Who I am and why I decided to do CEMS!
My Passion:
I have always had a competitive spirit, and a passion for video games. Combining these two elements together has led me to strive to compete on a professional and international level. During November 2012, I reached my goal by competing in a first-person shooter called "Crossfire". While leading a team of four, we entered the "World Cyber Games", a global competition where the champions from each of the 15 participating country receive an all-expense paid trip to the World Championships to compete internationally.
The World Cyber Games Grand Final is the largest annual video game festival in the world. Players from over 40 countries travelled to compete and represent their own country in this tournament. The event boasts tens of thousands of live spectators, as well as hundreds of thousands viewing from home. In addition, Crossfire had tens of millions users registered worldwide.
I was elected by my team to be the team leader. As the team leader, my main responsibilities were to provide direction, support, and constructive criticism. In addition to my in-game commitments to the team, I also had to manage sponsorship interests. I was determined to prepare my team for the powerhouses at the 2012 WCG Grand Finals.
Competitive gaming requires an extremely high degree of team work and precision. To reach our goals to become World Champions, I organized specific practice sessions and developed innovative strategies. Moreover, I dedicated several hours a day to studying past games to identify our weaknesses and to determine new strategies. Team cohesion is essential for success as competing on the world level in front of 100,000 individuals can mean if one individual crumbles under the pressure, that would be enough to lose.
In addition to handling in-game practices, I consulted with our sponsor, Frost Gaming, about new ways to attract people to the competitive gaming community as well as ways of enhancing our team brand. As captain of Team Canada, I gave lessons to novice players and created guides for people interested in playing the game.
As a result, we ranked fifth place amongst 14 teams during the 2012 World Champions. Although we didn’t end with the gold medal, we gained a stronger team, new relationships, and an appreciation for our competition. We reviewed our mistakes diligently and in 2014 we became the #1 ranked team in the Americas after our win in Sao, Paulo. However, the greatest accomplishment was in 2017, and during the $1,050,000 USD World Championships, we were in the semi-finals and were one round shy from having an opportunity to compete at the grand finals. Although I did not achieve the gold medal during my career, I have gained new insight and appreciation for international management leadership, being adventurous, and having determination.
CEMS - AN EASY CHOICE:
Upon graduating from my bachelor degree in Economics and working full-time in Toronto, Canada for four months, I wanted to do something different. I decided to apply to the Ivey Business School in London, Canada because of the case-learning method and the international prestige and competitiveness of the classes.
I first heard of CEMS because QS Masters in Management and the Financial Times ranked CEMS as 8th in the world for management studies. When I heard I was able to do a dual degree and have the opportunity to do two exchanges opportunities at some of the best schools across the globe, I was extremely interested. Although I had the opportunity to travel to numerous places around the world through my gaming career, I never really got explore and integrate with the European culture. CEMS consistently preached the how their program breeds international leaders and that is something I wanted for myself. Furthermore, I wanted to genuinely understand how businesses and students in Europe thought, and how their thinking varied from the North American mindset (a bubble I believe I was apart of my entire life). I never had the chance to travel around Europe and is was something I had always wanted to do.
Furthermore, I never really enjoyed theoretical learning as much as practical and interactive learning. CEMS offers a multitude of opportunities in their curriculum such as skill seminars, career forums, and block seminars, that have some of the most impressive companies, alumni, and practitioners teaching and giving you advice. Ultimately, I joined CEMS because I wanted to be consistently exposed to motivated individuals that would constantly push me to improve not only academically, but widen my perspectives.
To sum it up, CEMS is truly an amazing international network that allows its' students to develop and understand business from a global context. Additionally, I have had the opportunity to make friends from across the globe and experience different cultural experiences through my at Copenhagen Business School in Denmark and now UCD Smurfit in Ireland. Although it is quite sad that I will be graduating in two months, but as the VP of the CEMS Club Dublin, I am going to hopefully make the best of it!
CEMS has been an absolute journey and I am so glad I did this program!
- Jordan He