Executive MBA students travel to Vietnam

MBA Vietnam blog

The heat is suffocating. Mosquitoes swarm through the air like ash. All around, people stare suspiciously, leery of the Americans they fought 40 years ago. Yet, surprisingly, throngs of suit-clad business men act as if they have no memory of past conflict, welcoming you like a long-lost brother after a trivial quarrel.

While that scenario may seem like fiction to many, it was reality for some Boise State students.

Second-year executive MBA program participants traveled to Vietnam from Oct. 11-16 to study the communist nation’s emerging economy. They learned how the poor and formerly reclusive nation has worked to become a major player in the Southeast Asian market.

Visiting Vietnam as part of their International Residency Week, the program participants met with U.S. embassy officials, Vietnamese government officials and explored a number of both private and government-run businesses. Each year, second-year executive MBA students travel abroad to learn more about the world economy first-hand, through the eyes of both the United States and a particular nation.

For participant Doug Metzgar, it was a trip of a lifetime.

Metzgar kept a daily blog of the trip, which can be viewed at http://boisestateinvietnam.wordpress.com.

According to the College of Business and Economics executive MBA Web site, the “executive MBA program is an opportunity for experienced professionals to obtain a master’s degree in business administration on a schedule that minimizes disruption of work and personal pursuits.”

Admission to the program is relatively simple, and the Web site boasts of a weekly time commitment of only 20-25 hours, including classroom instruction time. The program is expensive, however, costing $41,000 for two years. More information can be found at http://cobe.boisestate.edu/emba.

The online database vietnam-war.info/facts states that the Vietnam War lasted officially from 1965 until the withdrawal of U.S. troops in 1973. There were 58,148 Americans killed and 304,000 wounded out of 2.59 million who served. Over 2 million Vietnamese are thought to have died, with millions more wounded.

According to the U.S. government’s CIA World Factbook, Vietnam’s annual Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is $89.83 billion, with the economy growing annually at 6.2 percent. Still, with the average citizen making only $2,800 per year, it remains one of the poorest countries in the world.

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