Third Intake of Students start Master of Management in Hospitality Programme

The Cornell-Nanyang Institute of Hospitality Management has just admitted the third intake of students into its Master of Management in Hospitality (MMH) programme. The student body is highly diverse with different cultural and philosophical backgrounds as they come from nine countries – the USA, France, Indonesia, India, China, Thailand, Korea, Japan and Singapore. This diversity represents what Dr Judy Siguaw, founding Dean of the Cornell-Nanyang Institute of Hospitality Management, strives to achieve for the school; that is, an internationally renowned hospitality program for students seeking to be experts in Asian markets.

“A phenomenal number of well qualified candidates applied for the Master of Management in Hospitality program this year, allowing us to increase our intake for the program. The MMH ’09 cohort is comprised of the best candidates who have gone through a rigorous screening process. Graduates from the first CNI MMH program have set the bar very high and I am sure that this cohort will match or exceed that stellar performance. It is heartening to see that people are beginning to value education in the hospitality industry,” said Siguaw.

The twenty-two students accepted into the program come from an assortment of educational and professional backgrounds such as history, psychology, architecture, cinema, and audio-visual studies and have worked in a cross section of industry sectors including banking, advertising, consulting, accounting and, of course, hospitality.

“I believe the best way for me to achieve my professional goals is to pursue the Human Resource Management career track within the MMH program,” commented Sang Myung Lee, a Korean student enrolled for the MMH ’09 program. “I’ve worked as an employee trainer at a domestic Korean hotel for four years. I believe that employees are the strongest asset a company can have and I plan to develop my skill set and knowledge so that when I graduate, I can enter the hospitality industry as a functional specialist in human resources. I chose CNI because of its location in Asia, the fastest growing region for hospitality and tourism.”

The MMH is an intensive professional degree program. Students commit to a year of serious work: ten core courses and at least four electives, leadership development, master classes, career track advisory board meetings, and industry roundtables - spread over three semesters. The CNI MMH students spend five weeks in Singapore covering two core subjects before moving to Ithaca, New York, where they will remain for six months; after which they return to Singapore for their final semester. To establish a strong bond from the onset, the CNI students are introduced to the students in Ithaca by means of a video-conference.

Students commenced the MMH program on Wednesday with a week’s orientation in Singapore covering fundamentals such as business communication, leadership development, resume writing and effective networking. To familiarize themselves with each other and with their new city, the class will also participate in a team building exercise where they will explore Singapore, in the style of the popular television show, “The Amazing Race”.

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