MBA students at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) know the true test of progress is not their acuity in class discussions or their ability to absorb the principles of market economics and strategic planning. It comes when they are out there, in the field, encountering the real-life challenges of a major organisation and proposing practical solutions.
For that reason, the HKUST Business School encourages as many students as possible to complete internships of around two months part way through their courses. These assignments, usually with multinationals and leading financial institutions, give an insider's view of different operating environments and, crucially, also allow students to put many of their newly acquired skills to the test.
'Being part of this programme has benefits for us as well,' says Sven Henrichwark, Singapore-based general manager for Asia Pacific at GE Healthcare. 'We see it as a responsibility to build local leaders for the Asian market, and taking MBA students on board as interns gives them exposure and real-life business examples to work on.'
He emphasises, though, that it is also a two-way street. The companies want to hear ideas, they are looking for alternative perspectives, and they are keen to understand the thinking and dynamics affecting business practice in other industries.
'It is good to have a few young folks who basically question everything,' Henrichwark says. 'They are not 'corrupted' by doing certain things in a certain way for a number of years. We are asked questions that lead to checking assumptions, and I find that very valuable.'
Each year, the company creates four to eight special projects for interns, designed to give scope for both hard and soft skills. One, for instance, might be to structure market research questions for six different countries and oversee quantitative analysis of the data collected. Another might be to conduct a profitability analysis across the entire database of contracts to understand which are most remunerative and why.
The projects are substantive, definitely not just academic exercises and, in different circumstances, might be handled by an external consultancy.