Author: Gregory Edwards, Canada
Student Exco President

Mid-way through the first week and Trimester 2 (T2) is in full swing. Hard to believe the full timers have all been together now for 3 months already. The pre-orientation party at
Oosh and after party at Zouk feels like it was just yesterday.

Some of the planning over T1 by the various social and business clubs is coming to
fruition and quickly it seems. T2 is starting out with a flurry of different activities
including the MBA Olympics, T2 Welcome back party, seminars and speaker series, and
even a tour of an ocean going tanker ship. Additionally, a Diwali celebration is coming
up which promises to have lots of food and dancing and live up to last semester’s
Mooncake Festival which set a high-benchmark for organization, commitment by the
organizers, and fun!

The previous batch grads are gone from campus but not forgotten. We hope that they
can find time in their “new lives” to come and visit, attend a party now and then, and
give us updates. I have to thank Vishal Bansal, outgoing EXCO President, and the other
members of the previous EXCO team for their support and guidance in getting the
current EXCO up and running.

For myself, I had the first course of the Waseda portion of the NTU-Waseda Double MBA program last night and came away impressed. I am looking forward to tonight’s session
and other upcoming courses. To be honest, I wasn’t sure what to expect from a
Japanese-led MBA even after living in Japan. The open attitude and personality of the
professor, Dr. Hideki Shirai, made it informative, encouraging, and engaging.

I also attended the Value-based Innovation recess course as part of the Double MBA, a
one-week course presented by Shlomo Maital, a visiting professor from a university in
Israel with experience at MIT. Like myself, Shlomo spent some of his formative years in
a small town in Canada, so we have some shared background. Like most in the class I
was impressed by his experience, energy, and positive nature. Taught over 5-and-a-half
days, he never seemed to run out of batteries. Once you understand that he has run
marathons and climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro, teaching an MBA course seems less difficult.

With one-third of my program completed, I look back and think about all the things we
have done already; pre-orientation parties, orientation week, the migration to Grad Hall,
meeting new friends and getting a better understanding of cultures, various group
projects, day trips and extended vacations, the birth of the first child for one of our
classmates, and of course the EXCO elections, getting things started, and moving
forward.

With so much done in only a few months I can’t wait to see what the next few months
bring!