Had the informal chat with people from the HKUST yesterday and though it was just a very raw exploration, I want to share my inner honest thoughts and so I decide to send this to my interviewers. Dear Winnie and Prof. Hui, Thank you for taking time to speak with me earlier. At this stage, I am exploring positions in Hong Kong because of her closer proximity to home and largely because I am seeking a new experience to work and live away from comfort zone. As you can hear the enthusiasm in me, there are few push reasons to leave my current job ( it took me a while to fall in love with Melbourne Uni and I do love what she stands for) but having just turned 35, I thought more of the scale of impact and role I would like to play in global society. Therefore, my heart is open to new experiences if the right opportunities come (with a reasonable renumeration on practical reasons too). It is no doubt I foresee myself continuing the path of working in a University because this sector brings a sense of positive satisfaction ( it is about developing young people, however indirect a student recruiter role plays and I am fond of this mission). Chain of thoughts on this Program Manager role: I now have a better understanding of what the role encompasses and truthfully, I thought this opening role seems quite easy to perform in perhaps due to the wide range of tasks I have been exposed to, serving different faculties. I imagine it would be a very focused role as this is just one faculty to promote, but at the same time also allows more depth in terms of profiling the programs. Running case competitions and doing promotion work to schools using more engaging activities have been something I have hope to do yet impossible to do it alone in my current role- it gets mundane to go into a feeder school to just talk about the entry overview and rankings, and so on. I would like to focus on building up perspective students sense of career direction and strengths or weaknesses through self discovery sessions integrating some of the majors taught in the school of business. With a team of colleagues to work with, I am sure there is much we can achieve, beyond the norms of the day to day routines. I am keen to bring on my enthusiasm to connect current students and alumni in faculty promotion and recruitment work. As for the lesser travelling than I thought, it is not a major concern since I will have to spend sometime adjusting to working life in Hong Kong and getting to know the communities. Of course I welcome the plans of travelling to a few places to promote the faculty. The pros of working on an actual campus overseas allows one to stay open minded and keep ones ideals true, which is something I hope to benefit from even as I count the costs of giving up security and moving to a new city. ( it somehow fits into the ideal dream I once held to- a global social conductor running campaigns for worthy causes). I can imagine being drawn to volunteer at some of the local charities or even mentor student groups on campus outside work time and during weekends. There is just a lot to contribute working on a campus as compared to a satellite office as there will be people for me to brainstorm with, as much as I recall there can be conflicts in every workplace too- it is a matter of being matured to handle these from another perspective and I feel ready to handle these. I have not been to the HKUST, but understands that she is an institution that is highly respectable in the Hong Kong community and appeals to me as a fast growing dynamic institution without much traditional bureaucracy ( I maybe wrong). Of course, I would like to get to know more about the spirit behind the UST community underneath her accolades and rankings. (And I have chosen to not work in another Australian University should I leave Melbourne Uni one day. It shall remain as a personal principle to not join a competitor institution in a same city.) Finally, it was comfortable speaking with you and hope you feel the same. Now, I am open to travel to Hong Kong to visit the campus and meet up with you should you feel this is worth taking a further step. Look forward to hear from you, again. Thank you for your time once again.
Posted on: Tue, 04 Mar 2014 05:28:46 +0000
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