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Final Summery Journal

 

1. When looking at the differences in the professional and ethical issues between the United States and China they are quite distinct. In China wages and safety of the workers were not as important as in the US. While being there I felt like they didn’t have as many labor laws protecting their workers. If a worker isn’t happy in China they can be easily replaced. Diversity was not a huge deal in China because of the fact that it is not very ethically diverse. You can tell that Chinese people are only use to being around other Chinese people by the way they reacted when they saw our group traveling. While workers may not have to deal with foreign people, the heads of many companies do because they are the ones making relations with countries such as the US. Besides the nonexistent diversity issue I feel they address gender about the same, many women have the opportunities to be on the same level as men but they are still always a little uneven. I feel that China shouldn’t change the way they deal with ethical issues, they have gotten to the top because of the way things are run and are promised continued success if they keep things the same. There is no reason for them to higher wages unless workers start to protest, because living conditions are near poverty for many of the factory workers. I don’t think the US could run business like China does because of unions in place to protect workers and people wouldn’t tolerate it.
2. From what I experienced in China there is not a great need for a broad education unless you are in a very high up position. I felt many of the working class and even many of the engineers were trained for one specific area and were expected to excel in that area. I feel many of the business people had a wider range of abilities because many of them were expected to be able to communicate with a broad range of people from other professionals to students like us. I feel that although China and the US were a lot similar than what I expected it is still important for students to expand their classroom experience to learn about other cultures. When going to China I didn’t know what to expect and I think I was expecting it to be a lot different than what it actually was.  That’s why it is important, not to learn the differences, but to learn all the things that make all the people around the world so similar and that we actually all want the same things out of life. To prepare myself for a global economy I feel it would be very beneficial to learn a foreign language. It makes it so an employers views you as someone valuable because you can communicate with people that might be interested in the product or service you are providing.
3. I felt that as in the US, in China most of the skills needed for a job are learned at the job. While school gives engineers and business students the background information needed it is very broad. When you actually settle into a job is where the real learning takes place. When talking to the professional at Capital Bio I felt that he thought being from a good school was part of the hiring process it wasn’t all they looked for when hiring someone new. They look for someone who is hardworking and willing to learn as part of their job. They wanted people who go above and beyond what is expected of them. Professionals in China are expected to grow and learn as their job does, businesses don’t want a professional not gaining any insight while on the job, especially with engineers they should be discovering new methods or information daily, and business people should be seeing new ways to expand their business and interact with the global market. Technology has changed jobs in China greatly. When we went to the distillery we saw an old fashion assembly line which because of technology bigger business no longer have to rely on hands on methods like the distillery does. So while many jobs have been changed because of technology many more jobs were just completely eliminated because of it. Engaging in life long learning as a professional is the only way business will succeed and be competitors in a global market.
4. I feel that the connection between peoples social and professional lives is a simple one. They are connected only be the status that they carry. If the person comes from a higher profession and makes more money than that is going to affect the life that they live and the people they interact with. When we had the last lecturer, she came from a well off family who all had very valuable educations. Because of this she knew a lot about what was going on in the outside world. Most ordinary people in China I felt didn’t take the time to know what was going on in the US unless in affected them in some way they were content to live their own lives, which the very same thing could be said about Americans. When watching the news in China I felt it was like watching the news in the US except the view was switched. China is concerned with many of the things the US is concerned about, and when watching some of the local news I felt like it was the same stories that I see at home. It is important to have knowledge of contemporary issues especially as an engineering student because it is important to know what is going on in the world around you. You can’t expect to live in a bubble your whole life because you could never form your own opinions about world issues.
5. I feel that it is of utmost importance for professionals to be able to work as a team. Without partnerships between engineers, workers, business people, salespeople, customers, etc., a company couldn’t even come close to functioning properly. When working on our group presentation it was easiest to split things up. The business students would work on the things that were more business related and the two engineering students did likewise on the engineering side and then we collaborated and put everything together while still offering each person our own piece of advice. The challenges with these communications are that you don’t always know what the other type of student is trying to say to you. You may get the idea but not the big picture or you may get the big picture and not understand the details and that is why you have to use your communication skills to make sure everyone in the group was on the same page.  I feel that larger businesses face these same challenges and have to overcome them just as we had to.