Learning from overseas travel

By Peter Walker for CNN

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(CNN) -- For many business school students in the United States, early January would usually see them enjoy some time off to visit friends and family, or perhaps take a holiday. Not any more.

In yet another sign of the ever-increasing importance of global business experience for would-be executives, first year MBA students at the Yale School of Management are spending the first two weeks of this January abroad, a newly compulsory part of the program.

International experience has long been optional at business schools, many of which now offer joint programs with schools in different countries.

However, the move by Yale is the first time a major MBA program has required students to study overseas as part of their course.

The students have traveled to one of eight destinations around the globe for a fortnight of study, meeting business and government leaders as well as NGOs, and to take part in a project and cultural events.

The trips, led by faculty members from the highly-rated school, form an integral part of the MBA curriculum.

The destinations on offer are Argentina, China, Costa Rica, India, Japan, Singapore, and one of two combined trips, one to England and Poland or another to South Africa and Tanzania.

Cultural borders

Yale says it has decided on the change because modern management careers inevitably cross cultural and political borders.

"For a number of years, (Yale) has had a number of very popular student-organized trips abroad, but the faculty felt that it was important to make the International Experience a formal requirement of our program," said the school's dean, Joel M. Podolny.

"The new curriculum is based on the idea of being adept at working across boundaries, including geographic, cultural, and political boundaries, so it was very intuitive for us to make this a part of the curriculum."

"Many MBAs will work in positions that will require them to work cross-culturally, whether it's directly or indirectly," added Professor Zhiwu Chen, who is leading the trip to China.

"Providing them with a hands-on experience is the best way to prepare them for that challenge."

Students taking the China option are meeting executives at the Bank of China and China National Petroleum, among others, as they study the vast country's swift economic transformation.

In contrast, those in Costa Rica are looking at how globalization affects smaller countries, for example the Central American nation's use of eco-tourism as a niche market.

The two nation trips offer a different perspective again -- those students in England and Poland are looking at things such as investing in a global context, as well as corporate governance.

The overseas trips form part of a new curriculum which replaces the traditional MBA stapes of plain finance, marketing, and other subjects with so-called "multidisciplinary courses" to make the teaching more relevant.

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