Visiting students soak up Montreal culture
Concordia's School of Extended Learning recently played host to a group of 30 students from France's Rouen Business School. The students were in Montreal for a week-long, intensive immersion into Quebec business, society and the arts, but they never suffered from culture shock.
"This was a great opportunity to be exposed to a different culture, and a way of doing business that takes multiculturalism and bilingualism into account every day," said student Kevin Neurouth.
"We are trying to prepare ourselves for the business world of today, which is increasingly international," added Mai Ly Nguyen, another student. "Montreal was an ideal place to do that."
These hard-working students next visited Brock University in St. Catharines, Ont. for the second week of their study visit in Canada.
"We designed an intensive course on North American — and specifically Quebec — business," explains Richard Bastien, director of Special Programs for the school, "including morning seminars and afternoon visits to local enterprises. Students attended lectures in the morning and in the afternoon visited local companies, as a way of applying what they had discussed earlier in the day."
For example, a seminar about sports marketing was followed by a visit to the Bell Centre. Other company visits included Megabrands and the Montreal branch of the French video game developer Ubisoft. In the evenings, the students attended local cultural events, including Cirque du Soleil and the Just for Laughs comedy festival. The Concordia seminar presenters included Stephanie Berger, Bill Mandelos, Robert Soroka and John Vongas.
"Students benefited from a kind of multiculturalism that they don't experience in France," said Karolina Burka, assistant to the Department of Languages, Cultures and Society at the Rouen School and one of the two chaperones.
Added Jennifer Lowry, international coordinator for the Rouen School: "Today, you cannot close yourself off from other cultures. In their working life, students will have to deal with the international side of the business world."
This customized program is the second one developed and offered by the School of Extended Learning. Last fall the school hosted a group of Austrian students who were also interested in business management.
"These kinds of international exchanges lend themselves well to business," Bastien notes, "but we can also design them for other fields of study. The length and content of these seminars depend on a client's interests, budget and learning needs."
Starting next year, the school anticipates offering similar programs as often as four times a year.
"This kind of program fits in well with our school's mission of outreach and international recruitment. By organizing educational services such as these, we are raising Concordia's profile, and attracting more international students to our university and our city," adds Bastien.
Related link:
• School of Extended Learning