Reflections on Yale Global Network Week 2015
Global Network Week has played a big part in Cian O'Dowd's journey to Yale SOM. He first visited the school as a Renmin University MBA student for Global Network Week in March. Inspired by that experience, he enrolled in Yale SOM's Master of Advanced Management program. Most recently, he served as a teaching assistant during Yale's Global Network Week in October.
From October 19 to 23, Yale School of Management hosted Global Network Week. Yale Global Network Week is a bi-annual week-long event that brings together MBA students from up to 26 leading global business schools to New Haven for a week of lectures, networking, and company visits. This October, 10 Global Network Weeks were run simultaneously by Global Network for Advanced Management (GNAM) schools in places as faraway as Santiago, Chile, and Shanghai, China.
For me, Yale Global Network Week represents the first and final steps of my path to Yale. My first opportunity to visit Evans Hall was last March, when I attended Global Network Week on behalf of my alma mater, Renmin University of China. In Yale SOM and the Master of Advanced Management (MAM) program I found the answer to what I wanted to do next in life. Thanks to my school’s participation in the Global Network for Advanced Management I had the opportunity of applying for the MAM, and arrived in New Haven last August. In testimony to the trust and support that Yale SOM invests in every one of its students, I found myself assisting in the running of the next Global Network Week just a few short weeks later.
This October’s Yale Global Network Week hosted 82 students representing 27 nationalities from 10 GNAM schools. Supported by Yale SOM’s Camino de Paz and Sarah McClelland and my fellow TAs Zach Jones ’16 and Meenu Iyer ’16, we faced head-on the daunting challenging of representing Yale and meeting the diverse needs of our visiting guests. Over the course of the week this melting pot of immensely talented individuals embarked on a remarkable discussion of the field of behavioral economics. Led by Professor Nathan Novemsky of Yale SOM and the Yale Center for Customer Insights, topics ranged from “Origins of Behavioral Finance” to “Negotiation and Persuasion.” Over the course of the week students received unprecedented access to Yale University and its corporate partners. Students had the opportunity to visit New York and met senior executives from Hearst Corporation and Credit Suisse. At Lincoln Center students enjoyed an in-depth Q&A session with the organization’s president, Jed Bernstein ’79.
As the week drew to a close, our guests reflected fondly on their experiences. Sumit Garg from IIMB in Bangalore noted, “Learning some of the most interesting and advanced concepts in the area of behavior finance, economics, and marketing from among the finest professors in the world was an experience of a lifetime,” while Mahima Rajangam Natarajan of the Asian Institute of Management in the Philippines commented, "They say perfection is a lot of little things done right. That's how I would define my Yale GNAM experience.”
Now that the event has ended and I finally have time to reflect on my experience as a TA, I feel privileged to have had the opportunity to represent Yale School of Management and make a small contribution to the great work of the Global Network for Advanced Management. GNAM breaks down the barriers that impinge upon global business and aids Yale SOM in its pursuit to become the most globally-focused business school in the United States.
I hope to see some of you again next March, wherever in the world Global Network Week may bring me next!
Watch a video capturing students’ reactions to Global Network Week 2015: