这里有个我们同学去HEC交换学习后写的感想，个人觉得还是比较客观的，这个同学是个德国人在空客工作了很多年，我想大家是可以做个借鉴的，别总是在上面以偏概全的吹灭。。
As promised before, in this email I will summarize impressions gained so far during my exchange at HEC Paris. Obviously this is only what I have experienced so far here at HEC. I have organised my email into different topics and included attachments which are worth taking a look at. These will not be of the same interest to all WBS staff (academics, programme office, marketing, alumni, etc.) but I thought one summary email will still provide a good overview about HEC’s different areas. I hope that my input and the various attachments help to provide insight into what is considered as Europe’s top business school (according to latest rankings – my view is different though ;-).
1. Housing
Overall, I have perceived HEC to be rather poor in terms of organisation and support and this began with support to find housing. As their September Fulltime MBA intake was/is so large, exchange students have no right to apply for accommodation on campus. In fact, many of their Fulltime MBA students even had to live in hostels/hotels for the first two weeks as it is really difficult to find decent housing close to school. The quality of the places off-campus is rather poor for the price they cost. It is Paris area, which explains the high prices.
The on-campus residence “Expansiel” is reserved for MBA students only. However, it is rather poor compared to on-campus housing provided by Warwick University. There is no kitchen and students have either to buy electric hot plates, a microwave or go to the student restaurant which is open for breakfast, lunch, dinner seven days a week. As the campus is basically in the “middle of nowhere” in a small town called Jouy-en-Josas which is outside of Paris, shopping possibilities are limited. There is one rather expensive supermarket in Jouy, which is approximately a 1.5 km walk from HEC.
2. Organisation / Support
In general the organisation and support provided by the MBA office is poor compared to WBS. This is noticed not only by exchange students, but also by their own Fulltime MBA cohort. This year’s intake does still not have a student ID nor do we exchange students. I received my card almost two month after I arrived, which means many locked doors, etc. Writing an email to the MBA office is like writing to a “black hole”. You will never get an answer or sometimes only after weeks. French “high-context” culture explains a lot I guess.
There are no real syndicate rooms available and students often end up to work in the coffee area or try to find one of the few free class rooms. This is becoming a big problem but should be solved with the new MBA building which is currently being built. Rooms can be reserved upfront, but it should be done in person, not by email as they may receive no reply.
Another example is the provision of teaching scripts. As organisation / support is rather poor, for the Advanced Corporate Finance class we did not have all the teaching scripts 2 days before the exam and we only got it because the whole class was standing at the door of the MBA office. The lecturer provided his files way upfront to the MBA office to upload them on the intranet, but the office just did not do it.
4. Structure and content of HEC MBA (see “core reading.zip” + “Electives Fall 2010” attached)
The HEC MBA is 16 month long. However, the 16 month are not completely taught and there is a two month break in the middle. They have two intakes per year (January and September). This is in my opinion a big advantage, especially for club activities, which I will outline further below.
The general structure in case of a September intake is:
- 1st term: 3 month core lectures (September – December)
- 2nd term: 3month core lectures + some electives (January – March)
- 3rd term: internship term / project term (April – June)
- “Break”: can be used for 2nd internship / project term or holiday (July-August)
- 4th term: electives term (September - December)
- (5th term
extension which can be used for another project, internship or exchange
It found that all HEC students have a good and broad financial understanding as more financial subjects are core subjects for them. Attached you will also find the recommended core readings for the September 2010 intake, which should give you an idea about the content covered in their 1st core phase. I mentioned this already in previous feedback sessions, but I think WBS should reconsider the content of the core phase. In my opinion more Financial Accounting and especially Corporate Finance should be part of the core teaching.
Taught subjects in the core phase are:
* Marketing
* Business Economics
* Sustainable Business Strategy
* Corporate Finance
* Financial Accounting and Analysis
* Financial Markets
* Management Accounting & Control
* Statistics
* Strategic Management
* Supply Chain Management
* Organizational Behavior
* Human Resources Management
Reply |Michael Thomas Duschl to Simon.Tidd, andra.jermunds., cesar.malacon, davidingleson, echeverriaz, erchiang, fm06jm, fm07am, FM08AA, fm09ab, FM09AH, FM09AJ, FM09AK, FM09AO, FM09AS, FM09BJ, fm09bm, FM09CG, FM09CV, FM09DG, fm09eh, FM09EO, FM09FC, FM09FL, FM09GA, FM09GS
show details 18/11/2010
Dear all,
I have sent this email to WBS today and thought you should see it as well.
Cheers
Michael
-----
Dear WBS-team,
As promised before, in this email I will summarize impressions gained so far during my exchange at HEC Paris. Obviously this is only what I have experienced so far here at HEC. I have organised my email into different topics and included attachments which are worth taking a look at. These will not be of the same interest to all WBS staff (academics, programme office, marketing, alumni, etc.) but I thought one summary email will still provide a good overview about HEC’s different areas. I hope that my input and the various attachments help to provide insight into what is considered as Europe’s top business school (according to latest rankings – my view is different though ;-).
1. Housing
Overall, I have perceived HEC to be rather poor in terms of organisation and support and this began with support to find housing. As their September Fulltime MBA intake was/is so large, exchange students have no right to apply for accommodation on campus. In fact, many of their Fulltime MBA students even had to live in hostels/hotels for the first two weeks as it is really difficult to find decent housing close to school. The quality of the places off-campus is rather poor for the price they cost. It is Paris area, which explains the high prices.
The on-campus residence “Expansiel” is reserved for MBA students only. However, it is rather poor compared to on-campus housing provided by Warwick University. There is no kitchen and students have either to buy electric hot plates, a microwave or go to the student restaurant which is open for breakfast, lunch, dinner seven days a week. As the campus is basically in the “middle of nowhere” in a small town called Jouy-en-Josas which is outside of Paris, shopping possibilities are limited. There is one rather expensive supermarket in Jouy, which is approximately a 1.5 km walk from HEC.
2. Organisation / Support
In general the organisation and support provided by the MBA office is poor compared to WBS. This is noticed not only by exchange students, but also by their own Fulltime MBA cohort. This year’s intake does still not have a student ID nor do we exchange students. I received my card almost two month after I arrived, which means many locked doors, etc. Writing an email to the MBA office is like writing to a “black hole”. You will never get an answer or sometimes only after weeks. French “high-context” culture explains a lot I guess.
There are no real syndicate rooms available and students often end up to work in the coffee area or try to find one of the few free class rooms. This is becoming a big problem but should be solved with the new MBA building which is currently being built. Rooms can be reserved upfront, but it should be done in person, not by email as they may receive no reply.
Another example is the provision of teaching scripts. As organisation / support is rather poor, for the Advanced Corporate Finance class we did not have all the teaching scripts 2 days before the exam and we only got it because the whole class was standing at the door of the MBA office. The lecturer provided his files way upfront to the MBA office to upload them on the intranet, but the office just did not do it.
3. Buddy system for new students and exchange students
I was contacted long before my exchange by my HEC buddy who was there to help my in case I had questions. It worked quite well to clarify some things and it was nice to meet all buddies + exchange students at an organised event the first day at HEC. Overall there must be around 40-50 exchange students coming from business schools all over the world. The good thing is that every HEC student from a previous intake is at the same time buddy for a student from the new intake. The potential to network at HEC is better and also seems to be better organised than at WBS which can especially be seen in the different clubs (see next point).
4. Structure and content of HEC MBA (see “core reading.zip” + “Electives Fall 2010” attached)
The HEC MBA is 16 month long. However, the 16 month are not completely taught and there is a two month break in the middle. They have two intakes per year (January and September). This is in my opinion a big advantage, especially for club activities, which I will outline further below.
The general structure in case of a September intake is:
- 1st term: 3 month core lectures (September – December)
- 2nd term: 3month core lectures + some electives (January – March)
- 3rd term: internship term / project term (April – June)
- “Break”: can be used for 2nd internship / project term or holiday (July-August)
- 4th term: electives term (September - December)
- (5th term
extension which can be used for another project, internship or exchange
It found that all HEC students have a good and broad financial understanding as more financial subjects are core subjects for them. Attached you will also find the recommended core readings for the September 2010 intake, which should give you an idea about the content covered in their 1st core phase. I mentioned this already in previous feedback sessions, but I think WBS should reconsider the content of the core phase. In my opinion more Financial Accounting and especially Corporate Finance should be part of the core teaching.
Taught subjects in the core phase are:
* Marketing
* Business Economics
* Sustainable Business Strategy
* Corporate Finance
* Financial Accounting and Analysis
* Financial Markets
* Management Accounting & Control
* Statistics
* Strategic Management
* Supply Chain Management
* Organizational Behavior
* Human Resources Management
Please find attached also a file “Electives fall 2010.zip” which contains all the electives including CMC (=PCD) soft skill seminars with information about lecture content + often a short bio about the lecturer.
Regarding the WBS intake and structure: Instead of trying to increase the intake size to 100 or more, why not have a 2x 70 intake (e.g. January + September) instead? This would guarantee the continuity in many things launched by previous cohorts. Our cohort talked a lot to previous students and the things raised were almost always the same. However, as nobody was there to ensure the handover from one cohort to the next, it was clear that things start for many things again at zero with the start of the next cohort. Some things might be unpleasant for WBS to hear, but my impression was that WBS sometimes was rather happy that points raised by previous cohorts were not on the agenda of the following cohort or / and even if they were, the perceived attitude was “...this was tried by previous cohorts, but you will not have enough time to implement the change”. To put it bluntly: Sometimes it seemed that WBS tries to play the “time card” and just wait till the next cohort comes instead of initiating changes proposed by previous cohorts.
5. Teaching quality “Personalized Phase” (similar WBS elective phase)
I do not sit in any core courses, but so far I have not found the teaching quality in my elective really outstanding. So far, I have sat two financial subjects (Advanced Corporate Finance and Corporate Valuation) and one strategy subject (Strategic Down cycle Management) and while the teachers (non-academics) had good practical and real life experience, they were actually “telling” students how they do or did things, rather than actually really “teaching” some real skills. While WBS sometimes seems to be too theoretical in some subjects (e.g. Organisational Behaviour), HEC seems to be the exact opposite. It is undoubtedly difficult to strike the right balance and also get it right for every student (impossible!) but a mix of WBS teaching + some professional experience from the real life would be a great balance.
6. Group work, exams and marking
What really irritates me is the attitude of students towards group work. Especially in the elective phase there rather seems to be a “laissez-faire” style as many students decide to move to Paris after they finished the core phase. As public transport to Paris/HEC is rather poor, they often just do not show up for group work, leave early or come late. The general attitude of students seems to be rather (excuse me) “French”. I never experienced the same kind of behaviour at WBS. While there will be always be discussions about team members pulling their weight or not, it would have never been accepted in WBS teams that people push away work and responsibility in such an obvious way. It is worthwhile mentioning, that only in the core phase there are defined syndicate groups. In many electives students can actually selected their syndicate groups and the result is that there are groups consisting only of Indians, French, Americans, etc. I find the “forced” syndicate group system for electives at WBS much better.
I also found the way they do exams and the marking rather questionable. The Advanced Corporate Finance exam was a multiple choice exam and the professor had already said before the course: “Don’t worry, nobody will fail”. I had my doubts until the results came out and the whole class had only A or B. HEC range is A / B / C / D / FX / F – the last two are failing grades. I never experienced such easy marking at WBS. In addition, in the exam itself, HEC students seem to be quite adept in doing “group work”. For the exam we sat in a normal lecture theatre next to each other and there was no “surveillance” at all and we exchange students were quite surprised how easy and without hesitation HEC students were communicating amongst themselves.
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-- by 会员 kodakharry (2011/5/1 1:44:47)
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发表于 2011-4-26 03:04:19
