Ni hao from Beijing! I'm halfway through my Asia recruiting trip for this year and want to share some of my experiences with you.
My first stop was Tokyo. While in Tokyo, we co-hosted an information session with UCLA Anderson alumni, held a school presentation and participated in an MBA fair organized by the MBA Tour. I'm not able to participate in the information session every year due to scheduling conflicts, but when I do, I'm always pleasantly surprised by the large number of alumni who participate -- there were 15 this year! Did I also mention that our alumni volunteer to host this event every year regardless of whether or not an admissions officer can attend? The fact that our alumni take time out of their busy lives to host events like this, speaks to how strongly they feel about being a part of the UCLA Anderson community. We're very fortunate to have such strong and dedicated alumni around the world. The information session was a great success and so were the MBA Tour events.
Our 15 alumni at the Tokyo information session.
Taipei was stop number two. As in Tokyo, in Taipei we hosted a school presentation and participated in an MBA fair. Both events were well attended and I enjoyed getting to meet solid candidates; but I definitely could not have managed all of the interest without the assistance of the alumni who came out to help. The difference between the first two cities was that while I had a little time to explore Tokyo, our stop in Taipei lasted less than 48 hours. However, I still managed to enjoy soup dumplings at the original Din Tai Fung -- yum, yum! If you haven't tried them, I highly recommend that you do. If you can't make it to Asia, where the majority of Din Tai Fung restaurants are located, you should visit one of the three Din Tai Fung locations in the greater Los Angeles area -- one of the perks of living in such a diverse city!
The third stop was Seoul. This was another quick but successful visit. We once again hosted a school presentation and participated in an MBA fair. In addition to sharing a lot of information about UCLA Anderson, I also managed to make the attendees of our school presentation laugh. They were quite amused when I mentioned that I have been told that restaurants in LA's Koreatown ("K-Town"), match, if not surpass, restaurants in Seoul. While I can see this as being true considering that the greater Los Angeles area is home to the largest number of Koreans outside of Korea, I invited them to visit "K-Town" to judge for themselves.
Although I continued on to Beijing after the Seoul MBA Tour events, I will be heading back to Seoul next week for a school information session on the 10th. If you'll be in Seoul on Sept. 10th, and you'd like to learn more about our full-time MBA program, feel free to register for the information session on our events page.
Now it's time for me to get ready for the MBA Tour events that will take place tonight in Beijing. I'll tell you all about the other half of my Asia recruiting trip in my next blog. Zai jian...
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