[原创]KELLOGG归来的一点感想

ruiyu25

Three weeks ago I went to Kellogg to attend my friend’s graduation ceremony.  I spent three days there and these three days were wonderful and interesting experience for me which will stay in my memory for a long time.  On the way back to the airport, sitting in the cab, I was moved to write something to share my feeling and experience with all the CDers.

Kellogg:

To be frankly, I am a little disappointed with the campus.  It is not as beautiful as I had expected.  As a top quality university with such a long history, I expected there were lots of buildings with gracious and elegant style.  robably I had too much expectation for it since I had visited Harvard and Stanford before.  While the school does have many small old buildings each of which accommodate single department, the styles are neither quite elegant nor consistent.  Kellogg main building is located at the main street of the town which lots of cars pass through during rush hours.  However, the street still looks quite and pleasant with so many lush trees lining up at two sides of it. Walking on the sidewalk to the Kellogg, I past an old style gate carrying the name “laceName>NorthwesternlaceName> laceType>UniversitylaceType>”.  I thought it may be the symbol of the university.  Behind the gate there is a small path leading to a building.  There are just so many trees around the path and they are astonishingly green.  My friend told me that summer is not the prettiest time of the year.  The autumn is more beautiful as leaves turn yellow and red. I certainly can image how beautiful it is in autumn. After 7-8 minutes walk from Kellogg student dorm, we got to the Kellogg building.  At first sight, it is an ordinary 4-5 floor building probably built in 70s.  But more attractive than the actual outlook of the building is the brand name of Kellogg School of Management, No. 1 in the world.  How impressive is that!  After entering the building, I found the Kellogg signs are everywhere in the building as if the school wants to remind student to be proud of being a member here.  Why should they not be?  I also found Kellogg likes purple a lot, and it is the background color of the sign as well as one of the colors on the gown students wearing for graduation ceremony.

ruiyu25

Lake Michigan, Evanston, and Chicago:

Talking about Northwestern, I can’t leave without mentioning Lake Michigan, Evanston and Chicago.  I had visited the most beautiful lakes before such as Lake Tahoe and Crater Lake, but Lake Michigan still strikes me by its interminable size and blue. The campus is just right beside this beautiful lake.  My friend told me that when the semester is not over, many students sit on meadow at the lake and read books. Now is summer, and most students have gone leaving the meadow empty.  But the beach is busy: people swim, sail, or just relax and enjoy the sunshine.  I sat on the beach, and looked at water and thought about nothing, feeling life is beautiful.

Evanston is a college town, a very nice upper class town.  Many residents are rich retired people or upper class people working in Chicago.  They occupied the most expensive and beautiful houses built around the lake. Within walking distance from the graduate apartment there are nice restaurants, coffee shops, cafes, theater, grocery stores… Streets are clean, people are friendly, and life style is very laid back and mellow.

From Evanston to downtown Chicago it takes 25 -30 minutes driving without traffic.  This is my second time to visit Chicago.  I appreciated her beauty more than I did at the first time.  The world known attractions such as the field museum, the institute of art, Michigan avenue, and the sears tower still allure many tourists every year.  I didn’t have time to explore these famous places again.  But I didn’t regret since I had the chance to enjoy another extremely beautiful sight of Chicago.  One night at 1:30 AM my friend and her classmates took me to the laceName>HancocklaceName> laceType>TowerlaceType> in downtown.  We sat at the bar named Signature Lounge on 96^th floor of the tower. The dark sky is dotted with numerous stars and the ground is decorated with numerous lights. The view is breathtaking. One level down the bar there is a very nice restaurant called the Signature Room.  My friend said the restaurant is heavily booked on the valentine day.  eople choose this place to propose to their love ones. I guess at such romantic place nobody will so no.  We left the bar at almost 2:30 AM.  To my surprise the street was still lively and many people were walking and chatting. The perfect location to enjoy the spectacular night view of downtown Chicago is the road at the east side of field museum.  No words can be used to fully describe the beauty of that night.

ruiyu25

Graduation ceremony and Kellogg Chinese MBA students:

The graduation ceremony was hold in the gymnasium.  Before and after the ceremony Kellogg generously provided delicious buffet to every guest and student.  This day belonged to all the MBA graduates.  Wearing their robes, they were laughing, chatting and taking pictures with classmates and families.  Standing in the crowd of exciting students and family members, I was touched by everybody’s joyfulness.  I was happy for them: they made it!  They made it through intensive competition to get into school and two year’s rigorous study.  After the reception, we were brought to the gymnasium.  The first speaker was always the dean.  Kellogg’s surge in ranking is largely attributed to the dean.  However, I was not attracted to his heavy Indian accent speech.  I thought he spent too much time touting his personal relationship with the CEO of 3Com, the next speaker.  The speech of CEO of 3Com was much more interesting and attractive.  He urged the graduates to emphasize on the leadership and to act now.  The third speaker was a young faculty who won the distinctive teaching award this year.  He said before he got the contract with Kellogg he applied for 300 schools and got 300 rejection letters.  It is his perseverance and passion for teaching won him the award and support from the students.  After all the speech, the graduates got on the platform one by one to receive the congratulation from the dean.  There are more than 800 graduates this year so it took a long time to finish the whole process.  After the last students stepped on the platform, the audience all stood up, applauded and whistled.  The ceremony was over.

I spent nearly three days with a few Kellogg Chinese students.  We soon became friends.  In my eyes they are more sociable than other Chinese I met in US.  I noticed when I was introduced to them, they always took the initiative and paid a lot attention to what I said and tried to remember my name.  This is different from other people I met before.  Socializing is the indispensable part of their life, which means that they have to sacrifice their precious personal time and of course spend more money for this purpose.  I didn’t see any frugal MBA student here.  There are 9-10 Chinese directly from mainland in 2004 class.  As far as I know about the placement, one will go back to Beijing and work in a Foundation; one will work in Shanghai’s J&J; one will work in HK’s Morgan Stanley; one will be in Chicago’s Morgan Stanley.  The rest are not that lucky: two MM will head to New York City to expand their job hunting there, and two GG will stay in campus to continue their effort.  On the day I left, many students were moving out and the building was almost empty.  For those who still stay in the building to continue looking for a job, seeing their classmates and friends leaving one by one could be a heartbroken feeling.  I sincerely wish all the Chinese students who haven’t found the job the best luck and the bright future ahead.

robertchu

It's quite enjoyable to read your writings, ruiyu.  Thanks for sharing!

Although I've been in Chicago a few times, I have to admit that I foundmyself almot unfamiliar with the likable  Chicago youdescribed.  Maybe next time I should try out the Hancock tower Lounge myself :-)

nono

Although the job market is starting to pick up, it's still hard for Chinese MBAs to find jobs in US. There are only 4 or 5 Chinese students directly from mainland China in Kellogg class2006, the lower number might have something to do with the difficult job placement for foreign students. I believe the job market will become much better starting this year.

jeffreyqian

IT is really moved to read your article and the message i got is that the life is not as easy as expected for people graduated from famous school like kellogg.  But I believe it is worth making a trial.  Anyway, we are still young and that is our unique advantage.

enjoy7habits

Thank you for the article!

tulipmontreal

牛J牛贴

dashasha

yurui mm写的好啊。我就写不出这么长的文章（中文英文都不行）。我觉得你整个人都很适合读MBA。