the participants comprising of over 70 students of the 2 classes of the IMBA’09. Chris Xie, executive director of the international MBA program did the welcome address introducing the dignitaries to all the students. This was followed by short introduction of Dean Qian, by Liu Bo the Class Monitor of the IMBA-1 Class. Liu Bo elaborated on Dean Qian’s academic background, works overseas and in China. Following this was a photo-music-video presentation made by Dipak Sundaram, Deputy Monitor of IMBA-2 Class. The presentation illustrated the typical daily experience of the students of the IMBA Program. This included their images of the class environment, extra-curricular works, orientation, and group pictures with teachers. Following this, Dipak played the role of the MC host and opened the floor to the audience to pose questions to the dean.

A good mix of both local Chinese and international students posed various questions to the honorable Dean, which was categorized into the following:

*Academic

*CDC

*Extra-Curricular Activities

*The Future IMBA Program

To narrate a few discussions: The initial questions related to the Tsinghua IMBA recognition, its prominence as it stands and the prospects of getting ranked in the Financial Times. The quality metrics for the school is in its mainstream presence in China and increase in quality to be a distinguished global b-school. The next was regarding the course evaluation. Tomas Pan of IMBA class 2, asked as to how the course evaluation and staff feedback would be considered, and proposed if it could be done in a shorter interval for short-term realizable improvements in the course. Saurabh Gupta, an Indian student from the IMBA Class 1, requests additional Chinese classes for non-native speakers. Prof. Gao advised students to learn Chinese more before arriving for the Tsinghua IMBA Program. And that, for example, in the case of US universities, the B-Schools do-not offer English courses for non-native English speakers. However Dean Qian replied that there is a demand and that the importance of the Chinese language is growing and so, this can be considered in future. Zhang Li Zhou, a student of the IMBA Class 2, asks about the balance of academic, leisure and school-related extra-curriculars. She asks that the MBA experience has been a bit taxing with a lot of academic work and not enough time for social events and other activities. Professor Gao, gave general advise to students to study hard to be competent representing Tsinghua and that the workload in general is comparable to that of any top business school. With a few more questions answered by the Dean assisted by Prof. Gao and members of the Officers and CDC office, Liu Bo closed the question session, asking the Dean, the secret behind his success, his experience and advice to the current student generation. Dean Qian, narrated his key career experiences, his livelihood in the rural areas near Mongolia, his studies in Beijing and experience from the United States. With this the Q&A Session came to an end following which there was a photo session comprising of all participants and dignitaries. Students continued to take personal photos with the dean and had close interaction with Dean Qian and Professor Gao. Overall the two hour event gave a chance for the students to meet with the leaders of the IMBA program and interact on various issues related to the IMBA program and their career further on. The enlightening responses from the VIPs were a great inspiration to the students and the event was a granted to be great success.