A Cker's exchange experience

Hi Mark, we can see great leadership from you.

Hi, Franky, you are my role model on contributing back to CK community. Mark

Good sharing! Thank you very much!

ding!

Good experience for those are interest in getting exchange oppurtunity students.

The second week at Darden

Week 2
There is a Chinese students gathering half an hour later. I take the half an hour to write down something happened in my second week here.

The Darden CDC, which stands for career development center, (*Similar to our CMC) gave us a brief introduction on what help they can offer to exchange student. To sum up, it is very little. However, I am still amazed by their efficiency. All the 300 students' placements at Darden go through them. At Darden, there is a tradition called first Coffee, where the students, staff and professors get together and have a cup of coffee and chat with each other. Everyday, at least one CMC office was there to check with students what assistant they need. By the way, the Starbuck Coffee is free.

The next day, two second year Darden students conducted an orientation on the honor system at Darden. The basic idea is that the Darden community is built on trust and integrity. Because of the trust, all the exams here are taken home exam. When the instruction of exam says, no internet, you are not expected to do that. However, no one will check what you really do. Nevertheless, if you are found violate the instruction, you are out of Darden. You have no second chance to explain for what you did. Because of the honor system, students graduated from Darden are trusted by potential employers on their integrity. It is a very good system. However, I am not sure whether CK should borrow the system. What I worry is I do not know whether some members will abuse the system.

Here, at Darden, you can find parties held almost everyday. You have so many opportunities to know so many people. However, my observation told me that the bonding spirit is stronger at CK. There is no other school can beat CK in terms of family culture. (*I think the school should do more to foster or promote the culture. This will differentiate us from others.) What I observe here is that the western people really like to associate with each other, but the network is not as strong as Chinese one. If you need help from others, normally you can only seek help from other who knows you directly or just one layer in between. While for Chinese, if I got friends in need, my network can extend for several more layers. That's what I feel about the difference of networking between Chinese and American. The sum up, they are good at building working relationship, while Chinese are good at building personal relationship.

BTW, due to hurricane, some shops were blackout yesterday. You see that American's infrastructure is not as good as what we thought. UVA students told us that they need prepare candle in the dorm, for it is quite often to encounter blackout if there is hurricane. It is said that UVA's sports facility here is the best in US. I mean No.1 in States. Got football stadium which can hold more than 60K fans. We will go to watch one game next week.

Very frankly, I begin to miss the life in Shanghai. When I think about the scenario that my son said: Pa..Pa.., when he saw a picture of snake. I am homesick.