By Richard Breitschwerdt, GMiM2024
London and Shanghai, two businesses centres of the world connected by a single Global Master’s in Management. In your first year, the environment at LBS is already international, gathering students from distant corners of the world and bringing them together on campus. In your second year, moving to China and studying at Fudan makes it a truly global programme, embracing a different culture and environment.
Growing up in Germany and Brazil my goal had always been to get to know more of the world and live in an environment that embodied my international mindset. Choosing the GMIM over other programmes was a straightforward choice, as it reflected my ambitions to study at world-renowned universities and learn both from ambitious peers and the best professors in their fields. Having a great desire to explore more of Asia and understand the business environment in China, made the GMIM an obvious choice.
During the first year at LBS, you become a part of a lively community of driven people from all over the world. Together, you start a journey into postgraduate management education and future career developments. Through group work, social events, and the different clubs at LBS one gets plenty of opportunities to mix between streams and programmes eventually getting to know each other better.
With a cohort of around 40, the GMIM brings together likeminded peers, half of whom are Chinese nationals and the other half are not. This diverse class forms a strong bond over time as students navigate similar paths ahead. While some students are starting to learn Mandarin, native students will assist as leaning buddies to support the learning experience and later integration into the life in China.
By the time you arrive at FDSM, you will have connected with people from all the programmes, made friends from around the world, and enriched your network with mentors from advanced career programmes. As you arrive in Shanghai, you can reflect on a year filled with learning, facing new challenges, and potentially already mapping out your initial career steps. Transitioning to China does not mean leaving everything behind; quite the contrary, FDSM and the GMIM Programme are a smaller version of LBS on a different campus, in a different city, and in a different country thousands of kilometres away from your recent experiences. While no fresh start is simple, your peers and both FDSM and LBS are there to assist you in setting up and getting started in initially foreign environment.
Shanghai has a rich history and is a very vibrant city, the perfect place to learn about China, its business environment, and to explore the region. In class you will explore the Chinese business environment, international strategies, and what the differences are when establishing a business in China over most other countries. China is not like any other country, so living, studying, and potentially working there immerses you in an environment that comes with challenges of its own, that you surely will master too.
Even though it is an adventurous journey filled with numerous challenges, it will shape you into a young graduate who has immersed themselves in two of the most vibrant and dynamic economic hubs globally and acquired management skills and business acumen as well as international business exposure. You will be able to look back to the moment when you first accepted your offer and be proud of how far you have come, the support you have received, and to continue being curious for what lies ahead.