MIP Politecnico Di Milano Gave Aaron Xu Skills He Couldn't Learn In China

Yasi

Aaron Xu was thrown in at the deep end in his first job in Shanghai and knew he needed an MBA. Find out why he chose MIP in Italy rather than a Chinese, business school!        

Getting an MBA shouldn’t just be a career move, but a process of self-discovery. This belief is why MIP MBA Aaron Xu, a Chinese national, said he chose to attend business school in Europe, despite many high-quality schools in Asia.

Xu graduated from the full-time MBA at Italy's MIP Politecnico di Milano in 2010.

“In China, everyone wants success, but that might be limited to, let's say, getting a lot of money or a high position in a company or government,” Xu said. “But in Europe or Italy, I meet students who would like to find exactly what they want, discover their potential and interests, to realize their dreams.”
        
Like many students he met in Europe, Xu said he didn’t get his MBA just to, “Get a fancy job in banking or something like that.” He decided to pursue his MBA because he wanted the ability to deeply analyze problems and find solutions.
        
Before MIP, Xu studied finance in Shanghai and worked in retail operations at Staples Shanghai; Xu said he found himself running into limitations when analyzing a problem on the job. “The problem is that as a new, fresh guy from a university, basically I was learning everything by myself there,” Xu said. “You don’t have much experience... and nobody could teach you.”
     
Now, as an MIP graduate, Xu works as a product manager at Acer’s regional headquarters in Switzerland, an opportunity he attributes to the high-quality academics at MIP.
        
“MIP has a very strong teaching team, which combines elite academics with industry people,” Xu said. “Some of the things my professors have said, I will remember for a lifetime.
      
"They opened my mind and taught me to think about things differently.”
      
The importance of innovation – something Xu said is not often talked about in China – is a particular subject that most all of his MIP professors stressed.
      
“They helped me understand how innovation has changed the world and moved technology and the global economy forward,” Xu said.
      
“In China, this concept still needs to develop, and I think it's still not a good environment for entrepreneurs. China is working on it... but to nuture a social environment and ecosystem takes time.”