Politechnika FME Students

Travel is done for now- so back to work.

Well, I have spent my first full week with students. They gave me (I think on purpose) an interesting mixture, a little bit from each of their programs.

Recall from my previous blog http://mylesgartland.blogspot.com/2009/10/opening-day-and-politechnika.html that Politechnika contains mostly technical schools like engineering, computer science, math/physics, architecture, etc. The Faculty of Management and Economics (FME) is not only new (1993), but very unique compared to the other eight parts of the University. We also have a lot of students who are getting their degree in a technical area (like engineering), then getting a second degree in management.

This is not unusual, as historically Poles are highly educated, often holding multiple degrees. This is actually something good which came out of their Communist days.

Our school (FME) basically offers four programs: Bachelors in Management, Masters in Management, Masters in Business Administration, and Post-Graduate Studies. The first two are the largest. There might be more areas, but I am just learning myself. In addition, we have full-time students and part-time students.

Some of the programs are conducted in English only, some in Polish only and some a mixture.

The full time students, of course, go to school full time, Monday through Friday. As mentioned, many are also obtaining a technical degree.

The part-time students are almost all at the Masters level and work full time jobs. Most are quite young (mid-20s). The part time program meets every other weekend. The students arrive on campus Friday late afternoon (about 4 p.m.) and go to school until about 9 p.m. Then they have school all day Saturday AND all day Sunday (8 a.m.-5 p.m.).

Their Master’s in Management (MIM) specializes in Small Business & Economics Management (what we might call in the US- small business and entrepreneurship). They also have a specialization in European Union (EU) studies. They are looking to expand into other areas like International Management (which will be one of my jobs to consult with them on).

I have four classes.  Here is a quick description of each:

1. Master’s in Management- Strategic Management. It meets Monday mornings (three hours) and is all full-time students. This class has about 18 students in it. This is my most geographically diverse class. I have several Poles, but also Germans, three students from Portugal, two from Spain, Lithuania, and one Asian. Many of the students from outside Poland, are part of an EU program where they can spend a year at another EU school, then they go back to their “home” school. It is called the Erasmus exchange program.

1. Bachelor’s in Management- Strategic Management. It meets Tuesday afternoons and is full time students obtaining their bachelors degree. A big unique point of this class is they are all Asians. Almost all from China. I was very curious as to why a Chinese student would want to go to University in Poland, so I asked. Here is what I learned. Cost: they feel they can get an affordable “EU education”  in Poland as both tuition and living are less expensive here. Secondly is opportunity. They think with an education from an EU based University they stand a better chance of getting a job in the EU. Finally (of interest), when they arrive, they are asked to chose an “American” name- which they go by at school. So my class of Chinese has “Tony”, “DJ”, “Steve”, Arthur”, “David”, “Jack”, etc. This class has about 18 in it. However, I am having the most difficult time “reading them” to see if what I am saying is sinking in.

1. Master’s in Management- Statistics II. It meets Wednesday mornings (three hours) and is full time students. About 60% of the class are males and getting their “second“ degree in Management. Their primary degree is in one of the technical areas (mostly engineering or computer programming). Although they are being training primarily in a technical area, most said they want to go into Management and ”make lots of money“. The other 40% are working on their primary degree in Management and most of them are female. This class has about 40 students in it. It is primarily Poles and a couple of Eastern Europeans.

1. Master’s in Management- Statistics II. It is my ”part-timers“ class, and only meets on four weekends (Saturday and Sunday). It meets two weekends in October and two weekends in November. These are classes are for working students. There are 16 students all in their mid to late 20s. They all have full time jobs from a variety of industries. These are all Polish students, who are terrific at English. Besides full time jobs, many have spouses and some have families.

As you can see- other than the four weekends, I only teach Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.

I will also have several ”development“ duties while at the University, as they are very interested in expansion into other programs and to recruit students from other areas/countries.

One might wonder why they would fly a Professor 5,000 miles to teach a basic class like Statistics II (I did). Interestingly, that has to do with the above on making changes to add areas and to work on new and more applied methods to teach, but more on that in a later post.