MFIN Alumni Connect with Prospective Students in China

After ten months back home from NOLA, I was lucky enough to attend a reception in Beijing held by the Office of Graduate Admissions. The goal of the reception was to open the window for prospective students to understand what it would be like to be a Tulane MFIN and to answer any of their questions. One fantastic thing about this event was that it included a panel of recent MFIN graduates to share their insights about the program and how the program prepared them for their careers.

The reception started with two great presenters, Clay Randolph and Maria Lee, who discussed the big picture of the MFIN program, including the curriculum for the upcoming academic year, the exclusive core courses Tulane offers, and what it’s like to live in New Orleans. Through a nice video of New Orleans, the audience was able to get a visual picture of this charming city.

Following the short presentation, there was a Q&A session with the presenters and the recent graduates. The panel consisted of ten recent alumni, including your cute blogger. I would say this reception achieved great success and certainly reached its goal by allowing admitted students to learn about how past students utilize the MFIN degree. The Q&A session lasted almost two hours and we answered many questions from the passionate audience. The main question asked was: How did the Tulane MFIN degree prepare you for your current job? The alumni have diverse backgrounds and are working in various industries. Thus we were lucky to hear many insightful experiences and great stories during job-hunting in both US and Chinese job market. Although the answers varied, all alumni agreed that the MFIN degree laid a powerful foundation for them to start their career and the skills obtained from Tulane were utilized in their work on a daily basis.

The questions also focused on life after school in New Orleans. By sharing about life on campus and off campus, it quickly turned into “Days of our Lives NOLA”, lively written and acted by recent graduates. The alumni all stressed that one should work hard during school to make oneself stand out, and one should play hard after school to experience the city of New Orleans as much as possible.

As one of the alumni, I was so glad that I could do something to help build the bridge between Tulane and prospective students in China by sharing my own experience and expressing how I love Tulane and New Orleans. It was also my biggest reward to be able to get together with my fellow classmates again after graduating and getting our own jobs in China. I expect this yearly event could not only be a meeting with prospective students, but also be an alumni reunion each year. And I am pretty sure that, as time goes by, our Tulane alumni community in China will grow larger, and we will remain in close contact with each other as we do today.

Clay and Maria will return to Shanghai and Beijing in April to hold additional receptions which will include alumni sharing their experience with Tulane MFIN program. We look forward to meeting future Tulane MFIN students in April!

Heidi Zhang, 2013 MFIN Alum