I’m Zeng Tianzhang, a student from the Department of Logistics, Grade 2011, the Business School. Many friends asked me how I felt about studying abroad and I think it’s not easy to describe it with one word. Generally, in the one term’s studying abroad, my horizon, knowledge, competency and value have been greatly promoted. Students from abroad won’t call themselves returnees nowadays since there are so many people studying abroad. However I’d like to share with you my life abroad.
I went to America to study Supply Chain Management in Sam Walton Business School, University of Arkansas in the spring semester of 2014. Very few students know about University of Arkansas, but many students have heard about Sam Walton Business School. Sam Walton is the founder of Wal-Mart and the City University of Arkansas is located, Fayetteville is next to the headquarters of Wal-Mart, Bentonville. Sam Walton Business School is donated by this famous entrepreneur and it ranked top 10 in America. University of Arkansas was built in 1871 and the history of this old university can trace back to American Civil War.
Going abroad was totally out of my expectation. When the school told us this exchange project, I have no idea of University of Arkansas at all. But after reading the introduction of the Department of Supply Chain Management, I quitted my internship from a Top 500 foreign enterprise immediately and decided to study abroad. There’s only 20 days left for me to prepare all the applying materials, which is as complicated as a drunken man knitting the sweater. I have to do all the preparing work before the deadline and I have only 15 days to prepare for IELTS. Finally, I became the first international student in Sam Walton Business School, University of Arkansas from Central University of Finance and Economics, Business School; and what’s more, this is also the beginning of a series of coincidences.
Till now I am not certain about how many cities are called Fayetteville in America; someone told there are 24. This is the reason why my first air ticket was to Fayetteville, North Carolina. When I visited my roommate’s family in Easter, I found that my roommate’s father was the pilot of my flight from Detroit to Beijing. When I transfer from Fayetteville to Detroit, an old professor in Sam Walton Business School sat aside me. So many coincidences became beautiful memories for me and I want to talk more about what was learned from this experience.
First of all, let’s start from the teaching facilities, which include hardware and software.
Hardware resources of the school impressed me greatly with its convenience. The school tries to provide service for students. Almost every building owns computer lab, even the cafeteria. As long as you log in with your ID number, you can use the numerous Internet resources without worrying about connection speed. Lap top will only be found in coffee houses and classrooms, and Wi-Fi is everywhere. There is a big platform in the school, where there is Black Board, and students can check teachers’ messages and teaching materials, hand on homework, check Personal achievements. The university Email is related to other systems. There is al