Week One - Cross Cultural Managment

Week of April 14

It was our very first week of class after two weeks of workshops and seminars.

Tara, a friend from Warwick, came in for the class and stayed with me off-campus. The great thing about these courses is that students from the schools that the Mannheimers studied at for the first two terms have the chance to come take a course at Mannheim. Therefore, I'll get to see and hang out with many friends from Warwick and Copenhagen again!

The class was about learning and realizing cultural differences. We had presentations on the British, French and Japanese cultures. Since being in this multicultural environment, it was the first time we had an open forum to discuss our beliefs and stereotypes about other cultures. Lesson learned: understand the culture people come from and don't take yourself/national culture too seriously.

The one-week courses I've discovered can be very tricky....its about balancing company presentations, class group work, entertaining guests and showing them around town, oh yes and studying for the class. With each course we can choose to take an exam at the end or white a paper (3,000 words). For this class, I decided to write the paper (which I am avoiding doing at the moment as I work on this blog entry)!

Photos:
1 - Tara (WBS, British/American) Tatiana (MBS, Ukraine) and me at lunch
2 - Tara, Allen (MBS, China) and myself at the pianist concert in Heidelberg
3 - Tara, Aila (MBS, Germany), Linda (CBS) and me at lunch
4 - Ricardo (WBS, Portugal), Tara and myself again at lunch on our last day of class
5 - The WBS girls in Mannheim: Mercy (WBS, Nigeria), Ele (WBS, Ghana), Tara and myself
6 - Ele and I at dinner
7 - Tara, Josep (WBS, Spain) and Olivia (MBS, Mexico) at dinner
8 - Tara and I as the fun week comes to an end