<p>my son was accepted to the ibce program(also honors college).we are from outside philadelphia.has anyone else's son/daughter been in or is accepted this program and can tell me more?thank you</p>
<p>The IBCE program is really amazing. Two of my good friends are in it, and this is what your son’s 4yr schedule would look like:
Freshman: Taking intro business and chinese classes at USC
Summer: Intensive language classes at the Chinese University of Hong Kong
Sophomore: Studying at CUHK for the full year
Summer: More classes at CUHK
Junior: Back at USC, taking classes
Summer & Senior Year: CUHK</p>
<p>It’s a very intensive program, which supposedly yields something like a 95% job placement rate after college. I think only about 20 people each year do the program, so there is a lot of one-on-one guidance from the faculty. My two friends are really happy with it, and definitely recommend doing ICBE because it helps to compete in the global business world of today.</p>
<p>gamecockgirl,thank you very much for the information.my son did accept the offer to the program.now i guess i should take a class on speaking mandarin.</p>
<p>There are a couple of things that may be misleading about GameCock Girl’s comment. I have no idea where the 95% job placement statistic came from. I am in the inaugural class and currently a junior at USC. There is no track record to substantiate that statistic. Furthermore, class size does not indicate the type of attention we receive from the faculty. I would actually be frank and say that there is not much individual attention built into the program. IBCE is like anything in life. You have to take and make your own opportunities. The school does not guarantee internships or jobs. Deeply consider that Hong Kong is a Cantonese speaking city and the cost of the two summers. Also, I would encourage you to get to know the administration as well as you can before shipping off to Asia. Summer before senior year participants are expected to obtain an internship in their chosen field. We will not be back in Hong Kong.</p>
<p>This program is a farce and waste of time and money. Learning Mandarin in Hong Kong is a waste of time. The students get no practice or reinforcement outside of the classroom. CUHK does not have classes appropriate for the IBCE students. The CUHK teachers do not have interactive classrooms and use a dictatorial style of teaching. They talk, you listen. They don’t try and help the students at all who never know what is going on.</p>
<p>The administration at USC is totally disorganized and do not communicate with the students at all. Once in HK the students are left to fend for themselves. The kids don’t learn anything. Now they are sending the students to Beijing for the summer, but just to a regular program that anyone can go to. The classes are loaded with 20 students, useless for language learning.</p>
<p>Don’t waste your money. This program has a long way to go before it has any real value and perhaps it never will with the administration’s attitude. USC is a mediocre school at best and this program is not even that. The school does absolutely nothing to facilitate anything. If yo try and deviate from the program at all you will be kicked out for asking. It is a rigid and inflexible program. Many students have already been kicked out or quit. Their attrition/retention ratio speaks for itself.</p>
<p>Sorry if I misled you, I think the 95% part came from the international business school as a whole. All of the information I had came straight from a friend who is in the IBCE program. I agree with ibcekid in that you take out what you make of it; as with anything in life, nothing is going to be handed out. That being said, anyone who has the opportunity to do a program like this is going to get ahead in the business world. Yes it is a new program but there are some really great things happening.</p>
<p>What is your basis for calling the program a farce ? Are you currently in the program ? You also called USC a mediocre school, please state why ?</p>
<p>As a IBCE parent here are a few observations. First, if your son or daughter does not already have some time learning Mandarin it’s an extra uphill hurdle.
If they are not independent and can function well on thier own, its not for them. If your son or daughter has never traveled far from “Iowa”, still sleeps with a Teddy Bear, its not the time to branch out.
Hong Kong is not a good place for your kids to be forced to grow up. If they don’t already have a good head on their shoulders, not for them. Drinking age is 18 there also.
The education system in HK is different, very. A Western student may find they are Self Educating themselves but it’s a very sink or swim system, no hand holding—none.
The program will be what you make it as a student and their are challenges but it is one of the best and most selective of its kind. While no class has graduated yet from the program I expect there will be a long line of potential employers for a Good student that is independent, can think on their feet, very proficient in Mandarin with a good handle on the culture.
As of retention rate–some kids get home sick, can’t handle being that far away from May of the freshman year to August of the following year–that’s the first time there then there are internships and Senior year. Thats a lot for a kid and some realize too late that the “juice is not worth the squeeze”. Other than a few visits home it can take a toll so they better be ready and so should the parents.
On the flip-side they can go to Macao for a weekend, Thailand during an extended Holiday or long weekend in Taiwan. Spend a few days in Shanghai. This is an experience and an education far from the norm. Some kids can’t hack it, their grades, attitudes, realizing they don’t want to ever see China again nor specialize in it any longer so it’s amazing that 2/3 of the kids stick with it.
As for the education and school --my student loves University of SC. Great sports, activities, area. Two hours from the beach, mountains. My student would love to be there but realizes they need to tough it out in China. The educational requirements are intense or you can’t stay in the program. Distractions, stress, emotions require your student to have a great head on their shoulders and be responsible. The schools not going to teach them this and it’s frankly not their job. It’s a far from perfect program and has growing pains but I know when my student goes into an interview they are going to blow them off their feet in what life can throw at them, and can do the entire interview in written or conversational Mandarin. Your not getting that sitting in a class room in Big School U.</p>
<p>I currently have a daughter in the IBCE program and I 1000% agree with everything ibceparent posted above. I would not deter a student that is interested in IBCE but had little experience in the Chinese language as my daughter took only one year of Chinese in high school before joining this program. That being said, you must be a motivated person to learn at the pace which will be required but it is possible to be successful in IBCE without an extensive background in the Chinese language if you are willing to put in the work. 6-7 hours a day, 5 days a week of intensive Mandarin training is enough to drain even the smartest kid. And even after 2 summers of this intensive language study as well as continued Mandarin courses each semester my daughter still wonders if she will ever be fluent. But she can hold conversations in Mandarin and navigate herself in foreign countries entirely on her own which is nothing to be taken lightly for an 18-20 year old “kid” forced to learn about the world. She wouldn’t trade it for anything and what an experience she has had. She has already traveled to 7 or more countries, taking side trips that she has funded on her own by working as an English tutor all while continuing to make the grades required to stay in this program. I will reiterate what was said above and that ANYONE considering this program MUST be independent and responsible - it is NOT for someone that is skittish about being out on their own, needs constant reminders to make smart decisions and can’t learn on their own. Western education is different than what will be experienced at CUHK. There is no hand holding and despite the advisors trying to prepare you - often you have to figure things out on your own. Remember though, there are 20+ other students going through it with you so you are not completely alone. </p>
<p>True, there have been growing pains but this program is paving the way for other universities that are trying to model this experience and they are consistently making improvements and as of now there is nothing of its kind offered elsewhere not to mention that the Darla School of Business has ranked as the #1 International Business School for several years running. It is a very competitive program but once accepted these students become close friends and learn how to work together, all coming from varying backgrounds, ethnicities and social classes. The one thing they all have in common though is the motivation and drive they all inherently have and I am thrilled my child is surrounded by people of this caliper. A recent visit for parents weekend revealed the Wall Street Journal as well as other various business journals laying around her apartment and listening to them all speak together about what was on their agenda for the coming week blew me away. I thought geez - when I was their age, I was definately thinking about things of a more trivial nature. They have had such broad experiences already that their eyes and mind have been enlightened and I can tell you we have been nothing but satisfied with the growth we have seen in our daughter (despite sleepless nights and worry from a mothers heart) because she has learned to survive in the world on her own. She knew when looking for colleges that she wanted more than just a semester abroad and that is the main reason this program appealed to her. She wanted to major in International Business and see the world and she has already experienced more than I could have imagined. It hasn’t been easy - she has had to be strong, we have had to be strong, she has missed her friends from home and her siblings but she knows that she is learning outside of the classroom at a pace that others can only dream of. Of course as her parent, I hope this makes her marketable so I have a nice return on my investment - so to speak. I am fairly confident she will be seen as a valuable, competitive addition to any company lucky enough to have her talents. However, I can tell you even if she doesn’t land her dream job at graduation she is farther ahead in life simply by experiencing the world and she is a better person for it.</p>
<p>Also, know that they speak Cantonese in Hong Kong, not Mandarin, which you will be learning. To me that seems pointless and threw me off from the program!</p>
wow, it really looks like things haven’t changed since the 2012 comments. It’s so interesting to see the views posted that seem very similar to what we have seen with our own child as of late. Very disorganized program, to say the least, and admin is seriously weak. The kids do have to “fend for themselves”, and I agree, they will be better bc of it, but they must be independent and strong to begin with!
I’m a student in the IBCE program currently, and I can say that it’s been amazing - not only for my college experience, but also for my professional prospects. For this summer, I have gotten a number of internship offers, all of them because I talked up the program and what I did as an IBCE student. This is the case for many current students, and internships span from Google to Deloitte to Boeing to the U.N. For such a small program, IBCE has a very good track record: many graduates have gone on to work for Big 4 accounting, Big 4 consulting, and other Fortune 500 companies, as well as prestigious schools like Oxford, SAIS, and NHH. IBCE students have been selected to attend incredible international conferences such as APEC and and HPAIR (both at Harvard and Tokyo). They are also given the exclusive opportunity to represent USC in the Citi International Case Competition in Hong Kong. There are many, many great opportunities presented to IBCE students - but the students have to step up and take advantage of them.
As for administration, I would say it’s not that they’re weak so much as they’re hands-off - they’ve said explicitly that they want students step up and take on leadership roles. I’ve worked with them on a couple of projects, so I can say from experience that they’re great people, very helpful, and very beneficial to have in your network - but students who don’t have the initiative or interest to approach them with projects won’t get much out of them. Getting involved in the program and its administrators takes proactivity - like everything else in IBCE, nothing is going to be spoon-fed to you. As bergalerg points out, you must be independent to begin with, or at least develop that sense of independence quickly!
My son is an incoming Freshman at USC and will be part of the IBCE program. Any updates from current students or parents would be great. We love this opportunity but as a parent are looking for any information on the experience.
This goes for anyone considering IBCE or the International Business Chinese Enterprise program.
Here is a miniature flow chart.
Do you have a rich family and connections which will help you land a position at a huge investment bank?
If the answer to that question is yes, do this program, otherwise, DON’T DO IT.
The program provides you no additional benefits to further your career or improve your chances at landing a job. If you think this program will help you get a backdoor into the USC IB program, you are right, it does, but you need to value the costs. Think about this:
Your first year, you are allowed to do what you want at USC, get involved in clubs, join a fraternity or sorority, make friends, and maybe meet the love of your young life. None of any of these things will matter or do anything if you stay in IBCE. After the first year, you get one month off to pack and they ship you to Hong Kong to start taking Chinese classes. You do nothing but Chinese for two months. I wish I could say this strongly improved my Chinese skills, but it didn’t. (I will get back to this.) You get one more month off, if you are lucky, and then you begin classes. You have to take 2 Chinese classes per semester, which allows you significantly less time than your peers to take the necessary course work to graduate. Oh, and those Chinese classes you take don’t actually count towards anything, other than satisfaction for your power hungry advisors. Ok, so you get done with the year and you get six weeks off, and then have to take a mandatory program in Taiwan, which is nothing special and is a thousand dollars, and a month of your time. If you weren’t in this program, you could take this time for an internship.
Now you are back at USC for your third year… Remember that stuff you did Freshman year? Good, because you are the only one. No one else cares. Many of your friends are highly unlikely to remember you because you are coming back after not seeing them for a year and now have very little in common. Many of the clubs you were in barely have a spot for you because they expect continuity. You have nothing. During this time, you will apply to internships, only to realize you have no experience to speak of because you spent both the summers you would have gained experience “learning Chinese”. Do you think anyone cares about that? Nope. You are a dime in a dozen, they have so many applicants who have also taken Chinese. You want to speak highly of your time in Hong Kong? Well, all you have really done is go to and come back from class and maybe get a tutoring job so you have alcohol money. You don’t got nothing. Now you will go to a second rate internship (UNLESS YOU USE YOUR FAMILY CONNECTIONS TO GET SOMETHING AT A FANCY PLACE.) which won’t offer you a full time position.
Now it’s time for your senior year. All of the places which recruit will be back at USC, but you are in Hong Kong, where you have to the 12-hour time difference, which along with the distance makes it borderline impossible to land any position at all. You are trying to get a job post college so you don’t need to move back in with your parents or mooch off of them to go to graduate school. But you can’t. No one who has looked at your resume is excited to hire you. Yay.
Oh and you know those Chinese skills which would give you distinction? It sucks, because Hong Kong doesn’t speak Putonghua (mandarin). They speak Cantonese, and if you try Mandarin, they ask for English. So you get zero exposure, and nothing to benefit you there. If you were in mainland China for a longer stretch of your education, I would say that would be good, because you are actually immersed in Chinese Language and the people around you are more likely to pick up more of the language.
Ok, so now let’s talk about the advisors. They make you sign a contract to keep your GPA above a certain number, and that you understand you will attend the first summer of language classes. After this, they will say you are required to pass the HSK IV or the second “optional summer” is now mandatory. So you know that your future prospects are in danger and you ask them to do something. What do they offer? Drop the program or do as they say. That’s it, that is all. If you don’t drop the program, your future is screwed. If you don’t do this program, you won’t get in to IB which could well be the reason that you came to South Carolina, and you just wasted your opportunity to go to a better opportunity. (Don’t get me wrong, I love Carolina, but with my GPA and SAT scores coming out of high school, I could have gone to better schools with better opportunities with less stress, if I had known.) Congrats. You are screwed. So many people end up dropping anyway in hope they can salvage something out of nothing. That is why the retention rate is close to 20%.
Now you have no job, no great opportunity to land a job, and you are forced to go back and pay more money to USC because they are the only place that will accept you to graduate school. You look back and realize that your huge mistake was doing IBCE. Don’t be that guy, don’t do IBCE.
I wish I could speak to someone who has gotten through this program and didn’t fit criteria one (Family money/connections) and ended up being as successful as the advisors make it sound. Then again, those people would be successful regardless of whether or not they did this program.
I completely disagree. My daughter could easily answer no to the first question and has graduated from this program and along with her peers (which by the way all but 2 out of 20 completed the program - well above the 20% retention rate stated above) had amazing opportunities and are all successfully pursuing careers (with no connections) that they love. Sounds like this program was just not the right fit for IBCEBATCH6. I highly recommend it for someone that is independent, loves to travel and is smart enough to keep their priorities straight.