Miami students 'grow up' at Peking University

Matt Gambatese looking over the Hong Kong harbor

Mike Carter by the Great Wall of China

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Two Farmer School students wrung every possible learning opportunity from their semester in China last spring. As juniors, finance major Mike Carter and marketing major Matt Gambatese tackled rigorous courses at Peking University while adjusting to Chinese student culture. They traveled extensively and honed their Mandarin skills inside and outside the classroom.

The two shared an apartment in a large housing complex in Beijing’s Haidian District, a residential area inhabited mostly by Chinese families. Their living situation fostered daily interaction in Chinese with their neighbors.

“We were living a ‘real life’ there – much more than we do as students in Oxford,” Gambatese commented.

In his exchange semester, Carter took a full load of MBA classes at Peking University’s Guanghua School of Management. He noted significant differences in student behavior between Peking and Miami.

“Students at Peking University are singularly focused on school work,” he observed. “They go out a lot less than Miami students. While they may go to dinner together, they don’t hang out and chat after the meal is over. Libraries are packed all the time, even on Saturday evenings.”

Students who live in dormitories face an 11 p.m. lights-off curfew, so they work hard to complete their work before then.

"Chinese students’ discipline and focus reflect social and cultural expectations," Carter explained. “University admission is extremely competitive in China, especially at the prestigious Peking University, where students must be the very top in their province to attend. They, and students at other top-ranked Chinese universities, are under great pressure from their parents and society. They are expected to land good jobs, and to be able to step into high-power careers soon after graduation, even as the job market in China is becoming more and more competitive.”

On the weekends Carter traveled alone or with Gambatese. He took along his text books to read on long train rides, but put them down whenever he had the opportunity to engage in conversations with local Chinese travelers because, he said, “That is where the real education happens when you study abroad.”

Gambatese added an internship to his academic load of graduate marketing and Mandarin courses, serving as marketing director for Language Calls, a web-based language education company. As part of his duties, he researched potential new markets and helped with office administration.

“My co-workers were people of all different backgrounds,” he said. “Most were Chinese, but I worked most closely with a web developer from Colombia and he and I became great friends. Functioning in such a diverse environment could be challenging, but it fostered creativity and innovation in a big way. Everyone approached a problem differently, and this allowed us all to think outside of the box.”

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