Prior to this post graduate course, I expected roughly 6:4 ratio of local student and international students. However, I was surprised at the fact that it was more like 7:3 international to local. Being a Hong Kong Chinese that grew up in Australia, that moved to Melbourne purely for this master course, i find my identity slightly blurry. Seems like at times i am perceived as an Australian by international students, but on the other hand, my lack of knowledge towards Melbourne made me look like an international student. Little did I know this has actually became one of the best thing that can happen to me.
As I speak fluent English and Chinese, I was able to communicate with a most of the students in our course. As most international students came from China, I was able to meet many Chinese students from different part of China, which I was not exposed to back in Brisbane. On the other hand, I would consider myself as an Australian as well as a Hong Kong Chinese, which allows me to associate with local student from Melbourne. Alongside with other students from other countries such as Singapore, Germany, Denmark, Malaysia etc, everyday you can hear opinions from all different ethnics and background on one topic. This is a very helpful aspect of this course as the cultural barriers between each countries and races are becoming thinner and thinner (thanks to the help of the almighty internet), globalization is something that we will have to understand and work with for the rest of our career.
*Much like the book my Thomas Friedman: The World Is Flat, I think it is the same for Advertising Industry. Media and information are being spread across the world practically with no delay whatsoever, advertisers needs to be aware of how the rest of the world will see their work*
In one of my course, International Advertising, we learned about the importance of Globalization + Localization = Glocalization. Having such a diverse group of students studying together everyday, it is like glocalization conference in every class. For example, having the chance to meet students from Germany made me realize how open their country is towards nudity in TV advertising, and on the other hand meeting a student from Indonesia has also opened my world towards country where religion plays a really big part.
In a personal benefit point of view, getting to know all these people from around the world also means expanding my personal network worldwide. As mentioned in previous posts, the rise of social media is something that will change our life, if it hasn't already done so. Maybe one day, because of my multinational network on Facebook, I would be lead to places that I have never considered or thought about, who knows?
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