In order to provide more international students and alumni of DMU with the opportunity to meet, exchange and share, learn from each other, and build a stage for more students to show themselves and exercise their abilities, as one of the series of activities of the 2022 "International Cultural Festival", “Study in DMU, Advancing for the Blue Dream--The 3rd DMU International Students and Alumni Forum” was successfully held on November 25.
The activity took the form of online and offline synchronization. The 10 international students whose essays were enrolled in the forum gave speeches respectively. Their majors were different, covering public management, law, logistics engineering and management, marine engineering, information and communication engineering, etc; Their teaching languages are different, some are proficient in Chinese, some are taught in English; Their topics are different. Some share their learning methods, some tell their feelings about studying in DMU, and some report their research progress. However, each speaker's words describe the beautiful China in the eyes of international students, convey their gratitude for studying at DMU and their expectations for the future. The event also invited outstanding alumni of international students to send good wishes to the students, and invited relevant professors and leaders of the school to put forward encouragement and expectations to the students. DMUers from all over the world, regardless of color, language, region and time difference, are more closely connected, and teachers and students sufficiently communicated and talked about the future together.
After strict review by the Essay Review Committee, the forum awarded prizes for essays from three themes: "Promoting Common Development", "Deepening Exchanges and Mutual Learning", and "Outstanding Professional Thesis". At the same time, the award-winning works will be included in the forum collection. Next, we will successively display the award-winning works of this forum. Today, we want to display the 2nd prize winner of the theme of "Deepening Exchange and Mutual Learning": University’s Lessons beyond Its Books. The author is ARROYAVE MARTINEZ DANIEL（罗丹）from Colombia，a master’s degree program student majoring in Logistics Engineering and Management.
University’s Lessons beyond Its Books
ARROYAVE MARTINEZ DANIEL（罗丹）
Abstract: The university stage is one of the most fruitful life stages people may have in their own lives, for that reason, there must be a complete understanding of what a university offers beyond classes, and the benefits of such things to have better career opportunities. This paper consists of giving eight useful recommendations to all DMU students about what things can be valuable for people’s career development according to my previous experience in my undergraduate program in Colombia, and what factors I consider relevant according to what I learned from my previous five years of working. These suggestions present a set of qualitative skills that every person can gain at DMU such as creating networking environments, trying new areas of knowledge, getting out of their comfort zone, creating empathy with the entire world, connecting academy and industry as one single piece, keeping a healthy lifestyle, studying for life, and enjoying every single opportunity. Additionally, a final encouragement is given to all students at this prestigious university to make use of these suggestions to obtain better performance in the rest of their careers and future development, in the end, the main responsible to make such improvements lies in every single person.
Keywords: Opportunity, social skills, career, experience.
Content
Many people’s first approach to life after finishing their studies may be quite arduous to face, for a great number of people, it could be their first working experience and, for that reason, several things are not straightforward to handle, or even there is no clue about how to solve problems within the office environment. Some of them might fail, but some of them can succeed in their first attempt to solve problems. After a couple of months, many people start realizing that are some skills that have not been mastered yet but at the same time, they did not figure out that those things could be learned at the University.
After finishing my undergraduate program in international business, I did not continue my studies immediately, instead, I decided to start my career development in supply chain management, and after a couple of years, considered starting my master’s degree in this area of knowledge. But at some point, I wanted to go beyond my limits and decided to board one of the most important challenges and adventures in my life, studying in one of the places that inspire me the most and generate curiosity… China. This decision embraced numerous challenges, at the beginning studying abroad a 13-hour difference, but now, I am on my journey to mingle within this outstanding community of DMU. Waiting some years made me appreciate some things that I wish I was told when I was enjoying my early years at the university, but now that I am in the process of my master’s degree, I would definitively put them into practice, and additionally, in this article, I want to share these eight learning-from-experience tips to all students of DMU.
1. The university is not only a place for learning but also a place to get to know people:
Our university has thousands of students, professors, and workers that everyday work hard to accomplish their life goals. Sometimes, we only stick to our core partners and feel reluctant to get to know more people, in other words, we are closing doors of new opportunities in the future. Maybe the person who is by your side right now can be your new business partner, client, future co-worker, and perhaps a channel to find the job of your dreams. It does not mean that there is a must of creating various close relationships, but it is just a matter of being friendly, helpful, cooperative, and open to getting to know more people so you can keep in many people’s minds as a potential person for any chance. This is a key challenge to generate networking networks within society and find new chances for life projects.
2. Get out of your comfort zone, and try something new:
DMU offers education in countless areas of knowledge such as engineering, management, law, etc. If you are studying one specific subject (As many people do), explore new things that you might not experience in your degree. You will find out that this kind of knowledge will provide you with some skills that your competitors might not have, and at the end of the day will be useful for your future career, for instance, there is a great likelihood that someone who studied management must learn technical data to understand the business core, for that reason, if the person has some engineering foundations, the learning curve will be shorter and the overall understanding of things would be more efficient; and it also happens inversely, engineers may have contact with managers, salespeople, etc. therefore, knowing managerial and financial terminology will give them more tools to justify their innovations and thus be more reliable within the company they are working at. In conclusion, everything that you learn, even if it is not from your main area of knowledge, will expand your understanding of things and generate a value proposition for your CV.
3. Improve your social skills:
When we finish our university stage, most people will start finding a job or creating their own business, for this reason, there must be social interaction at some point in the upcoming stages. Many students ask themselves; how they can enhance their communication and social skills during university, the answer might sound simple, but it is through those extracurricular activities that DMU prepares for students such as sports, musical, and academic events that incentivize human interaction. Such things can improve abilities such as language skills, public speaking, and soft skills that will be useful in people’s career development because, at the end of the day, we are all humans, and everything done within society is to generate value and better living standards for people on earth. As many successful companies say, “even if you have the best product if you do not know how to sell it, it will not succeed”. Even if your CV is flawless, your social skills will be a key point during interviews and meetings carried out in your next stage.
4. Be Global:
One of the greatest advantages of DMU is its intercultural environment all students can experience while studying at this prestigious university. People from all over the world, Asia, America, Europe, Oceania, and Africa can be mingled to create a world without borders, a place to understand that everyone’s concept is subjective depending on every context, that there is no absolute right or wrong, that the way of doing things can vary on every country, region, or even small communities. Understanding the world creates a valuable lesson that is transformed into a word… empathy. You will understand the other person’s position, which contributes to global cooperation and harmony that should be the end goal of the world as a society.
5. Do not believe the academy and the industry are different worlds:
One of the greatest mistakes many people believe is that academy and industry are separate worlds, on one hand, the academy shows the “ideal” and “theory”, and on the other hand the industry is the description of “reality” and “experience”. If we analyze these two descriptions resemble the Yin and Yang; two opposites that work together to create balance. This is the outcome of how the academy and industry work together to accomplish the goal. When there is synergy within these two areas, the results may have a better impact on society. Nowadays, less than 2% of the enterprises cooperate with universities to carry out projects, but that 2% are having considerable developments that will help their companies and universities to have greater projects for the long run through supporting co-creation leveraging digital technologies, improving the effectiveness of the policy mix for knowledge transfer, allowing diversified knowledge transfer practices, and research collaboration (OECD, 2019). Our goal is to make that more and more organizations of both sides cooperate to evidence more progress within our future organizations.
6. Do not forget about your health:
One of the most important recommendations I want to give corresponds to wisely managing your time. We all students will face some high peak seasons in our studies, which will make us study overnight, and feel exhausted after finishing the final projects or tests. Even in those situations, there should be a time in our daily routine when we take care of ourselves. Eating on time and healthy food, doing exercise, and sleeping well are pillars to have an outstanding performance in our final projects. It is essential to understand that the more energy you put into something is not directly related to the outcome and performance of your efforts, on the contrary, the excessive struggle can generate poor results due to the over utilization of energy. Study smart is a clear description of what students need to do to get better results at the end of the semester, which is directly related to the management of time. The purpose of management is described as doing things efficiently and effectively (Robbins, Coulter, & De Cenzo, 2019); effectiveness stands for doing them right, and efficiency means doing them in the shortest time. To do so, it is necessary to have enough energies that only health gives to any human being. Simply put, there is not any excuse to sacrifice health because of time pressure, health is an investment for efficiency and effectiveness.
7. Study for your life, not for a test:
After graduating college, we must prove that our knowledge is sufficient to complete the assigned tasks and challenges we need to face in our future jobs, for that reason, it requires that all knowledge learned during the last years can last for a long time. Since 1885, Herman Ebbinghaus studied the effect of memory, indicating that most of the information is forgotten the day after, and in 7 days everything learned can be even erased from our minds, this is commonly called the curve of forgetfulness (Ortega, 2021). When there is not a clear purpose and reason to learn something, the human memory might be reluctant to the information processed, given that it stores what considers necessary, while disposals everything that does not pay off, for this reason, it is indispensable to find a reason to be educated, and in most cases would be career development. In the future, any decision will be liable, and knowledge will be the answer to solve it or to create a greater problem, for instance, if you are a civil engineer, ensuring that a bridge will not collapse is in your hands, if you are a manager, ensuring a great working environment is in your hands, and if you are a lawyer, enforcing the law is in your hands, therefore, study for your life, and not for a test.
8. Enjoy University as much as possible:
University life is one of the impossible-to-forget moments of our lives, there is no such event in life that can be like this life stage, therefore, never stop exploring, appreciating, living, and remembering every second and every place of DMU. This prestigious university is a complete world that is open to everyone, hence, feel proud of studying and enjoying most of your adolescent and early adult stage of your life here. The university is not only a place to study and create a career profile, but it also has been a place to transform ourselves, and make the best of ourselves.
To conclude, DMU is a university of opportunities, the world needs a combination of technical, social, scientific, and global skills to make the world a better place. Our success depends on ourselves as human beings, and for that reason, you are the one who decides your life path, and the only one to determine what to do and enjoy at our university. Do not forget that this world of DMU is a set of doors that enables us to connect with the world, so do not hesitate to explore its way beyond its books. As Marva Collins says, “Success does not come to you, you go to it”. Let’s change the world and work together to make it a better place for us and future generations!
References
OECD. (2019). University-Industry collaboration: New evidence and policy options. Paris: OECD Publishing.
Ortega, E. (2021, February 18). Computerhoy. Retrieved from Cuánto tardamos en olvidar lo estudiado: la famosa curva del olvido: https://computerhoy.com/noticias/life/cuanto-tardamos-olvidar-estudiado-famosa-curva-olvido-812855
Robbins, S. P., Coulter, M. A., & De Cenzo, D. A. (2019). Fundamentals of management. Pearson Global Edition.
作者简介：
Full name: Daniel Arroyave Martínez
Chinese name: 罗丹
Gender: Male
Nationality: Colombia
Major: Logistics Engineering and Management.
Major start time: September 2021
E-mail: daniel.arroyave.96@hotmail.com
