00:00Hello I am Palak Sharma and today it is my honor to share my space and this interview with Dr.
00:16Timothy Reina from University of Bridgeport and today we will be talking about the global MBA
00:23joint degree program by Pune Institute of Business Management and University of Bridgeport South.
00:29Very good. Thank you so much sir. Thank you. Thank you sir. Same here. Okay so let's talk a bit about
00:35the program that we are going to be coming up with. Can you briefly share your thoughts on
00:41this PIDM and University of Bridgeport joint degree MBA program and what makes it unique for
00:48the international students? I think what's exciting for me about the program is it's a
00:56seamless collaboration. The students doing one year here means that we've mapped out the curriculum
01:01and so it's seamless. They come over and they get plugged into the curriculum. So structurally
01:08it's a very exciting program to manage. Opportunity wise it we are an international campus. We have
01:1580 countries represented on campus and so the opportunity to receive students who become part
01:23of our community. One of the largest groups we have on campus is our Indian Student Association and so I
01:30have a long rich history of educating students from India but as well as China, Saudi Arabia, Germany,
01:37the UK, Japan, Mexico. So this is an opportunity to have a beautiful collaboration on an MBA program.
01:45Absolutely, absolutely amazing. Okay so what kind of academic and cultural environment can students
01:51expect at the University of Bridgeport directly coming from the question that was right before us. So
01:57we have we're going to celebrate our 100th anniversary. Wow. In a year. Okay. But really for the last 40
02:05we've been focusing on international students and around the globe we're known for
02:13how we receive our students. We have an office of international student services. Their only job
02:21is to help international students come to campus and whether it's housing or food or banking or I-20,
02:32the government forms, they help us manage the entire process for the international students.
02:37Our culture is very, very diverse. So you'll sit in a classroom with students from China, from Nepal,
02:46from Saudi Arabia, from Nigeria, other students from all over in India. The international student
02:54services every month they celebrate a different community and so there's always a celebration going
03:01on in campus. And truly our domestic students benefit as much as our international students because we are a
03:10global community. That's it. Everything in life, everything in business is global now. So academically
03:18they'll have an advisor and it's a close advisement system. So they'll be coached on what courses to take.
03:25We have an electronic platform where they can manage it themselves but we encourage them to meet with
03:32their advisor. So academically it's a rich curriculum. It's very specific and culturally it's just a campus
03:40that accepts and knows how to work with international students. Absolutely amazing. I think it's a great place
03:47for students to flourish. I mean international growing globally is very important. It's pretty great. Absolutely.
03:55Moving on. How does the University of Bridgeport support international students in terms of academics,
04:01career development and overall well-being of the students? So let me start with well-being. First and
04:07foremost we bring students on campus and we have an onboarding a transition process where the dean of
04:14students has a bunch of sessions and it's it's everything from if you own a car where to park it
04:21and where to go get your banking and everything. Right. We have a dental clinic on campus which
04:28is free services. We have a health clinic so during finals if they get stressed there's free anonymous
04:35counseling. We have a food pantry on campus where students every two weeks they can go get 17 to 20
04:42items free and it could be toiletries it could be food. We also have a professional clothes closet on campus.
04:50If they don't have a blazer and they're going for an interview we give them a blazer. That's a great
04:56initiative. We have a career development office so they don't have a LinkedIn or they need a LinkedIn
05:03picture or they need to practice interviewing or a cover letter or resume so we support students all
05:12students that way. The other part of it is so it was well-being and what else? Yeah, career development
05:23then academics. So let me spend a minute on career development. We have two databases that are for
05:30global jobs and internships. The first one is called Handshake. Handshake does not differentiate
05:37between a company that sponsors international and the company that doesn't. It's all companies. Then we
05:44have a second database called Interstride. The companies in Interstride have agreed just to do OPT
05:52and sponsorships. So what the student does is they go in they develop a profile and then start doing
05:58searches and it could be anywhere in the United States that these people that have agreed to
06:03sponsor a finance student or an analytics student or whatever it is. Our career development office
06:10also has career fairs. So several times a year employers come on campus to do interviews and then
06:17our career development does mock interviews and I said LinkedIn, pictures, cover letters, resumes,
06:24the whole nine yards. Amazing. Yeah. Awesome. So let's move on and talk a bit about the student life
06:30on campus and the learning experience that they have in the university. Okay, so what is life like
06:35on the campus at the University of Bridgeport and especially for the MBA students that are coming from
06:40India? Sure. Like I said, one of the largest student groups we have that's active is the Indian student
06:47club. And so life on campus if students want to get involved can be very vibrant with clubs, with athletics,
06:57with activities. There's over 200 clubs. It could be we have a bowling alley. Okay. So now we have the Indian
07:05student club. We have uh if you sing, if you act, if you write poetry, um every club, chess club. If there's not a club and you
07:17want to start one you just have to get 10 students to a grade. We have a gaming center. We we have um
07:24an e-sports arena. So we have all of those clubs and those sports. We have basketball, soccer, lacrosse,
07:32gymnastics, baseball, softball. We don't have cricket. I'm sorry. So there's tons of places for students to get
07:41involved on campus. Yeah. If they want to travel, we're six blocks from the train station and the train to New York City
07:52is anywhere from an hour to an hour 20 minutes. So in New York City you have everything. Well, everything.
08:00Two hours to Boston, an hour and 20 minutes to New York. There's a lot to do. The campus is on the water.
08:07And so there's everything that goes on with the water. There's swimming, there's sailing, there's
08:12boating, everything. Uh we we we're just like right in the heart. Close to New York, close to Boston.
08:22If students want to learn how to snow ski in the winter they can just go straight up to Vermont.
08:27So there's tons of things to do. And with food then? Every type of food. Okay. So there's traditional
08:35American, there's Italian, there's Mexican, there's Indian, there's German, there's Chinese.
08:40Everything is around us. That's a pretty rich lifestyle they're having there. Amazing.
08:46So how does the University of Bridgeport ensure a strong academic and industry connection for the
08:53real world learning of the students? That is the critical part of the process.
08:58Our focus is career readiness, right? So first of all my faculty are practitioners. So all of my
09:07accounting teachers, they still have their offices that they run. My finance guy has a firm. So
09:15first my model is faculty practitioners. Second is my connection to the industry. I have to be current,
09:23I have to be relevant, or I'm no value to the students. So I have an industry advisory board that
09:28comes on campus. And I ask them you have to give me your knowledge, hopefully a job, hopefully an
09:35internship. And so we meet the advisory board and we're just very very active with the advisory board.
09:42And then also we've started businesses on campus. And so we we launched a consulting business. So we are
09:51providing professional consulting into the industry. And not just mom and pops, but like real big business.
10:00The National Basketball Association lab is in our town. And so we did our students did
10:09consulting for them, real project based. So the line between the institution and industry, there's
10:16there's no barrier, right? We provide services back and forth, they provide services. It's highly
10:22collaborative. Our theme is career readiness, and we need their knowledge and their input to be career ready.
10:34So are there any opportunities for the Indian students to participate in the student clubs and
10:39research on leadership activities that are happening in the university? Yes. So part of the program for
10:46the joint degree, all of the students participating are being treated as research, they're coming in as
10:54research assistants. So automatically, anybody in the joint degree program is either going to be assigned
11:00to a faculty member, to one of the businesses that we run, or to an academic unit. So two years ago,
11:07we launched a coffee business. This year, we launched consulting. And all of those are being run by
11:15students. So whether you're a finance student, or an analytics student, you have an opportunity to
11:23develop those skills in real businesses generating real revenue. If you want to do research, we just had
11:30faculty research day. It's high school students, college students, or faculties. I ask all students to
11:38participate, not all to. Right. But the vast majority of serious students will collaborate with a professor on
11:47research, and they get to stand in front of their peers and the entire university to present it.
11:53So, in the career readiness, my degrees have to be currently relevant, and then we design a whole bunch
12:03of experiences. I run a tax clinic on campus. It's called VITA. We do taxes for over 500 students and
12:12international families. Career ready experience. Right. We run the coffee business, we run consulting,
12:17all for career ready. We go out in the community, and we do special projects. So that's one of our
12:25competitive advantages, designing these experiences. We do simulations. It's all designed for career ready
12:34experiences. Right. So I guess the student life is pretty rich there, and they're learning a lot.
12:41The growth is immense.
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