Bulletin Number Three 1985

of business administration? A. Our primary concern is to determine what kind of 'end-products' the Faculty of Business Administration should produce, in other words, what kind of graduates we should like to turn out after four years of business administration education. With clearly defined objectives, we have designed our curriculum and deployed staff resources to give our students the proper training. In this way, the right kind of graduate is produced. We are now thinking of sending someon e to local secondary schools to introuduce our programmes to students, who will then be able to ascertain whether our programme is compatible with their interest and offers them what they want. By so doing, we can attract more suitable students and better graduates may be turned out. Q. It is generally assumed that students of different Faculties have different characteristics. What, in your view, characterizes the students of your Faculty? A. I am afraid no general profile can be drawn of students of the whole Faculty. There are different Departments in the Faculty and students of each Department have different characteristics. It is generally felt that Accounting students are quiet and like t o sit back and operate computers, and that Marketing students are vivacious and more talkative. At interviews, we will also take into consideration the personality of students. For example, we would like to take in students who are quick and adaptable for the Marketing Department. Q. What are your expectations of the graduates of your Faculty? Have they lived up to your expectations? A. It is generally believed that peopl e enter the commerical world for money but, in my opinion, money is not an end in itself but a means to measure one's success. We do not expect our graduates to make a lot of money. We only want to turn out graduates who are good executives and administrators. Good executives and administrators can of course make maximum use of resources, improve working efficiency and increase productivity — all of the m factors for making good profits. However, as I said before, profit can be used as a yardstick to measure success, but is never an end in itself. When I first joined The Chinese University in 1966 ， I already felt that our graduates would in a few years' time play a significan t role in the commercial world of Hong Kong. On the whole, BBA graduates normally take eigh t to ten years to reach some higher positions in the field. As for MBA graduates, some of them already belonged to the middle management when they enrolled for the Programme and they normally take five years or so after graduation to reach the top or near the top positions. Q. All these years, the BA Faculty has devoted much effort to helping students find fobs. Could you tell us how you and your colleagues go about this? A. We have all along spent a lot of time on this. Every year, we conduct a survey on the career interests and specialities of the students. The information gathered is a useful reference for the placement of graduates. I n recent years, many companies have in fact requested us to help them in their recruitmen t exercise by arranging job interviews on campus, and some of them have even asked us to select suitabl e candidates for them to consider. Q. How do our graduates fare in the business community? A. Graduates of the BA Faculty are quite well received by the local commercial sector. According to a survey of the Appointments Service, BBA graduates got an average of 1.9 job offers (compared with the University-wide figure of 1.6) and full-time MBA graduates received an average of 2.5 offers in 1984. The commerical and industrial sectors absorbed 81.8 percent and 96.2 percent of our BBA and full-time MBA graduates respectively. The performance of our graduates in their jobs can best be reflected in their salary increases and promotions. According to a survey on the career development of the 1979 BBA graduates conducted by the Appointments Service, there was a salary increase of 127.4 percent over the period from 1979 to 1982. There were altogether 382 graduates of the MBA programme from 1968 to 1984 ， of which thirty-four (9.4 percent) are now occupying senior positions, such as Director, Managing Director, General Manager, President, Vice- President, Economist, Sole Proprietor and Managing Partner. Q. What contribution has the Faculty of Business RECENT DEVELOPMENTS 15