The Long Journey Home

It was the last stage of the MBA, the journey home. From Shanghai eastwards. What happened?

Most interacting overnight flight ever ....................................................................... þ

Surfing on Hawaii ................................................................................................... þ

Relaxing at fantastic beaches............................................................................ þ

Jumping from the plane right on the boat to race with the boys in English bay ..... þ

Come back to my old place in Cypress Street and feel like home ......................... þ

Pick up at $1.000 cheque at the MBA Office ....................................................... þ

Meet the Sauder gang at Adrienne's X-Mas party ................................................. þ

Buy a new box bc the old one is completely end of life ........................................ þ

Ready to go home?! ........................................................................................... þ

Whats open?

Stay in touch with all the friends I made throughout the MBA........................... ☐

Matthias Hartmann, MBA, Mission Accomplished

After almost 500 days, the mission MBA is accomplished. Since my last exam yesterday, I have been all over the place. It feels unbelievable good to have this task finished. And honestly, China is absolutely the right place for finishing an MBA. You can have nowhere else a more appropriate party than here. We started three days ago with a epic pre-finishing party with the UBC boys and girls in Hong Kong and tonight the party will go on in crazy Shanghai.

Tomorrow, the journey back home is going to start. PVG-HNL-YVR-FRA or in straight words: Flying to Hawaii and relaxing at the beaches, moving on to Vancouver saying good bye to many new friends, and then the last leg: back home celebrating Christmas with Friends and Family.
So excited about the last weeks and the upcoming weeks.

Exploring China

The first term at CEIBS is almost over. Time for some traveling to discover China. Our trip let us to the ancient capital Xi'an in the middle of China and the current capital Beijing. Xi'an is the famous for its Terracotta Worriors and its fantastic food which is mix of Chinese and Persian cuisine - very delicious. In addition, it has a completely restored City Wall and a wonderful mountain to hike pretty close. The highlight of Beijing was certainly our trip on the Great Wall. We left Beijing at noon and arrived at the wall in the early evening to see the sunset. We stayed in a hostel very closed to the wall and were back on the wall for the sunset. We actually managed to pass a closed section as the guards were still sleeping. A fantastic day with 10 kilometres of hiking on the great wall with absolutely fantastic weather and blue sky.

A winning team

It's actually true: Our team won the 2011 Rolex MBA's Regatta and Conference in Italy, the most prestigious MBA regatta in the world. A great success for the team and the whole school. Serving the MBA Sailing Club as the President for the last year, I am proud that we were able to achieve these two big successes - Initiating a Regatta in Vancouver and winning the MBA regatta in Italy. A awesome job of the winning team, Craig, Sam, Rob, Jeff, Billy, Cam, Steve and all the others who worked so hard to make this possible.

The Winning Team

The Venue

You can imagine, the past weeks have been overwhelming again. Arriving and settling in Shanghai, flying from Shanghai to Frankfurt to meet my family after a year, flying from there to Italy to compete for my school at this great regatta. Afterwards, driving with some of my Canadian friends to Munich and introduce them to our Oktoberfest.
I really enjoyed to come back to Munich for almost a week, meeting Andrea and my friends, celebrating on the Oktoberfest and just inhaling the late summer days in Germany. Home sweet home.

But now, I am back in Shanghai and facing the big challenge to find motivation for the remaining classes. This is quite difficult after the big success of Italy. Mentally, the MBA is already finished for me. My thoughts are on step ahead. Where to go after the MBA: staying in China? going back to Germany? or even try Vancouver for longer? What kind of business do I want to do: Starting my own venture? going back to international multinational? or trying a midsize company? Having a broad experience and education gives you a lot of choices. However, the opportunity I'll take now with an age of 32 will determine my whole future career - so I better do wisely.

Arriving in Shanghai

The first week in Shanghai is over. The question why I am actually doing this remains open for now. It makes quite a difference to visit or live in this city. At the moment, this city is just very hot, loud, dirty and overcrowded. Such a big difference to the beauty of Vancouver in the summer. Being here for a while makes you realize how beautiful other places could be.
The first classes at CEIBS will start tomorrow. I am looking forward to my first lectures here in Shanghai and to see how they are here. In particular, as it seems that I have to take more classes as any other exchange student at CEIBS. I have had a dispute with the Sauder MBA office for the last three month. I overloaded my schedule in a previous period to free up my schedule during the exchange and now I should still take more classes. That is so ridiculous.
They even enforced that rule after I told them that they are acting fully against my personal interest as I would prefer to have more time to network with local companies and learn the language. It seems that Sauder does not value customer satisfaction very high - not very smart.
Anyways, to study in Vancouver has big advantages....but sometimes the School just sucks. But I guess that is the case with every school. Let's see how it goes at CEIBS.

Wrap Up: Vancouver

My year in Vancouver is over... I am just sitting at YVR and waiting for the boarding to my next adventure: Shanghai.
I am looking back to a year full of new impressions, great experiences, many new friends, a lot of academic take aways and even more in sailing. People told me that my life will change during the MBA - and it is true: my life changed quite a bit throughout the year. Many to the good some to worse. But that is probably what change is about. The balance is hopefully positive - the future will tell.

My year ended with a great regatta that our MBA sailing club organized last Saturday. It was the first MBA regatta in Vancouver and has been the only event where the Sauder Business School were hosting another school in a competition. Over 50 sailors were competing for the UBC Sauder MBA Cup. I am a bit proud that we were able to make this event happen. The team work will last as one of the great MBA experiences.

This early morning I was sitting with a Starbucks coffee (some true American culture a the very end) at Kits beach and was enjoying the early sun over Vancouver. I was asking myself - why are you actually leaving this unique and beautiful city? The answer will come up in some weeks.

Keep you updated from Shanghai.

Seven Weeks Later....

... oh, its sooo long since my last entry. I am getting lazy.

I had quite a busy time. I took an additional course in the last period which kept me even more busy than usual. However, its done now. My last period at UBC is over. Three more month of internship and I will leave to Shanghai. But for now, I am pretty happy that my internship is secured. I will help a company called Aeroguard to develop their business and to expand. I am looking forward to work with these guys.

Last week, my sister with husband, Andrea and some friends were in town. We did a nice overnight sailing trip to Keats Island and discovered the beautiful coast of British Columbia. We saw many seals, sea eagles and a group of about 20 dolphins.

The skippers at work

The beautiful landscape of the West Coast

Next Tuesday, Andrea and I will leave for a road trip through the Rockies. I am excited to see finally a bit more of the province.

Wicked China

China,

Ten days in Hong Kong and Shanghai are over now. I am sitting in the plane back to Vancouver and reflecting a week full of new impressions and surprises. Actually, the past days do not feel like a week only. Moreover, the days in Asia feel like an eternity.  That might also be caused by the fact that many of my experiences during the past week exceeded my expectations by far.

This blog posting will be longer than usual and therefore I will divide everything into some single topics:

The purpose of the trip:

The Business Career Center (BCC) of the Sauder School of Business provides several trips to other cities to give the Students the opportunity to network with local companies and to learn more about the individual job markets. In addition to trips to Calgary, Toronto and Waterloo, a trip to Asia is provided in the reading break between period two and three (to say it straight away: I haven’t read that much during the week).

Key take-aways Hong Kong (3.5 days visit – Sunday to Wednesday):

• The city is small (at least downtown).
• The city is snobbish and spoiled. Haven’t seen so many premium stores in my entire life. Primary hobby of Hong Kong people seems to be spending money for luxury goods.
• But… The city is beautiful
• Everyone speaks English
• You can have fantastic seafood in the fishing villages on the backside of the island
• Fantastic place for serious partying

Summarizing: A great city to land in Asia, combining the lifestyle of London with the Asian spirit.

Key take-aways Shanghai (5.5 days – Wednesday to Monday)

• This city is big
• Better learn mandarin if you want to talk with locals
• This city has unlimited energy
• Fantastic food (forget the crappy china food in Germany)
• Incredible party locations
• Many job opportunities but the lucrative expat contracts a decreasing.
• A world rank business school that is way too far outside of the city and looks like a hybrid of a monastery and a military base camp.
• Billy Chan is the cool travel mate.

Summarizing: I am totally excited about the exchange to Shanghai in fall now. This will be a great experience. However, I have to learn at least basic mandarin to take full advantage of the time in Shanghai.

What’s next:

Recently, I broad guy mentioned in a speech that people often overestimate what they can achieve within the next year but underestimate what they can achieve in the next ten years. Looking only five years back, I did not considered China as a place to live at all.  I wasn’t even able to eat with shop sticks.  Only a few ago, I wrote in my application for this trek that I want to join to check my mental capacity to live in China.  Now, I am totally excited and consider an extended stay in China.

This MBA is incredible. Never stop exploring. Life is good.

Thank you Darren

Today, we had the final presentations in our creativity class which I already mentioned in my previous post. We had to prepare a creative project chosen by our own. Only prerequisite: it should be out of our comfort zone. The result was amazing! It is incredible how much creative potential MBA students have - Nice speeches, poems, music, handcraft, pictures. I actually did my first real video. Something I had planned for years but actually never committed the time for. Finally, I am bit proud of the result (see below). Darren our prof is probably the most uncommon business prof you can imagine. But he did a really good job and made me think. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRwVFFHEoO8

The last weekend was devoted to my two favourite sports: sailing and mountaineering. Saturday, we started the Dinghy season in a fairly cold ocean (results are documented in the video). Sunday, I went with Ben on my first backcountry trip in the Whistler mountains. It was pretty awesome. He was complaining about the bad snow while I was thinking the opposite. These canadians are blessed with good snow.

And finally: I confirmed my exchange to Shanghai today. I am looking forward to study the last three month of my MBA at CEIBS, the best Business School of China. That will be exciting.

Spring in Vancouver

Temperatures are rising, the cherry trees are flourish, Spring is arriving. Even if the Winter was by far not as rainy as expected it is nice that it is getting warmer again. At the moment, my thoughts are with all the people in Japan. In particular, I hope they manage the cooling of the nuclear plant and are able to avoid the worst scenario.

Nevertheless, School is going well. We are still doing funny things in Creativity such as building towers with spaghettis. Half of period 2 is already done. In two weeks is already exam week again. And then it is time to go to Asia. Four days in Hong Kong and six days in Shanghai to network with local companies. I am already very excited about this trip. It will be my first impression of China and a good preparation for  the upcoming exchange in September.

Skiing, Sailing, playing Lego

I am just sitting in the new Sauder Library after one of this unique Creativity classes, procrastinating learning - listing to good tunes and writing my blog instead. When I watch out of the window, I see the Canadian flag flying in the wind and the ocean moving. Ask me if I am happy in Vancouver and you will receive a pretty straight forward answer right now : Yeap.

The above mentioned Creativity class is actually very worth mentioning here. This class is all about getting some of the creativity back that we all had in our childhood and most people lose on their way to maturity. Last week, we had a two hour session playing with Lego. Everyone who knows me a bit longer knows about my passion for Lego. Consequently, I enjoyed the session quite a bit. I won't say, it has been the best class yet - but its close. Teamed up in group of four we build a story with Lego and told it to the class afterwards. Guess what our story was about?!

Last weekend wasn't so bad either. Saturday, I went night skiing on Grouse Mountain - you go skiing in fresh costal mountain powder and watch down to the city at night - pretty cool. Where else in the is that possible? Sunday, I was on another sailing trip over to Bowen Island. Skiing and Sailing within 24 hours - not bad I would say?!

The last highlight for today: my exchange application is approved now. From September to December 2012 you will find me somewhere on the Campus of CEIBS in Shanghai. So, hurry up to visit me here or book your flight directly to China.

Winter times in Vancouver

Two weeks ago, I was the first time back in Munich after seven month in Vancouver. It was for six days only but it was a great to be back in Germany. You see your home country with different eyes after such a long absence.

After the Germany break, the Period 2 of the post core started. New classes have to be chosen. This period I go for some Finance, Marketing and Strategy. More import, the sailing club goes ahead too. Yesterday, we took the first time a boat out by our own. It were pretty rough conditions again- cold and snowy. A very great experience though.

Since yesterday it is also snowing in Vancouver, it is nice to see the city covered in snow. It's so beautiful.