Monthly Archives: February 2016

Campus Living, Happenings, International Exposure, Life at Nanyang, Networking

CUHK Networking event

On January the 27th 2016, a four school networking event was organized for the CUHK students visiting Singapore from their home in Hongkong.

Nanyang Business School has always shared a cordial relationship with regional schools. When Megan from the NBS admin staff found out that CUHK students were going to be in town in January, she promptly asked Deep Dabholkar, the President of the Nanyang Students Executive Committee, to plan an event.

What started off as a small get together snowballed into a four school networking event. Students from the National University of Singapore, Singapore Management University and Nanyang Business School got together to organize a fun filled evening at the Hood Bar and Café for the Chinese University of Hong Kong students.

With a total attendance of 73, the event turned out to be a huge success. Live music and pre-negotiated drink and snacks made the evening an exciting one. Moreover Nanyang Business School students were part of an effort to show the visiting students grand Singapore hospitality.

The twenty tired, but excited CUHK students had a fabulous evening networking with the Singapore Business Schools. Once the event wound to a close, the hawk-eyed NBS students noticed that the CUHK students had left behind their school banner! They unanimously decided to take a hike to the hotel where the students were living and return the goods.

The picture below shows the enthusiasm of the NBS students to perform a good deed at the end of a tiring evening. Needless to say, the CUHK students were thankful and thrilled at our commitment to return their banner.

CUHK2

NBS Students with the CUHK banner – inter-school friendships are formed!

Campus Living, Happenings, Life at Nanyang, Living in Singapore, Networking, Student Leader

NUS – NBS Networking event

On November the 14th 2015, the NUS-NBS Mixer, a social event for Singapore´s MBS students, took place in downtown Singapore.

In order to facilitate inter-school networking, Deep Dabholkar, the President of the student Executive Committee at Nanyang Business School liaised with Sean McNulty, President of the National University of Singapore student body. The two school representatives met over a coffee at Holland Village along with a few members of their respective student groups and organized one of the most highly attended events of the semester.

With twenty two students from Nanyang Business School (including part time students) and over 28 from the National University of Singapore, the NBS Bistro at Marina Square was booked and catering was ordered for the event.

NUS-NTU Food

event catering – a truly delicious feast!

A vibrant event with multiple games such as darts, billiards and some exciting foosball matches, students from both schools wasted no time in getting comfortable and “networking” with each other. By the end of the evening, a strong bond had been formed between the attending students that would laid the platform for great friendships.

The success of this event promises to lead to many more such inter-school activities, both on and off the field, that will foster better relations among the schools and the student cohorts.

 

Campus Living, Happenings, Life at Nanyang, Programme

Farewell to Nanyang-Waseda Double MBA Students

The eight participants of the Nanyang-Waseda Double MBA Program take their first two trimesters on the NTU campus together with the  full-time Nanyang batch.  Upon completing trimester two, the Waseda students head off to complete the third trimester in Tokyo, Japan, at Waseda University while the rest of the full-time cohort will complete their coursework at Nanyang.

This year, Double MBA participants come from a number of countries including Japan, South Korea, America, the Philippines, and Singapore. Many Double MBA students wanted to return home to see their families before the start of the Waseda coursework, so an early farewell party was set for February 17th.

As an exhausting Ultimate frisbee game has been a staple of stress relief for many, everyone started off the day with a quick match in the intense Singapore heat.

In the evening, a huge barbecue with plenty of drinks and food to go around was hosted on the ground floor just outside of the Graduate Hall buildings. Most of the MBA students and staff were in attendance and spent time reminiscing over the past eight months. After everyone had plenty of food, Professor Nilanjan Sen, the Associate Dean of Nanyang Business School, and Sancho Causay, a member of the Nanyang-Waseda Double MBA cohort, gave speeches and cut the various farewell cakes to close out the night.

Many chose to stay around for an afterparty, the last chance to be together as a single student body before the Double MBAs begin to head off for Tokyo.

Having made enough memories to last a lifetime in just the past eight months, it’s safe to say that the Double MBA students will be missed. The cohort has become like family through fun  times, the academic rigor and stress, and the mere time spent together, so everyone is sure to meet again in the future.

group photo

students at the farewell party

Campus Living, Clubs, Happenings, Life at Nanyang, Sports

Spare me a Strike!: The MBA Olympics After Party

On February 12th, the Nanyang MBA team gathered to celebrate their victory for the huge success of the 6th Nanyang MBA Olympics – both as hosts and players.

In the spirit of sports, the MBA Olympics Organising Committee decided to have a bowling party. The event was organised by the Sports and CSR Clubs – the same two clubs that collaborated for the MBA Olympics – and sponsored by the EXCO and MBA Office. Everyone stormed Orchid Bowl @ the Chevrons on the Friday night for an evening of bowling, food, and fun.

The entire cohort – Fulltime, Parttime, and some of the Trimester 2 exchange students – not only celebrated the MBA Olympics’ success, but also the end of the second Trimester. As it was the last Friday night before the exams and probably the last night when the entire cohort is complete before the exchange students and Nanyang-Waseda Double MBAs leave for the last trimester of the program, everyone took the opportunity to have fun, celebrate, and take photos with everyone.

At 10pm, the lights at Orchid Bowl were turned off and the black lights were turned on. Also, party music was played, for a night of cosmic bowling and laughter.

There were exactly 36 bowlers who registered for the event – which was perfect for 6 teams of 6 each.  After 2 games, the student Exco president, Deep Dabholkar, member of the powerful bowling team Johnnie M won the “Highest Individual Bowler” award for scoring the highest total score with 288 pins. He was followed closely by Kevin Tay from team Rocky J who scored the highest score for the first game but finished with a total of 286 pins.

The most successful Team KRISP, composed of Koichi, Rinky, Isaac, Steven, Prashant, and Marcel, won the “Top Team” award after scoring the highest total score with 1,113 pins.

We congratulate all winners – well done – and thank all participants for a truly enjoyable event which sparked great memories of the recent MBA Olympics, and provided a great opportunity to celebrate two wonderful trimesters at the NTU campus.

bowling 2

bowling 3

Campus Living, Clubs, Cultural Events, Life at Nanyang

Chinese New Year – Gong Xi Fa Cai

Ready to ring in the Year of the Monkey?

First, some important information about Chinese New Year in 2016:

According to Chinese Five Elements Horoscopes, this is the year of the red monkey, which contains 2 elements: Metal and Water.

  • Metal is associated with gold.
  • Water is associated with wisdom and danger.

This forecasts more financial events in the year of the Monkey, according to the wise predictions of Economics Professor Lee. And, if one wants to have good returns on financial investments, one will need to outsmart the Monkey.

Metal is also connected to the Wind. That implies the status of events will be changing very quickly. So think twice before making changes for your finances and career!

On the 31st of January, the MBA cohort of 2016 celebrated the year of the red monkey with a unique cultural experience for all foreign Nanyang MBA classmates.

The event was initiated by one of the Singaporean MBA students, Kevin Tay, who volunteered to share the festive mood and atmosphere of the lunar New Year. Along with the fellow Chinese and Singaporean students Isaac, Wenduo, Veronica, Steven, Darren and Sheng Jie, he put together an entertaining and educational event program – in just 10 short days!

In order to have an authentic experience of how Chinese New Year is celebrated in its own unique way in Singapore and China, the team planned were 3 highlights to the event:

The evening started with a wonderful presentation which explained the mythical origins of “Nian”, the Chinese word for “Year”, and how Chinese New year got its traditions.

A long time ago, a mythical monster has terrorized the peace of villages every year; however one day, a wise old man prepared fireworks and red decorations. When the mythical monster Nian came, the loud noises and bright decoration managed to scare the monster away. This was how the Chinese New Year came about and ever since, the people love to gather with loud noises and red, the colour that symbolizes luck.

Next, the event´s MC, Shen Jie, started the celebration with Yusheng (Chinese Salmon Salad). This is a tradition unique to Singapore and Malaysia. Everyone gathered around platters containing the mixture of grated carrots, radish, pomelo salmon slices, and garnishes it with sweet plum sauce, spices and crunchy ‘pok chui’ crackers. Each ingredient represented blessing, fortune and good luck.

CNY 1

an introduction to CNY traditions in Singapore

The MBA students then equipped themselves with chopsticks, and started tossing the salad as high as possible while shouting, “Prosper”, “MBA”, and all the wishes for the New Year. It was definitely a vibrant & joyous atmosphere, just like how Singaporean families & friends do it. Huat ah!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOPW-wjBhcY

To kick off the last activity,  the most exciting highlight of the night,  Kevin instructed all participant on THE game to play for Chinese New Year – Mahjong 101.

From the basics to the complex, advanced rules, Kevin explained the art of tile building to bring all students up to speed for a series of gambling. It was quickly evident that the gambling module involved a high level of strategic planning, patience, keen observation skills and critical decision making – and certainly invigorated the competitive spirit of the MBAs.

CNY 3 CNY 2

students at the gambling tables

The topics covered in the quick Mahjong lecture included superstitions and quirky practices, such as wearing red undergarments to maximize luck. At the end of the evening, the top scorer in class was Ms. Aki Narita, sweeping a staggering 7 out of 8 games. Then, Anshul, Gauri and Aditiya also topped their respective tables.

All in all, the event organisers hope that  everyone who attended not only learnt more about Chinese traditions, but really got to experience the full atmosphere, activities, food and liveliness of this festival.

Special thanks to everyone who attended, and the organizing committee for a job well done. Indeed, we strongly believe that in many years from now, the highly diverse MBA cohort of 2016 will still gather and practice the skills learnt from this cultural module, Mahjong 101.

Campus Living, Happenings, Life at Nanyang

Happy Birthday, Mr President!

In January, the MBA 2016 cohort found yet another reason to celebrate: the very own Student Exco President’s birthday.

Exhausted and tired after running around while competing in the Nanyang MBA Olympics, hours of cheering for the cohort´s contesting teams and combatting the burning heart, the cohort decided to extent a long, but successful day to an unofficial midnight celebration of the  president´s birthday.

The next morning started early: as usual, a sore but happy class gathered at 9:30 AM for a lecture in the lecture hall. Yet, during the break, the class got together at the MBA lounge with a box of surprise for Deep, Student Exco president.

Excited, he opened the box to reveal the lip-smacking black forest cake. With 8 candles (editor´s note: number of candles is purely notional and was kept small to fit the size of the cake..) we officially wished Deep a very happy birthday.

While the delicious cake with big red cherries did not last long, the memories of yet another tasty birthday celebration are here to stay forever.

deep bday cake

Career, The NANYANG MBA

A visit to the Bloomberg office

On Wednesday, 27 January 2016, the members of the Banking and Finance club of the MBA class of 2016 were warmly invited to the Bloomberg office in Singapore.

During the visit, seven students enrolled in the Nanyang MBA Banking and Finance track learnt how to use the Bloomberg terminal in their daily work and had a chance to visit the fantastic working environment of news bureau.

Bloomberg is one of the leaders in financial software, data and media in the world. As the finance classes in the second trimester gave an introduction to financial tools, students intensively used Bloomberg to obtain data and news and were interested in visiting the staff working in Bloomberg´s Singapore office to get a personal tour around the local offices of the world leading financial news agency.

The Banking and Finance club was fortunate to get an invitation for a one-hour training session in Bloomberg’s office, and learned how to use different functions to search for types of FXs, Equities and Commodities. Also, the trainer explained how to set their personal preferences to easily analyze different markets.

All participants felt that the office tour was very helpful and were happy to find out that the design of Bloomberg´s terminals is very user-friendly. It was an exciting experience to take a tour around the well-equiped facilities and allowed everyone to get a deeper understanding of the way of working at Bloomberg as well as to gain insights into the valuable services that Bloomberg provides for investors worldwide. Learning how to use the terminals efficiently will be of great help for the further coursed and will certainly be beneficial for all students who aim to work in the financial industry in the future.

bloomberg guys

Banking and Finance Club at the Bloomberg office, Singapore