Tag Archives: Clubs

Diwali – Festival of Lights

On Tuesday, November 10, 2015, approximately 30 MBA students, professors, staff and international exchange students gathered on campus to celebrate Diwali, the biggest and brightest Hindi festival.

As Diwali is  the festival of lights, students lit a sea of candles, put up chains of lights and made the venue shine and sparkle.

Upon finishing the decoration ceremony, the attendees were briefly introduced to the backgrounds of the Diwali festival and learnt about the saga that once initiated the celebration of Diwali, which spiritually signifies the victory of light over darkness and good over evil. At the beginning of the event, the Indian students of the class demonstrated the Lakshmi puja, one of the important rituals performed during the festival of Diwali. This ritual, performed to invite Goddess Lakshmi to one´s home, was carried out by praying at a beautifully laid out altar, as a silent beginning of an otherwise loud and exciting night.

As per the Hindi tradition, the event organisers had prepared for a Rangoli contest, where the event participants competed in creating the most beautiful pattern of flowers and coloured sand. “We had a lot of fun getting to know Hindu culture and I was excited to get my hands dirty and create the best looking Rangoli”, a MBA participant said. The winners of the creativity contest were announced by a jury of indian students who awarded the lucky contestants with chocolate bars and a thundering applause. Later, an entertaining round of Tambola and the opening of a buffet loaded with an abundance of sweets, snacks and drinks made the Diwali night an unforgettable experience for all.

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End-of-Midterms Celebration

By Bodi Yuhico, Philippines

Most of us from the Nanyang MBA Class of 2012-2013 completed our final midterm test one Sunday morning. When the clock struck 12 noon, it was a symbolic moment for the entire cohort for three reasons:

1)     The end of the midterm exams

2)     The end of the first half of Trimester 1

3)     The beginning of the ExCo’s first social activity for the batch!

Filled with much gusto and excitement, our ragged group of some 50 MBA participants moved from LT27A to our own place, The NANYANG MBA lounge. There were a lot of foods: from sushi to sandwiches to pastries. As we entered the lounge, we noticed not only food, but also the projector was set up with the newly bought karaoke (that famous Japanese contribution for “sing-along” ) machine.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To kick things off on the right mood, Andy Kim, President of the Nanyang MBA Student Executive Council, thanked everyone for coming, and then proceeded to serenade the batch with his rendition of ‘Uptown Girl’. Not bad for a singing prexy!

 

 

 

 

 

 

We also wished and sang happy birthday songs to the September celebrants: Indonesian Satria Krisnandi, Peter Ho, Indian Sunny Arora, and Canadian Jake Hason. Sadly, the lovely French Florence Roncalez wasn’t able to join!

 

 

 

 

 

 

And so, with all that done, it was time to mingle! With Filipino John Rae facilitating the karaoke machine with aspiring singers, the rest of the group of full-timers and part-timers spent time  socializing.

It was indeed the end of the first half of the trimester, and for many participants,  it felt it went by so fast. It ended on a day usually reserved for rest(Sunday), a day typically considered in some cultures as the end of the week, and in some cultures as the start of the week. And that, in essence, was what the End of Midterms Celebration symbolized: the end of the midterms and the first half of the semester, and yet the start of many other new firsts.

Congratulations to a job well done to everyone in the cohort making the ExCo’s first social activity a success! And looking forward to more!

Preparing to be a consultant – a Management and Consulting Club Event

by Vida Zhou Dan, VP for Communications, Chinese, Nanyang MBA Participant, Intake 2011

Consulting as a profession is among the most popular choice by MBA students. While everyone is enthusiastic in pursuing this career, a lot of anxieties or worries about being able to snare a job assignment in this industry prevail, despite the numerous case studies we already did at Nanyang. To address these concerns, the Management Consulting Club organised an event earlier this year to help us, club members, to understand more the intricacies of becoming a management consultant and prepare ourselves to be one. Preparedness they say is the key!

Nanyang MBA Alumnus, Italian Angelo Polimeno from Delta Partners
Angelo Polimeno, Nanyang MBA Alumnus, generously shared his experience and knowledge in consulting during the Management & Consulting Club Event

We invited one of our own as our guest speaker, an alumnus who now works as a consultant of Delta Partners, a leading consulting firm, after completing his Nanyang MBA in 2010. We were glad to welcome Italian Mr Angelo Polimeno, formerly based in Italy and is now based in Singapore, yet he travels extensively across continents for consulting assignments.

“As a Nanyang MBA alumnus, I completely understand what you are all going through as I have been in your shoes.  Do feel free to ask me questions on these cases we are going to discuss. I will do my best to help as much as I can to show you how to handle the various ‘challenges’ that these cases pose” were Angelo’s opening lines. His introduction made us feel more comfortable to really dig into knowing more about this industry from a practitioner’s point of view.

During the session, Angelo also demonstrated two case studies and coached us on how to deal with these different situations. We eagerly took part in the interactive discussion – from practice details to structural thinking methods, and more. It was a lively session worth doing as Angelo gamely and generously shared his experience and knowledge with us.

After the event, some 20 of us who attended, felt that we should continue to cultivate more of our skills by ‘doing’ more and more case studies, to prepare us to tackle the challenges posed by real life scenarios which consultants must face. Preparedness is key – and this is more emphasized after the event. We were further enlightened and inspired to pursue our aspirations to become a consultant one day.

‘Get to the Point’ – speaking in style in public

By Ramya Krishna, Indian, Nanyang-Waseda Double MBA, Intake 2011

Don’t we all want to be good speakers?

We all want to impress, influence and motivate our teams, clients, each and every person we meet. How, then, do we get there? How do we train and practice?

Like everybody else, I had a plethora of the similar never ending questions.

‘Get- to- the- Point’ is a public speaking workshop by Eric Feng, a well-known public speaking coach for CEO’s in Asia. The workshop was organised by The NANYANG MBA Women In Business Club (WIB) and it was a perfect venue for us to learn some great tips. The event was conducted right after our mid-trimester holidays at Nanyang’s other campus, NTU One-North Campus in Buona Vista, so it was a refreshing start for most of us.

Contrary to what you might expect in sessions like these, we had lots of fun.  Yes, absolute fun.

Now, you all wonder why all the learning in the world isn’t the same… Below are a series of photographs captured during the various activities, showcasing on how interactive, and ‘fun’ the workshop was for all of us – we learnt about our capabilities and how to maximize these, with Eric coaching us on how to become effective public speakers.

Eric Feng
Eric Feng in action

Continue reading ‘Get to the Point’ – speaking in style in public

Social Ventures – improving lives of the less fortunate in a sustainable manner –a new career path for MBAs?

By Nyan Kyaw, Myanmar, Nanyang MBA Intake 2011

When we look at the traditional career path and aspiration of an MBA holder, it is to move into high paying lucrative careers such as consulting, banking and finance, marketing and so on. But lately, there has been a rising interest in another industry, a relatively new industry and that is, social ventures or enterprises.

The NANYANG MBA Students with Ms Thilma Komaling Banyuputro (1st row, 5th from left) - (left to right, 1st row) Myanmar Nyan Kyaw, American Samir Mowla, Indonesian Wahyu Widianti, Chinese Zhou Dan, Ms Thilma, MBA Office Management Grace Wee and Charlotte Kong; (left to right, 2nd row) Indonesian Djoko Tanto Wijoyo, and Vietnamese Vu Manh Tran Hung.

Unlike charities, the focus of social ventures is not to provide hand outs, but with a combination of business acumen, social consciousness and some creativity. Social ventures seek to improve the lives of the less fortunate in a sustainable manner.

With that in mind, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Club of The NANYANG MBA invited Ms Thilma Komaling Banyuputro, a social enterprise development consultant who has given up her successful career in petroleum industry to pursue her life calling – to share some of her experiences working for a social venture. The event was an intimate setting for an exchange of life-changing experiences and ideas among 10 like-minded peers.

What I have noticed is most people working in the social venture do not set out planning to work for a social venture, but they are moved by a certain event in their lives which compels them to do so. For Thilma, the turning point was the series of earthquakes in Aceh. After seeing the disasters and the tragedies on the news, she realized it is her life’s calling to help the less fortunate in any manner that she could.

As one of our fellow Nanyang MBA peer, Indonesian Wahyu Widianti shared her realization from the talk: “Follow your heart and your passion. The energy coming from the passion is very powerful for you to do many great things for the community.” And this was what Thilma actually did – being moved by her passion to help those who are less fortunate and in need.

Over the next 2 years, Thilma spent her life juggling between career and volunteering for charities and social ventures. Finally, she took the plunge and devoted her life solely on social ventures. Currently, she is working for Rumah, a low cost mobile phone carrier in Indonesia. The aim of the venture is to provide poor families in the rural areas of Indonesia with access to mobile phones and also create jobs. Continue reading Social Ventures – improving lives of the less fortunate in a sustainable manner –a new career path for MBAs?

One-on-one coaching with veteran Career Coach on banking & finance careers

By: Akhil Mehta, Indian, Nanyang MBA participant, Intake 2011

As an active club, we regularly organize events for our members and this time, we wanted to get into the groove and prepare for the next stage of our lives – post MBA careers. Thus, our Banking and Finance Club invited veteran recruitment consultant and career coach, Ms Anita Sim, Executive Director at Euro Group – a leading top tier organization providing services in the property development, marketing and search business areas, to give club members a deeper insight of the various career tracks in the said domain.  Dubbed as an interactive “Career Coaching” session, the club members actively posed questions to Ms Sim who willingly engaged us and provided deeper insights into different career streams in the banking and finance sector.  Ms Sim presented a wide perspective on the emerging trends in the economy and recruitment space for aspiring banking and finance professionals like us.
After the talk, each club member and attendee had the opportunity to have a brief yet intense one-on-one discussion with coach Anita, where she provided individual feedback in terms of the suggested career path based on prior work experience, education background and areas of interest. This ‘one on one coaching’ was the highlight of the event. All the attendees gained new perspectives and insights on their career paths, and advise on how to improve on strengths, and work on weaknesses. A couple of the attendees mentioned that it was a meaningful session as we have understood clearly the future career path we wish to pursue, and the challenges we are about to face as we move along after completing the MBA programme.

Banking and Finance club during the workshop.

Women in Business: An Entrepreneur's Story – "From Networking to Business Alliances"

Blog by: Kwa Hwee Lay, Clarie & Filda Citra Yusgiantoro, Singaporean and Indonesian, respectively; Nanyang MBA participants, Intake 2011

The NANYANG MBA Women in Business (WIB) Club held a talk cum workshop “An Entrepreneur’s Story”. We had the honor of welcoming one of Indonesia’s distinguished female entrepreneurs, founder and CEO of Mobiliari Media Group, Ms Millie Stephanie. Mobiliari (PT Mobiliari Stephindo) is a media company that counts Indonesia Tatler and Forbes Indonesia among its many publications. Ms Millie fostered a lively discussion of her experiences as an entrepreneur with a group 10 WIB club members, and the only thorn among the roses, our German colleague, Justus Kaiser (in picture below, 5th from left).

 

Continue reading Women in Business: An Entrepreneur's Story – "From Networking to Business Alliances"

A taste of Korea – BBQ, kimchi and happy faces…

The NANYANG MBA Ex-co organizes BBQ for the AY 2011/2012
By Charles Chua, Singaporean, Nanyang MBA participant intake 2011, VP for Socials Student Ex-Co

No matter where you come from, sharing a good meal in the midst of like-minded company is a great way to spend a weekend especially if it is after a rigorous week in school. It is not a hidden fact that having a delicious meal is one of the many things our cohort enjoys most. With a very diverse cohort that we have, we thought – why not have a BBQ, with an Asian twist? And so, the first BBQ was organized by the Student Ex-Co 2011/12 at one of our classmates abode (and gracious hosts for the night) in a condominium in the Western part of Singapore.

Continue reading A taste of Korea – BBQ, kimchi and happy faces…

The NANYANG MBA Olympics – Collaboration Through Competition for a Cause

By: Eric Oandasan, Filipino, Nanyang MBA Intake 2011
Club Co-Chair, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)

The vaguely bright Sunday early morning of 18th March at the NTU Sports & Recreation Center came in with a flurry of activity: banners being hung, tables carefully unfolded, balls being rigorously pumped with air, heaps of goodie bags and canned drinks unloaded. At 9:00 AM, groups of participants from various Singapore MBA schools came in droves to register, collect goodie bags and start stretching exercises in preparation for the long day of sports. The morning was filled with anticipation, excitement, and a sense of hopefulness that the typically unpredictable Singapore weather will keep the athletes dry and cool.

The NANYANG MBA organizers
Continue reading The NANYANG MBA Olympics – Collaboration Through Competition for a Cause

Tiger Beer– Singapore’s very own world-class brew dazzles

By Simon Mathies, German, The NANYANG MBA Participant Intake 2011

To be considered to be the best, one has to put in the finest of all ingredients. Just like pursuing our aspirations to be the best in our chosen field after our studies, we chose to do The NANYANG MBA, considered to be one of the World’s Top MBA programmes. The same goes for Tiger Beer, which has come a long way since 1932.  “A lot goes into every bottle of Tiger. The finest malt, hops and yeast. Taste-testing over 10 samples of quality of water everyday. Over 200 quality checks. All part of a strict brewing process that takes over 500 hours.” This Singapore concoction has gone a long way – it has garnered over 40 international awards, winning drinkers in major cities all over the world. So how do they do that? And that is what we Nanyang MBA students found out in our visit to its headquarters in Singapore.

Organized by the Wine, Liqueur and Beer Appreciation Club, the trip to the Asia Pacific Breweries (APB), maker of Tiger Beer, we (10 Nanyang MBA students) were warmly welcomed by APB staff and were introduced to the brewing process through an enjoyable multi-media presentation. Afterwards, we got to know the different ‘fine’ ingredients needed to make this award winning beer. After a short confidential advice to protect APB’s unique ‘art of brewing’, we entered the ‘sacred halls’ of the brewery. Inside, club members saw the highly sophisticated and automated process and the enormous polished kettles and pipe works. Even more impressing was the bottling/packaging plant. Though we may have some initial idea on how the preparations are done, but to see the actual process is simply amazing.

After the guided tour, is the part each and everyone is waiting for – to enjoy the various tastes of the different brands licensed by APB in their own Tavern located next to the factory. There is probably no better way to have a fresh tasteful Tiger right inside the brewery itself! Jane Wang, our Chinese peer, summed up our experience – “During the Tiger Brewery trip, we visited the factory and were briefed the process of producing draft beer, we took a nice group picture with the “tiger” statue in front of the factory, we were offered to drink 4 kinds of different draft beer as much as we can (drink all you can, that’s right!). We chatted and played games in the bar next to the factory while drinking the freshly-made beer.”

Enjoying the beer with friends –Jane, yours truly Simon, Ralph and Eric

Continue reading Tiger Beer– Singapore’s very own world-class brew dazzles