Last night’s sleep was much nicer to me. The jet lag is starting to leave my body and I’m finally feeling a part of the Chinese culture. We left the hotel around 8:45 am but not after another wonderful hotel breakfast. On the agenda today was visiting the Central University of Finance and Economics (CUFE). Aurora, the director of the International Relations Office, welcomed us and introduced us to the presenters. Professor Yao, a teacher at the university, gave us a presentation on big data and marketing. It was very fascinating to learn about how marketing is becoming more personalized and how that shapes our shopping experiences. Big data can provide big opportunities or lead to big trouble. But it has three components: volume, velocity, and variety. Big data (Facebook) and small data (face to face communications or surveys) are used in every aspect of life to determine outcomes. For example, the 2012 presidential election used big data to predict the outcome using models. It was very interesting to see that it was pretty accurate. In Ohio, they predicated a 57.68% outcome and the actual percentage was 57.16%. The second presenter was Matt who has lived in China for 20 years. He is originally from the United States but is now a professor at the university. He showed us that a lot of our present-day life is connected to past China. For example, the American International Group (AIG), an American finance and insurance corporation, was founded in China!
After the two presentations, we ate at the University’s cafeteria in the Chinese round table style again. I’m thankful that the cafeteria did not resemble Market and I’ve learned I love the Chinese round table style of eating. It’s nice to eat many different types of dishes. After we ate some delicious food, it was time to get back to business and hit the books; we were given a tour of the library. Two of the university students gave us a background of the library and described how it worked. It is five stories high. When a student comes to the library to study, they are assigned a number which corresponds to a specific seat in the library. This is so no one can take up multiple seats during busy times, such as finals week. I think Hillman, Pitt’s library, needs this system since it’s hard to find an open seat during finals week. Every student is required to publish a thesis to graduate and all of the theses were located along a wall. After a tour of the first floor we traveled to level -1, which was directly below the first floor. It was truly beautiful. The walls were lined with professional photographs from different places in China. On one of the walls was the university seal which is a dragon-horse holding a burning ball.
Next, we took a trip to the playground… kind of. The University had a basketball court, obstacle court, soccer field, and football field. We stayed on the concrete while university students played on the various platforms. When the tour guides pulled out the jump ropes and hoola hoops, it felt like I was transported to elementary school. However, the real treat was watching the boys jump rope. We were able to have multiple people under one rope at a time and I was very impressed by us. This concluded our trip to the university but one of the student’s I had grown close to, Grasen, said when she graduates and comes to America for graduate school, we will meet up. Her top choices are Yale and Columbia which are her dream schools. Sadly, it was time for us to leave the university and our new friends.
