By Chunlin Wang, University of Utah
Several weeks ago I came across an online article (in Chinese) titled “Reflection on the Career Path of a Chinese American Woman as a Graduate of MIT”. The lady was No. 1 in her middle school and high school and a top student at MIT. When she graduated from MIT, Google as a small startup tried hard to recruit her. Despite the persuasion of her classmates, she decided to join a blue-chip firm, because doing so seemed much secure for her future. In contrast, some of her classmates who were not as good as her in study later became very successful on career after founding or joining promising startups. Now she regrets about the choice she made. This article was so interesting that it prodded me to think about related issues. Here I would like to take this opportunity to share my thoughts with you, hoping that they will helpful to your study. (The link for this article in Chinese is http://www.bcbay.com/life/education/newsViewer.php?nid=142338&id=222077）
The Lassonde Studios at David Eccles School of Business to break ground this Fall.
In my view, the study and career path of the women mentioned in the article mirrors what most Chinese students experience in the United States, although she is an American citizen. It is well-known that being unparalleled in the world, study has been highly valued in Chinese tradition and culture. To Chinese students, being outstanding is solely defined by high achievement in academics – good grades, not taking risks and creating new things. So it is not difficult to see why distinguished Chinese engineers and managerial persons are prevalent in U.S. firms while very few CEOs are Chinese. Due to scarcity of preeminent Chinese entrepreneurs, the influence of Chinese as a whole in American society is insignificant, a stark contrast to the role that Jewish play in the economy and politics of America. This is worth our contemplation.
The main reason behind the above phenomenon is that the education system in China overemphasizes the importance of following established theories and rules on textbooks while ignores hands-on experience and innovation. As the embodiment of innovation spirit in free market economy, entrepreneur spirit has been the major drive of the prosperity of the U.S. economy for more than two hundred years since its independence. We can see it from the development of firms such as Google, Amazon and Facebook. Therefore, for China, there are lots to learn from America on this aspect. Very fortunately, as a leading school on entrepreneur education, the University of Utah has been ranked top-25 of all American universities on entrepreneurship by Princeton Review for the last three years. In terms of my study experience at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the University of Pennsylvania, these two elite schools can’t compete with the University of Utah on this aspect.
In fact, the Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute (http://lassonde.utah.edu/) of the David Eccles School of Business at the University of Utah was established as the entrepreneur education center for students. Unfortunately, very few Chinese students take part in its activities. In Septembers of 2012 and 2013, I attended the Student Entrepreneur Conference organized by the Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute. During the conference, there were speeches given by young rising entrepreneurs and workshops on how to start businesses. Some of the speakers were alumni of the University of Utah, like the founders of Lovesac and ArmorActive. Glimpsing their products displayed online http://www.lovesac.com/?gclid=CNm2lZTtz70CFYtDMgodUjIAcw and http://www.armoractive.com/ , you may not be very impressed. But the founders sensed the potential markets of their business ideas, grabbed the opportunity and further established their firms successfully.
From the website of Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute http://lassonde.utah.edu/ , by clicking on “Our Programs”, you can find many good programs and activities, such as Utah Entrepreneur Series, New Venture Development, Entrepreneur Club, Foundry Utah, Innovation Scholar, BENCH-2-BEDSIDE, Ambassador Programs, Innovation Week etc. Besides, James Lee Sorenson Global Impact Investing Center (SGII Center), University Impact Fund (UIF) and University Venture Fund (UVF) provide unique hands-on education opportunities. For details, please see http://sgiicenter.com/about-us/ . Last week one Chinese student who took my Operations Management class last fall told me that quite a few American students who had internship at SGII center either went to top schools like Stanford to continue their education or joined big firms to work, and he was preparing to apply for the internship at SGII Center. Recently the David Eccles School of Business started the Interdisciplinary Certificate in Entrepreneurship for non-business major students, which includes six courses (18 credits). Interestingly, courses of the certificate have case studies but no textbooks. For details, please see http://gotentrepreneurs.com/info/ . It is worth mentioning that all the conferences, programs, activities and courses held by the Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute are open to students in any major at the University of Utah. Last Tuesday (April 8th) , the Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute announced that the groundbreaking of the $45 million student dorm on entrepreneurship “lassonde Studios” is scheduled for fall 2014, with students moving in fall 2016. As President David Pershing said, this will make the University of Utah the best place for student entrepreneurship in the country. For details, please see http://lassonde.utah.edu/u-announces-gift-for-transformative-entrepreneur-building/ .
Furthermore, the David Eccles School of Business provides many good learning opportunities for students majoring in business. For example, collaborating with the University Hospital, the Cohort of Physicians Lean Program aims to help physicians increase throughput, utilize capacity and enhance patients’ satisfaction. The Chinese student aforementioned attended last fall’s cohort and continue to participate in the one in this spring. He told me that he learned a lot from the internship and believed such experience would be very helpful for job application in the future. Unfortunately, so far he is the only Chinese student who has attended the cohort. In addition, talks such as Executive Speaker Series are very beneficial. I have attended quite a few of them, including the ones given by Ryan Smith (Qualtircs CEO), John Sperry (Mindshare CEO), Vinod Khosla ( venture capitalist ), Mark Sunday (Oracle CIO), Peter Metcalf (Black Diamond Equipment CEO) etc. After each talk, I always had the feeling that can described in a Chinese saying “one speech is worth ten years’ study”. It is not strange to have such feeling, because the main feature of business is hands-on experience. Examples in practice usually are much more vivid and illustrative than theories presented on textbooks. In fact, many business magnates like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg didn’t come from business schools. Fairly speaking, people with any major background all have chances to successfully build up a firm and stay at the helm.
Finally, reading the biographies of renowned business men is an excellent way of learning how to do business. The special charm of biographies cannot be matched by textbooks. Another big benefit of reading biographies is to help improve the comprehension of English language. Here I would like to recommend some biographies I have read.
- “Built from Scratch: How a Couple of Regular Guys Grew The Home Depot from Nothing to $30 Billion” by Bernie Marcus and Arthur Blank.
- “Losing My Virginity: How I Survived, Had Fun, and Made a Fortune Doing Business My Way” by Richard Branson.
- “The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon” by Brad Stone.
- “David Eccles, Pioneer Western Industrialist” by Leonard J. Arrington.
- “John Jacob Astor, American First Multimillionaire” by Alex Madsen.
- “The Billionaire Who Wasn’t – How Chuck Feeney Secretly Made and Gave Away a Fortune” by Conor O’clergy.
- “Mike Bloomberg – Money , Power, Politics” by Joyce Purnick.
- “Henry J. Kaiser –Western Colossus” by Albert P. Heiner.
- “The Trumps – Three Generations That Built An Empire” by Gwenda Blair.
- “Steve Jobs” by Walter Isaacson.
All these biographies can be found in either the Marriott Library or the Salt Lake City Library, with the availability in the Amazon online bookstore. The library card of the City Library is free and can be obtained by showing effective ID and the most recent credit card bill or electric bill that displays the current address.