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Hawai'i Pacific University School of Business

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Hawai'i Pacific University Day In The Life Podcast 18.4 MB 53:49 Min

Guest List:

• Ray Timonera, MBA student
• Dr. Gunter Meissner, Finance Professor
• Dr. Bee Leng Chua, Entrepreneurship Center Director
• Dr. Charles (Chuck) Steilen, Business College Dean
• Kevin Kraft, President of Tradewinds Global and a guest in Dr Steilen’s class
• Lianne Maeda, Career Services Director
• Dr Aytun Ozturk, MBA Professor and Assistant Dean
• Associate VP Harry Byerly
• Students: Kristine Leones of the Philipines and Shilpa Jangam of India

Transcription:

I’m Diana Jordan with MBA Podcaster. Welcome to a day in the life at Hawaii Pacific University. “Hey Welcome to Waikiki Beach, the world famous beach in Awahoo Hawaii. We’re standing in front of the Duke’s [Duke Kahanamoku] statue which is a very famous landmark here on Kalakaua Avenue. We’re facing the ocean, if you look to the right you can see boats and people surfing, lots and lots of people on the beach. That’s a trolley that takes tourists up and down to the shopping center there back from the hotel.” Can we go get our feet wet? “Yeah, let’s go have some fun.”

We will be following Ray Timonera a MBA student at HPU. “Hi, my name is Ray Timonera. I knew the reputation of this school is really good; they have a really good MBA program so I wanted to come out here for that. And I like to play tennis and to come out here and be able to do outdoor stuff all year round was a great benefit.”

We will speak with Associate Vice President, Harry Byerly about HPU’s diverse population, “It’s been the direction of the University President, direction of the Dean, that we will have a global program.” We will hear from Dean Chuck Steilen, who while teaching international marketing brings in guests to give students a real world knowledge along with their academic pursuits, “It’s connecting our students to a great deal with Hawaii products and then letting the students get involved in the classroom and then taking their knowledge outside the classroom and perhaps hooking into Hawaii companies.” Dr. Steilen has a guest speaker for today’s international marketing class, “My name is Kevin Kraft, I’m with Tradewinds Global. I am the President of the company. We do export management and consulting. We work with small to mid sized companies helping them to prepare for export markets, launching branding and the whole export process from start to finish.” Ray’s friends like Kristine from the Philippines will share their insights, “ I see myself doing business all over the world so just taking cues from speakers like Kevin, like Dr. Steilen, it’s just very educational for me.” HP is opening a new entrepreneurial center which is lead by Director, Dr Bee Leng Chua, “In a way it’s a very entrepreneurial experience and if you want to define entrepreneurship very broadly it’s basically bringing a vision to life.” Ray wants to begin most days at the beach, “Another sunny day in Hawaii.” This is beautiful. “Yeah you can get spoiled living out here. You get to do this every day. You got the nice white sand and the ocean is clear blue. It’s just a great place to swim, it’s so warm and you can hear the surf and if it sounds loud, you’re going to get wet pretty soon.”

So Ray, it’s Monday morning, do you have any classes? “Today I have two classes. I have my finance class which starts at around 1:00 and runs for three hours and ends at 4:00. After that I have a little break so during that break I try to get something to eat. I usually go down to 4th Street to get some Hawaiian food maybe or sometimes I’ll get some Hawaiian treats. They have something over here called Malasadas which are Hawaii’s version of powdered doughnuts and they’re really, really good. So those are really good and hold me over as a snack. At 5:00 I have another class, International Marketing and that runs until 8:00 today.”

Ray tell us about yourself. “I’m originally from New Jersey. I was working in the IT industry as a Local Area Network Engineer before I came out to Hawaii. I’m studying finance here in the MBA program at Hawaii Pacific University.” What brought you to this university? “The first thing that brought me here obviously is the location. I figured if I was going to go back to school to get my MBA I wanted to be somewhere for two years that I would definitely enjoy and what better place than Hawaii.” Other than the weather what drew you to Hawaii? “I knew the reputation of this school was really good. They have a really good MBA program so I wanted to come out here for that. I like to play tennis and do stuff outdoors so for me to come out here and be able to do outdoor stuff all year round was a great benefit.” What was your undergrad like? “I did my undergrad at Rutgers University, this is in New Jersey. It was a very big school. That is one reason why I picked HPU because I wanted to try out a different environment for my schooling. I just wanted to get a little more personal touch that HPU offers and the class sizes here are well it’s smaller. My biggest class I think is about 20 students or maybe 25 max.” In this school do you find yourself bonding with certain students? “HPU is known because it has a lot of international students. That’s actually one reason why I picked HPU and in terms of bonding, yeah I met some students from all over the world. It’s a neat thing that you get to have exposure to all of these different cultures.” Which cultures, what countries? “I have friends from China, Japan, Korea, Thailand, all over. My best friends were from Europe and my first semester here there were some friends from Sweden. I have a really good friend from Finland and Germany. So all over Europe and Asia really.” Tell me an episode perhaps of when it really struck you that this school is so right for you. “As soon as I got here really. I didn’t know anybody when I came to Hawaii. We had a graduate student orientation for the MBA program and I just met some students who became really close friends of mine. I think from then on I just got really comfortable here.” What’s your course load look like? “I usually take in the fall and the spring semesters I take a full course load which is four classes and that’s 12 credits, that’s considered full-time for the graduate school here at HPU. I don’t work so I can dedicate most of my time or all of my time to my studies and to extracurricular activities outside of school.” What are you learning at HPU? “My favorite topic is finance and I actually have a finance class today. I like to learn about the stock market. I actually follow the stock market very closely. We get exposure to the global perspective of business.” Other than hanging out in finance classes where else do you like to hang out? “I live two blocks away from the beach which is pretty cool. I can see the ocean from my window so I like to go to the beach. I was at the beach last night. I usually like to go at night time because it’s a little bit less crowded and the water is still warm surprisingly. I like to play tennis; I like to play golf as well.”

We hear that it’s expensive in paradise and we want to find out how Ray manages it. So a lot of people have this perception of Hawaii as being very expensive but you’ve found ways to live a student’s life here, yes? “There’s definitely ways here in Hawaii. Right there’s a misconception that it’s a lot more expensive. But it’s definitely not. You can find ways if you can get roommates that would be great you can cut your rent in half or by a third if you share an apartment. There are lots of places to eat. If you don’t want to cook at home. My first semester here I survived by eating outside. In Waikiki there’s a lot of places to eat. Like breakfast, you can find breakfast for $3.00, a pancake breakfast. Also for dinner you can get Chinese food or something like that for $5.00 or less. So it’s definitely affordable.” How do you get around here? “That’s a great question. Hawaii has a great public transportation system. They call it the bus. As a student you actually get a half price, I think it’s about a half price discount on the bus. So you can use it unlimited, anywhere that you want to go around the island. They have different buses, they have buses that go from Waikiki downtown which is where HPU is and it takes about 20 to 30 minutes depending on the traffic. If you want on the weekends you can use the bus. I use the bus to go shopping sometimes or if you want to even to go to the north shore it’s probably like an hour and a half away but you can take the bus there and use your bus pass that HPU provides you.” What about the faculty Ray? “It never ceases to amaze me the quality of my education is here. A MBA program is only as good as the faculty and staff. Here at HPU they have some of the best faculty that I have seen anywhere.” What are your standards for that? “I think one important thing for that is that they have experience in the field. Some professors they are just academic but no real world experience. But over here at HPU I found that not only do that have real world experience but they are very passionate about their subjects and another thing here about HPU professors is that they really, really encourage the students since it’s a smaller environment with about 9,000 students I think total and out of those I think there’s only 1,200 graduate students. They have the ability to give each student a personal touch that students will really enjoy.”

It is time to head to one of Ray’s classes. We’re in the MP building on campus which houses graduate and undergraduate classes. Ray is headed to his Finance 6000 class. Here’s the elevator. As students get settled in, let’s get some perspective on HPU’s direction. “Harry Byerly, Associate Vice President.” One of the things that I keep hearing here is that you’re extremely well known for having quite a diverse population. How did that develop? “More or less by mandate. I mean it’s been pretty much the direction of the university president, direction of the dean that we’ll have a global program and so we pretty much put together a recruiting program that requires us to go to all parts of the world. So we spend quite a bit of time traveling all throughout Europe, Latin America, Asia, all throughout the United States looking for really good students. So we participate in a lot of the big recruiting fairs, a lot of big recruiting events that schools all across the country participate in. So that’s resulting in having students from more than 40 different countries right now in our MBA program. So that’s different, that’s unique. You don’t find that at a lot of American schools.” The advantage to the student in that case becomes what? “Well they’re interacting with students from all over the world; they’re getting perspectives, business perspectives on things that they never even heard of before. A lot of times they’re developing life long networks with friends. I can’t tell you how many times we’ve heard of stories or situations where students actually leave the university after graduating they get connected again with one of their peers or someone they graduated with and they started a business, or they started a company or they got involved in a venture that has been working for them. So the networking I think is extraordinary.” Tell me an example of that, some students that you think, you know just a really impressive kind of anecdote. “Well there was a student who was out of the Silicon Valley who came here for a year. He was in our 12 month MBA program. He actually participated in one of our global exchange programs at Mauritania University in Thailand. While he was there he was actually with another Hawaii Pacific University student and they kind of knew each other here but it wasn’t until they actually studied abroad that they developed a close relationship. He had a big IT background and the other gentleman had a big marketing background and so they launched, this was several years ago, they launched a new website dealing with comparing mobile telephones. Kind of looking at different plans and so that’s been, I think it’s still going and it’s been in existence for 2 – 2 ½ years. They are still really good friends and they are business partners so that worked out well.”

Ray and I slip into the front row of Dr. Gunter Miessner’s finance class, “Depends is always a good start. Whenever I ask you a question about finance and you start with that depends, it’s usually quite safe.” There’s a short break in the finance class so let’s catch up with Ray. This doesn’t seem new to you? “No, no I’ve been following the stock markets for a few years and as a matter of fact every morning I check the stock market, I watch CNBC for hours a day and I love the stuff so this is one of my more interesting hobbies.” What’s your predication, do you agree with your professor? “I do. I hope that tomorrow the federal open market’s committee lowers the interest rate more than 25 basis points and that way all of our stocks will go up and we can make more money.”

It’s a big day in finance. The students are buzzing about the possibility that Feds will lower the interest rate in the tomorrow morning. “Tomorrow we will see if the Federal Reserve will come to the rescue and cut the interest for the first time in more than four years.“ Yes, the Federal funds rate is currently at 5.25%. What is that? Class first and then our experts. Colin? “The rate at which banks borrow” “Exactly. Sorry to interrupt, you’re from Thailand right?” “Yes.” “Give us half a minute on the Thai market.” There’s a break and I talk with the professor. “I’m Gunter Miessner; I’m the Associate Professor of Finance at HPU.” So I understand this is the core course for these students? “That’s correct; it’s a mandatory course so my responsibility is to get them excited about finance. In this class, I try to motivate the students to get interested in finance and to see what you can do with finance. That is important for you for your long term life planning, right?” I noticed that you had students introduce themselves by country as well which I find fascinating. When I was talking to one of the other students she said she came here because of the diversity because there are so many cultures represented. What do you think? “Yes, I do think that’s the greatest asset HPU has. I have 25 students, sometimes from 20 nations. That’s amazing. HPU’s actually number one in foreign student’s enrollment in the US so we have the biggest foreign student enrollment percentage which is great. I try to exploit that too. So sometimes students can write a paper about the financial system of their country. Then they’re allowed to integrate some political and some economical and social issues so I try to actively exploit the fact that we are so culturally diverse and I think everyone can benefit from that, including myself.” Yes, what have you learned from your students? “A lot. They are experts in their countries. So we have a lot of culture exchange too. We discuss their financial system, what can we improve. So yes, I also learn from them. That’s true.” What is your hope for your students here? What do you hope that they go on to? What changes do you hope they make in the financial world? “Well personally for them I believe that they can make wise financial decisions for their own personal lives. Short-term and in the long-run for their retirement. Then some of them I hope will do excellent careers in finance. I do have about 15 - 16 students in New York from HPU who went there. I call them my New York mafia. They help each other. I have a Hong Kong mafia, and a London mafia so we have students all over the world from HPU who went into finance and that gives me satisfaction as a professor as well that what I teach does have some relevance and helps students pursue a good career.”

When I return from talking with the professor, I find Ray coaching a fellow student. “She’s interested at looking into opening up a broker.” “I should put the a price on the limit” “Don’t do that yet, we’ll talk about that again. Talk to your brother because your brother knows his stuff, I think he has a recommendation for you as well. I feel bad if I recommend a stock” “I personally like that stock but don’t buy anything tomorrow because the stock market tomorrow, we have the Federal Reserve announcement.” “So I should wait until after Tuesday right?” “Yes because tomorrow is going to be crazy because nobody knows what’s going to happen after tomorrow. Maybe even wait a week.” “Yeah?” “Yeah it’s going to be really crazy this week.” So Ray you’re giving stock advice. “Well a little bit. I don’t like to give too much advice because it’s like if something goes bad then I feel really, really bad.” “Well it’s okay. If something’s going good you’ll feel good. I’ll buy you lunch”

My name is Sharlese, I graduated in Taiwan. “Today we talked about trading stocks today. So my professor was kind enough to show us his account and how to, he was showing the class how to actually buy and sell stocks. He went through examples of it so Sharlese is interested now in opening a broker account so she can trade stocks and make some money.” This is kind of a new thing for you huh? “Yes, yes, yes.” It looks like you’re excited about it? “A little bit. I don’t know. If I can make money, I would be more excited.” What stocks would you get do you know? “It’s a secret. I don’t want too many people to know about this.” “She thinks like a pro.”

It is lunchtime and we head back into the elevator, down to the streets. “Right now we’re in the 4th Street Mall which is the main part of the campus. You can pretty much see all of the buildings that comprise of HPU. Part of 4th Street Mall is restaurants. They have lots of food here and we’re going to go eat some food right now from a Vietnamese and Thai café. But they have all kinds of different foods here. They got foods from Greece, Italy, China, Japan, Korea, they got them all. Anything you could think of. They even have Hawaiian food over there on the other side of the 4th Street Mall. That’s where I usually get my lunch. So I go there at least three times a week, so they know me over there.” It sounds as if the food here reflects the culture of all the people here. Talking the school admin the MBA students are from all over. “It’s definitely true, from my understanding is Hawaiian food is a fusion of different Asian and other tropical islands foods and they just mixed them together and they came up with this Hawaiian food that we know today. I like it a lot. It’s really good. I know when you go to college they had something they called the freshman 15, that’s when you gain 15 pounds in your first year of college and over in Hawaii, I think that I got that in graduate school just because the food in Hawaii is so good.”

Ray has decided to take international marketing a bit of a surprise to him. “I’m a finance student so I do most of my concentration, or my electives in finance but I talked some people who said really good stuff about the class so I monitored the first class and I realized this is a class that I want to take. Dr. Stelien who is also the dean of the business school here at HPU. His class is a lot different than I am used to. It’s out of the box. He has a lot of practical experience out in the field. So I thought it would be a great learning opportunity for me to get into the international marketing asset of the MBA program.” Do you think that might change your fate and your focus? “I’m not sure about that. I’m really, really focused on finance but it will definitely broaden my horizons I think.”

Something else that will broaden the horizons of HPU students is the brand new entrepreneurial center. “I’m Bee Leng Chua; I’m the Executive Director of the Entrepreneurship Center at Hawaii Pacific University. I’m originally from Singapore but I come from Hong Kong. I’ve been staying in Hong Kong for about 18 years and working at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.” What do you bring from there to this brand new entrepreneurship center? “A lot because you know one thing that is amazing about Hawaii is that it truly is a multi-ethnic environment or community. I come from Asia and of course in Asia, China, Hong Kong, it’s really a fast growing region. Hong Kong has a very, very rich entrepreneurial heritage. It was started by people who actually started from nothing and became entrepreneurial tycoons. And of course China now is already growing and a lot of it is attributed to entrepreneurial growth too. So I come with all of that “can do” spirit that I’ve acquired and learned in Hong Kong and I bring it to Hawaii. One of the great things about being here is that people here were already convinced and they want this entrepreneurship center.” So what is your vision for it since it’s all brand new and it’s yours to lead and guide? “I would like to expand on this University’s entrepreneurial heritage because if you examine the history of the origins of Hawaii Pacific University, it really started from something that’s very small. Through its leaders like President Chet right, it actually grew and now it is an amazing organization and it’s still growing. So I’m just building on the foundations of its entrepreneurial culture. Basically, I’m promoting entrepreneurship to the students, to the faculty, and to the community.” This is really exciting stuff for you isn’t it? “Yes. This is in a way a very entrepreneurial experience and if you want to define entrepreneurship very broadly it’s basically bringing a vision to life.”

Ray and I head back to the building where he had the finance class. This time the class is international marketing, lead by the dean of the business school Chuck Steilin. His marketing expertise is in tying the Asian and local markets. This downtown building holds most of the business classes. There’s another campus on the windward side of the island where most of the undergrads live in residence halls and where the nursing and the marine biology classes are. Just before we enter the class, I check in with Ray who is full of surprises. We were talking earlier about what you want to do when you are finished with your MBA and I understand through networking with some of the students here you might not be going back to New Jersey? “When I first came to HPU my intention was to get my MBA then go to back to the mainland, preferably back where I was in the East Coast but then in my first week here at HPU, they had something called, an event called the Club Carnival which they basically showcased all the different students and their countries and I met some people from Australia and Thailand and I found out that through them that HPU has a exchange program where you can go abroad and take some of your courses in different countries and after meeting those two people I immediately thought that maybe it would be a great idea if I were to travel abroad and do some studies over there maybe for a semester.” Are you surprised by the turns that your potential life has taken? “Yeah. Before I came out here I didn’t know that I was going to be opened up to so many different worlds. It’s just an eye opening experience.” It’s kind of interesting to me too. You say you’re a finance guy and you monitor an international marketing class, you want to go there and meet some people from over there, you’re thinking of going to Australia. These are major changes in a way. “They’re definitely major changes but once you start meeting different people from around the world you just get to see a different perspective and you realize that you have more similarities than differences I think and that’s hope for the future in terms of intercultural relations.”

We’re about 15 minutes early for Ray’s international marketing class. An opportunity to talk with the dean and with this evening’s guest speaker. “Chuck Steilin, I’m the Dean of the College of Business Administration at Hawaii Pacific University.” What’s your vision at the college? “The first thing we’ve done is to totally rearrange our weekend MBA program. We now have an executive MBA program. It’s very relevant, it’s very integrated. We have reengineered our regular MBA program. It’s much more integrated. As we speak we are opening an entrepreneurship center down on Bishop Street. Its job is to help beef up our undergraduate and our graduate programs in entrepreneurship. As well as helping small to medium Hawaii companies understand how to be more effective at what they do. We will provide this sort of training service for these types of small companies. We want to eventually expand our global trade operations. We want to get into much more directed efforts in the international business arena, primarily the Asian Pacific region. We have many, many things that we’re trying to do right now.” In talking to the students and some of the other folks I find that there’s a huge amount of diversity here and I’m wondering how that plays into the world of business and the fact that you’re running this business school with all of these people from around the world. “Well it’s a fantastic opportunity but you have to, let’s call it “connect the dots”. I had a couple of German students a few years ago. I took a Hawaii skincare product, I brought it into the international marketing class, the two German students developed a launch strategy to Germany. They did such a good job, I sent the one student out to the north shore and she presented the project to the head of Oils of Aloha, she’s now the Director of Sales and Marketing for Oils of Aloha. She’s in LA right now. They’re looking at the launch strategy of Oils of Aloha into the west coast and into the states. He has employed two of my MBA students. One of his markets is Japan. And low and behold, he employed two of our Japanese MBA students get into the Japanese market. It’s connecting our students to a great deal with Hawaii products and then letting the students get involved in the classroom and then taking their knowledge outside the classroom and perhaps hooking into Hawaii companies.”

Dr. Steilin has a guest speaker for today’s international marketing class. “My name is Kevin Kraft, I’m with Tradewinds Global. I am the President of the company. We do export management and consulting. We work with small to mid sized companies helping them to prepare for export markets, launching branding and the whole export process from start to finish.” What kind of products? “Mostly consumer goods. We focus on pet products, we have a range of Hawaiian products and we’re getting into baby products as well.” So what do you do with his MBA students? “Both of them started off as interns doing market research in Japan, getting to know the market better, the channels better, the potential customers better. That’s best done in a local language. From there it is developing marketing plans, business proposals, specific information for specific channels of distribution.”

As the international marketing class begins, Dean Chuck Steilin goes through his marketing plan meticulously and Kevin Kraft explains to the MBA students how it all fits together in the real world. “What about honey? Hawaiian Honey? If you go through Dr. Steilin’s model and you find out there’s a market for a Hawaiian Honey line overseas. First you take a look at the product. Which you all will have a chance to do shortly. Is it a nice package? Forget about the taste, you’re not going to taste it so just look at the consumer good outside package.” “How do you compete with other companies who sell with more price? Why did you decide to sell it for $9.00? How do you set the price?” “We have to see what other competitors are out there. In the terms of honey, Australia is a major producer of honey. Australia is one of the best countries for promoting their exports. They do a really good, the government really supports it. So if you go to the supermarket in Hong Kong, Taiwan, I would imagine the Philippines, and China, there’s a lot more Australian honey products than American honey products. So looking at that, looking at the size of the price. Do they have organic ingredients, is it an organic honey. There are jars of honey smaller than that that sell for the equivalent of 100 US dollars.” “Is that for show or do you eat it?”

The students are definitely part of the program. “Hi.” “This is my friend.” Yeah tell me. “Alright this is Tin-tin.” And you’re from where? “I’m from the Philippines. I am an MBA student. My major is marketing and I’m on my third semester.” How old are you? “I’m twenty five.” So what’s your interest in being in this class and how’s it hitting you? “It’s very interesting. I mean he started talking about the class just last week was the first meeting. Then we started reading the book and trying to see what all of this feedback about how marketing is introduced in different countries it’s very, very interesting and trying to see how it would work. In the future I do see myself as a brand manager. You know handling a specific line of products. I see myself doing business all over the world. So just taking cues from speakers like Kevin, like Dr. Steilin, it’s just very educational for me.” This is picking up all kind of questions. “Yeah, I know, I had to stop myself from asking questions because other students had questions as well. Some of it I think I can relate to him as an Asian and then having worked in the industry for a couple of years when I was there. But basically you know I had to curb some of my questions and ask them personally after his whole schpeel.”

Time to talk with Dean Chuck Steilin. So it sounds as if a lot of what is going on here is tied to the fact that this is Hawaii. It sounds as if students come here because of where it is. It seems like you’re marketing because of what it is, etc. It is very much so and because of our location, location which is a strategic location so that if you want to get into Asia and you want to have the experience come here and do as Kevin has done. Find some products, we have a lot of great Hawaiian products and take these products into Asia. You can come to work and look for young people like Kevin who have these companies and who are now trying to exploit these products worldwide. What a great opportunity. The learning obviously here does not take place just in the classroom.”

This has been a full day, with intense classes and intelligent conversations. Now it is time to wind down. Ray knows how to end the day. So that was nice. “That was nice. It was a little colder than I thought. I usually when I come out here. Sometimes I will come out here at midnight to go swimming and the water is really surprisingly warm and it’s just really nice, peaceful, quiet feeling to be out here.” This is an amazing way to begin and end your day. “Oh it’s almost too good to be true to do my MBA in paradise.”

It’s a new day and I catch up with Ray on campus. What’s your day been like so far Ray? “Well this morning I woke up extra early because it was a big day for the federal interest rate so I wanted to monitor the stock market and see what was going on. So I actually woke up today at 5:30. Hawaii being six hours behind compared to the Eastern Standard Time, you have to wake up a little bit early sometimes but it’s okay with me. So I woke up early today, I had some coffee and I had a bagel for breakfast and just sat in front of my computer and watched the business news in the background. After that I probably wrapped the market closes here at 10 o’clock. That’s 4 o’clock Eastern standard time and get ready to go to school and meet with you guys. Today I don’t actually have class. I’m taking four classes and I have two classes on Monday, one class on Wednesday and one class on Friday. So normally I save Tuesday and Thursday for my study days in the afternoon and I get to relax in the evenings.”

While Ray hangs out on campus I talk about the admissions process with the Associate Vice President Harry Byerly. Once you’ve enticed them to come to HPU, what kind of application process is it? “We try not to make it intimidating. I mean it’s a fairly standard process. Students are asked to prepare in advance studying for the GMAT. Preparing for the GMAT is really, really important. After they study for the GMAT, take the GMAT we ask for the application form, two letters of recommendation, their two essay questions. International students have to go through a little extra work. They have to actually get sponsorship, financial sponsorship from a family member or someone who wants to support them when they come to the US to study. Basically that’s it. You know they put together their application package, they send it to the university. We assign an individual graduate admissions representative to work with them personally and they basically guide them through the process. So we keep them updated on where they stand. If transcripts are missing or whatever. So we try to stay very connected. We keep it very personal and we believe that customer service is real important.” Do you have a sense for percentages in terms of what you have now and what you would like? “On the students we have about 40% come from Hawaii. Another 40% come from international locations and the remainder comes from the US mainland. What’s interesting is that when you look at where students go after they graduate is that many of them, many of our mainland students actually stay in Hawaii for a while. Many of our international students actually go to the US mainland for a while to work. They’re staying here either to get more experience or the international students are moving on to other locations just to again broaden their own professional experience. So you know while we provide a really good education, we provide a really good launching pad into a lot of different areas.”

We visit one of Ray’s favorite teachers. “Aytun Ozturk, Assistant Dean at the College of Business and also Associate Professor of Quantitative Methods.” I understand that you’re one of the most challenging professors around. Can you tell me about that? “I guess that is due to the nature of the course and teaching quantitative methods. The challenge I have is to calm them down the first class. Then explain to them that it’s going to be challenging but if they put in the work they will be fine.” What do business students need with the courses that you teach? What do they need out of that? “They tend to develop their analytical skills form it. So in business school they take courses in different subject areas, marketing, finance and all that. So they have this perspective from that subject. They have to also gain an analytical perspective so they can understand when they’re presented numbers daytime they can make sense of it; they can make decisions based on this information provided to them.”

Now Ray you’re a finance major so how are you seeing what you’ve learned in Dr. Ozturk’s class? “Well I took Dr. O’s class last semester. It actually was my first year, the second semester of my first year. As a finance major, I think the stuff that we learn in the QM class is very useful for me in particular because finance students use a lot of the statistical methods to analyze the data that come out of the US stock market just like moving averages and direction analysis and stuff like that. Actually I’m probably going to be using some of the stuff that I learned in his class to write my capstone paper.”

You’ve been a student at many other universities, what drew you to this university to teach? “The weather. Joking aside. I saw HPU as a place I can flourish as academic. I am from Turkey originally and HPU has lots of international students so I thought that I would fit right in. Business school is reputable; it has a good reputation around the world. I heard about HPU when I was in Turkey before even I went to college in the mainland US. So we have typically twenty five students in a classroom and that gives the students a chance to interact with the instructor on a daily basis. I think that’s a great strength that we have.”

Ray what’s your experience been in that regard? “That’s definitely a good point that class sizes here are very small and I like the idea that you can approach your professors. They are very approachable and they’re very supportive and they really want you to do well. So if you have any questions or problems, they’re always willing to help you.” And you’re sitting next to Dr. O today. You took the bus home with Dr. Chuck Steilin yesterday. “Yes. After we finished class I saw him at the bus stop and we just started talking and then on the way home he is also staying in Waikiki, I live in Waikiki myself and we had a nice conversation on the way home. How great is that? You get to talk to your professor outside of class.”

Once Ray graduates, HPU has a system to help him find the perfect career. Whether he plans to go back to New Jersey, to Australia or to Asia. Career services engages with students before they even set foot on campus. My name is Lianne Maeda, Director of Career Services here at Hawaii Pacific University.” It sounds as if you have different ways of helping the students connect with potential jobs. Like job fairs and developing relationships with companies. What are some of the techniques that you use and how does that play out? “We work with the employers who actually come to recruit on campus. We have companies like Marriott and Hilton and Merrill Lynch and you know a lot of these companies are actually looking for high caliber, high functioning students. We have had much success with them tapping into the MBA market to fill up the management training positions or a lot of the senior level, executive level type positions that they’re unable to fill. We started up an event here called the career connections forum from last year’s candidates because we wanted to actually develop something unique and specific just for our graduate students. What we try to do is we outreach to employers and we’re actually asking them if they’re specifically looking for MBA graduates. If so, they’re the target audience that we want to bring on to campus to promote various opportunities for students. Whether it be just part time positions that they have, whether it be an internship opportunity that students can earn credit for or a full-time career opportunity. That’s worked out very well for us.” What are some of the coolest jobs that you’ve heard about that students have gotten? “We’ve had students that have accrued revenue management positions in Korea. I had a student secure a controller position over one of the neighboring islands on Maui and then he moved to Kauai in this certain area and then moved to Asia and now is working in Guam. There’s a lot of mobility for students who are open to that. Gosh we’ve got people who are information officers for the consulates, auditors for Deloitte & Touche in Singapore, District Managers for John Hancock. This one person that I’m going to make reference to actually started at John Hancock and he’s only 25 or 26 and he was just hand selected by Pacific Guardian on the mainland to actually head up a new operation here in Hawaii. He’s the youngest General Manager that they’ve actually selected in the history of their company.”

If you were talking various companies you have representatives from all kinds of companies. What would they get with HPU students that they couldn’t find anywhere else? “What we commonly hear is reference being made to just being more culturally savvy than the typical person coming. There’s also the sense of and hearing this from employers in the mainland as well as overseas that the students coming from Hawaii Pacific University tend to come in with just a certain, a different work ethic that is more team oriented, that they typically are not show blowers wanting to showcase themselves but instead tend to gravitate toward motivating members of a group to work towards a common goal. It’s been something I’ve heard very commonly from employers.”

So what are some of the opportunities you give to your MBA students? “Well we have a recruiting calendar that we put out every semester. So we might do something where we might have an employer come in, do an information session on opportunities with their particular company. An example would be Marriott and they’re going to do a recruitment week with all of the local universities here in the state. So basically our job is to get the word out to students, collect resumes for them to screen through. They will select the students they would choose to interview over the course of the next two days for that particular event. We also have events like our career fairs. We have a career placements forum for master’s candidates. It’s a half day event. In the spring we hold a business and technology career fair as well. So we bring over 75 employers on campus and we try to align our events, our large events with other universities, other local universities and we call it Hawaii recruit week.”

It seems as if your MBA students who have graduated, gone on to great jobs come back and help some of the current crop of students. That’s a nice form of networking. “Absolutely and we do rely heavily on that network to get our students into various types of positions so we’ve had people like KJU who graduated with his MBA from Hawaii Pacific University, works at Merrill Lynch locally and has hired a number of our students in positions as finance advisors as well as interns. And Sherry Lynne Agala who actually received her MBA in spring of ’06 who is now the HR Administrator at KMEH which is a large economy firm here in Hawaii. We also have people like Nash Suboltic who received his MBA in finance and he is the manager who is going to be opening up Pacific Guardian here in Honolulu and is looking to hire at least 15 graduates from Hawaii Pacific University. If we have students who are interested in hooking up with alumni, MBA alumni and they’re looking for internship opportunities or full-time opportunities we can assist them in helping to make those connections.” What’s your best help for this whole process that you do? “That our MBA’s get great opportunities. That’s what we’re here for and that’s what we’re hoping for.”

Ray has invited two of his friends to join us for lunch so we can learn more about HPU. As we walk over to a restaurant we get to know each other. “These are two of the brightest classmates in the MBA program.” “Hi, my name is Kristine but everybody calls me Tin-tin. I’m from Manila, Philippines and I am taking up my MBA here in Hawaii. My undergraduate was the University of the Philippines. I took Hotel and Restaurant Administration.” Did you work in between? “Yes, I worked one year for a retail company that manufactured personal products, a manufacturing company. I did basically their retail sales for that. Then three years I worked as a sales manager for a service department in Asia called Oakwood.” So what are your career goals? “Well it’s either go back to Oakwood because they’re expanding rapidly in Asia. They are now building properties in India, in China. So I could go back with them but right now because of what I’ve learned from this MBA class, I’m thinking of going toward brand development. So I probably want to be a brand manager and try out that field.” “I’m Shilpa Jangam, I’m from India. From Bangalore, it’s in the south of India. I’m a lawyer basically. I was practicing as a lawyer in India for five years. Then I thought of doing MBA. So most probably I will be practicing as lawyer here because I will be taking up the bar examine in Hawaii.” So how does your MBA help you? “A lot. After joining MBA I think my ability of thinking has totally changed, the way I think, the way I analyze things. In a more universal perspective, not just don’t think about when you’re in India you think only about, in culturally, ethically, you think only in those terms. But when you come out in the wide world you think globally. You think universally.”

We’re at a place called Just Tacos Mexican Grill. “There are a lot of restaurants around here that there are so many choices to eat. You can pretty much find food from any culture really. Basically we just run across the street from campus and here we are enjoying some Mexican food.” So how does this fit into your daily schedule? “Like he said, there’s a lot of choices. You can either do indoor eating/dinning or outdoor. So whatever the weather is. People can actually just have lunch here or have dinner, have drinks. I think HPU from my experience is pretty spontaneous. Like you run into people, so are you free, sure want to hang out. I am like yeah. “For me, I just feel it like I have eaten more than 10 country’s food after coming to Hawaii.” I’m wondering about something. If someone from the mainland for example, maybe from the Midwest where characteristically there’s not a lot of diversity would they feel comfortable coming to HPU? Do you think? “I think as far as I have seen from all of my classmates that come from cold places they just love Hawaii. Whenever they introduce themselves, oh I just love the weather, that’s the first and foremost thing that they say. Mainland people definitely prefer coming here because of the warm people, warm weather, everything is warm.” “Not just the weather. I mean all sorts of things. We’re basically here primarily to take up our MBA but there are so many other activities that we can do outside of class. I mean I had three years of work in the Philippines and I got burned out basically. After I had this concept that I want to balance work and life which is pretty common now in this particular generation and Hawaii offers that. You get to have a good education, we’ve got great caliber of faculty and at the same time activities. So you get to work on your health, you get to work on your sports, basically I’m a scuba diver in the Philippines and I am continuing it here. And it’s so easier, like every week Friday is my scuba diving day; I just go to the north shore in different areas and try to see underwater life. Then Sundays sign up for the Honolulu marathon clinic which is something Hawaii is also known for. This Honolulu Marathon is December so it’s a full marathon, 26.2 miles. I know. So I’m training for it and it’s a good social networking event because I’m meeting a lot of people.”

What do you do? “I just enjoy watching water. I just enjoy, I’m not really a water person but I like to know the calmness and the peace. When I see the water I just spend hours just looking at the water. That’s the best thing. I like looking at people surfing and enjoying all of the water activities. I like watching rather than doing.” But you’ve tapped into something else here. She was talking about balance and so it seems to me that when you’re really busy and you’re working really hard on a degree that to have that meditative aspect is very valuable as well. Sitting by an ocean and watching it and just being very calm. “Yeah that’s what makes you focus your parts when you sit and see the water. Even in yoga they say that you need to see water and greenery that gives you calmness in your mind and make you feel better and recoup yourself for the next whatever test, exam, whatever it is.”

“For me the MBA program here at HPU is very challenging. There’s a lot of work so you work hard, you need to play hard and enjoy Hawaii. I actually feel more relaxed than I have in a while even though I have all this work load. You have a lot of these activities that you can do and just like Shilpa said and Tin-tin said we can just hang out at the beach and just chill out there and just try to collect your thoughts and just relax.”

And where you do you go when you want to have a ton of fun? When you just really want to just go with your friends somewhere really hot? “I don’t consider myself a bar hopper or a club person but I do enjoy it once in a while.” “Fun, just study because you know in India, it’s not that it’s wrong but we are not brought up that way.” “I could relate to her that in the sense that in the Philippines everything is just so far away. I lived in the city and for you to get to the nearest beach it could take you four or five hours in traffic. But here it’s a pretty small place. You can get to the north shore in about one hour drive. So to relax and have fun, because I’m an outdoor person, not really a bar, nightlife person so for me to have fun it would be just going around the island. You can go hiking, there’s a lot of hiking trails, ….loop, ….lighthouse. You can go surfing, you could do bogy boarding by Kailua because the waves are really good there or diving in the north shore. Here downtown it’s just 30 minutes away from where I live, or basically five minutes walking distance from HPU got the ….mansion, the newly revived Chinatown, there’s also Hawaii Theater which features a lot of plays. So there’s basically a lot of things to do to unwind, to have fun to relax. Depends on the mood.” “You can do all of these things in Hawaii and you don’t even need a car to do it because you can take the bus anywhere.”

Just tell me how this figures into your dreams of really creating a great life for yourselves. “One of my biggest dreams has actually already come true. I get to live in Hawaii for two years. I have always wanted to do that since as long as I can remember. Now, how many people get to say they lived in Hawaii for two years? That’s actually one of the reasons why I picked the MBA program. Actually I have a theory about why HPU has been able to get such high caliber faculty members, because professors are human too and they like to enjoy the benefits that Hawaii has to offer and that benefits all of us as students.” “I think for me it was really a dream come true because I had studied the Hawaiian Islands in geography in my school. I never even knew that the whole island exists; I thought it was a part of the island. No people live there. It’s like a distant. I never knew there was so much life here. Once I came here faculty is like a family. They are so supportive, so understanding and they bring the best out of you.” How about you Tin-tin? What about your dreams and coming here and how it all comes together for you? “Well being here in Hawaii and HPU has made me grow in so many aspects. I mean personally and physically, you know I’ve been able to work on my health and in terms of growing I haven’t lived away from my family so this has given me some sort of independence. Mentally of course, HPU is a challenge. We also learn from outside. We have luncheons, we have dinners with classmates. I have some friends come over and we talk about current events from the country in mind. Career wise it is a great stepping stone because this means that I have connections now. You’re probably going to go back to India, our friend is going to go back to Korea, our friend is probably going to go to Germany. So wherever I go there is a connection there and I will definitely use that to the best of my advantage when I graduate from HPU. It’s good to know that wherever I go there will probably be someone I’ve met at HPU who could help me start my career in that particular country or area of the world.” “I told you they were smart!”

Ray and I both take a break and later we meet up at Waikiki, barefoot and in a bathing suit. How do you end your day? “Usually after school I will go home, maybe grab a bite to eat. Maybe take a walk around Waikiki and since I live so close to the ocean I like to pay a visit to the beach every once in a while and see how it’s going out here. Other things that we can do at night. Usually I get my friends together, if we get enough people we get to play some tennis over at the tennis courts near the army museum or we’ll go over to the driving range by the LOI and maybe hit some golf balls.” How do you keep your focus when you have such immense beauty around you? That’s a great question. I thought it would be a problem to keep my focus with all of these distractions but it actually worked out that it isn’t a distraction anymore. It’s more a privilege or a benefit to enjoy when you have the chance to do that.” You know I think it would be hard to leave here after you’re done getting your MBA. “You’re right it’s definitely a possibility for me to stay out here. I’m starting to get used to it. I’ve been home once since I’ve been out here and when I did get home it was Christmas time of course so it was very cold outside and I thought about coming back here and enjoying the hot sun of Hawaii.”

Thanks for listening to a day in the life at Hawaii Pacific University. I’m Diana Jordan; stay tuned to MBA Podcaster for our next exciting adventure.