HKUST - See you!

Time:2018-10-08 11:24:32 Clicks:

I just joined the HKUST 25th graduation congregation. The life in HKUST is one of the best gifts for me.

Why HKUST Business School and ISM program

It’s no doubt that HKUST Business School is No.1 in Asia, even top in the world. By reviewing some forums, I know the HKUST career center provides various high quality services to students. For the goal of finding an ideal job and accepting the advanced education, I definitely choose HKUST Business School. I am interested in business analytics, because of the bachelor degree of Finance. The best future I can image is to combine the finance with technology, the popular Fintech is what I expected. The most suitable program for me is information systems management in business school.

Life in HKUST Business School MScISM Program

I joined HKUST with the expectation of a reputable and well-structured Master’s degree. However, after a few weeks into the program, I started to realize the MScISM program offers much more than that. I witnessed the excellent staff and professors of international caliber were constantly eager to go the extra mile students and that the extra value they provided went well beyond their responsibilities.

The amount of ISM Program students is the least in HKUST Business School with 30 part-time students and 30 full-time students. This is one of the advantage that I can be familiar with classmates and professors quickly.

I am benefited a lot from the cultivating mode of HKUST Business School. The first is career talk when I come to the college. The college invites some managers to deliver the speech, the companies include Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, PWC, Bank of China, etc. The best service is one-to-one career coach, the professor of the career center do counseling to us, we are recommended for a suitable career direction and position, they also help us do some related interview coaching. Those professors have worked in different industries for many years and some are already business executives. Thanks for the CV coaching service, I am more professional and stepping into a satisfied job now.

ISM Program aims at providing solid postgraduate management training which enables business and non-business students to harness various forms of technology-enabled business innovations. On this basis, students gain insightful perspectives and management skills from a wide spectrum of thematic courses. The curriculum design is following the development of business world, which includes, Big data analytics, Business modeling with VBA, Information Strategy and management, E-commerce, Internet Security, Block chain, Outsourcing management, ERP, Technology consulting. The core value of ISM program is to manage information and data well for business goals. Later in the job interviews, I realize that how valuable I learned in ISM. Through communications with enterprise managers, I know the huge demand of skilled people in information and data field.

Professors & Learning Mode

Most of professors is go beyond academia and maintain very close contacts with the rapidly changing business world. Often they take on the role of consultant in technology transfer projects and executive education for companies, to name a few as below, IBM, Merrill Lynch, HSBC, China Mobile, etc.

All of the courses are case-based. Program Academic director said when he is studying the doctor degree in Harvard Business School, he reads hundreds of cases every day, the case is the most helpful way to bring us into the management thinking. It turned out that’s true. Besides, professors focus more on students’ way to express their ideas, there is no right or wrong points, as long as we have our own logical thinking, the professor will be patient to analyze and encourage your remarks. Originally, I am not adapted to the class, because I am not enough confident in expressing myself facing the outstanding classmates from the top universities around the world, everyone speaks English fluently and has strong logic. I am not sure whether my points are valuable. However, I am encouraged by professors to express any ideas in the class, with acquiring the professor's approval and found my points are in fact fairly good and innovative.

In addition to class, each course basically has individual and group assignments. There are many forms of assignments, such as paper, case study, presentation, simulation game, etc. Basically, in different courses each week, we will discuss several times with team members. Each semester you will be assigned to different groups, often through a semester of group cooperation, will have more opportunities to get to know more about your classmates. ISM program emphasizes group cooperation very much, so I am trained a lot of the teamwork ability and communication skills here. In each projects, you will be assigned to different groups, often through a semester of group cooperation, we have more opportunities to get to know more about classmates.

The most attractive advantage of this program is that full-time students could have classes with part-time students, from whom we could hear a lot of unique insights and interesting stories about their working experience, and at the same time broaden our social connections. I highly appreciated the weekend courses, in which our full-time students could mingle with part-time students who have working experience. ISM part-time students have at least 3 years working experience in business and IT industry, even some of them are managers with more than 10 years’ working experience in top companies. Those part-time students always bring us to the real case related to the business issues with what I learned in the class.

Be proud of HKUST Alumni

Through this program, I get to learn more different aspects of Information Systems. MScISM program not only give me a good foundation in this field, but also exposed me to newer and up-to-date topics. Professors are very knowledgeable in the latest trends and development in areas such as Big Data Analytics, Cyber Security, Block-chain and other Fintech concepts. With the diverse background of the students, learning not just comes from lectures, but also from each other during class discussions. Thanks for all the experience in HKUST!