About the projects at CJC

So I can't type in Chinese.

Anyway, this morning I just had a meeting about my latest project at CBS(Copenhagen Business School.) In case you don't know that, I've been involved with this concept (this is what they call it here, and I have no better words to describe it), CBS Junior Consultants(CJC), since September 2007. It's basically a consulting academy for junior consultants, who are usually dedicated students at CBS, to combine their knowledge from school with actual cases to work on. Now there are about 20 of us working on various projects, and I'm the rookie out of the rookies--technically I haven't finished my BA and have never been in a serious project before. Although I'm an exchange student at the University of Copenhagen, not CBS, but a friend that was the business developer there introduced me to it, and then I went for interview and got the spot. And so far it has been a very rewarding experience; the junior consultants are a intelligent bunch, mostly going for their MA at CBS or some even have run their own businesses; our "bosses/supervisers" are very passionate about sharing their know-how in the consulting business and research with us...and this all comes for free! I'm gracious about their openess and
insights that they've shown us, and we are always treated with equal respect as we were the professional. (And we also got paid a bit from the project...too good to be true, huh?)

My previous project was a research-assitant program in which we help a researcher gather a high-quality set of data. It sounds easy, but as inexperienced as my lovely teamate, Gabby, and I, it was such a painstaking progress and I don't want to go in-depth to that. But the learning points I want to share with ya'll is that, when you work on a team, make sure that you and your teamates handle the data you gather with the same standard. Furthermore, you always have to set a realistic time frame and revise that with honesty; we only have 24 hours a day and other priorities in life, so don't just think "oh yeah, I can do this if I work hard enough." You can't! You have to play a smart game.

The project that I just had a meeting on is a priliminary business plan for a... let's just say a company that needs a lot of capital and expertise. (There's a confidentiality contract that we have to sign and I don't know how much I can reveal.)There's a senior consultant helping the other junior consultant and I, w also got a coordinator and supervisor, and on the other side of the table are two entrepreneurs that want our confirmation to validate the potential business oppurtunity to the investors. During this eight-week project we're supposed to provide the customers with weekly report and several workshops. Personally I know nothing about this industry in Denmark...I know so little that I can't even form any questions. But I guess I just have to dig in the data first and let the questions slowly emerge...and we'll see after that. I'm very excited though. This is a chance that I would otherwise not have in Taiwan as a student.

Now I have to go grab some lunch, and later at two there's our monthly general meeting at CJC. We'll hear about the learning points that other junior consultants get from their project, and we'll have a guest speaker, who happens to be the senior consultant on my current project. He seems very genuine about sharing his thoughts, and hopefully I'll be able to learn a great deal from. We've been warned that this is far from a easy task, and there's still time to say no......but I won't!

I'd like to give you my sincere appreciation for still reading until now. This is damn long and full of me me me me me me! Haha. I love ya'll.

Venlig hilsen (best regards),
Li-Yi