Mason Korea offers top-notch business education, business dean says

Providing global education has become a major focus for business schools in Korea, and Ajay Vinzé, dean of George Mason University's School of Business, says the university's Korea campus, also known as Mason Korea, offers just the kind of ...

Ajay Vinzé, dean of George Mason University's school of business, speaks during an interview with the Korea JoongAng Daily. [PARK SANG-MOON]

Providing global education has become a major focus for business schools in Korea, and Ajay Vinzé, dean of George Mason University's School of Business, says the university's Korea campus, also known as Mason Korea, offers just the kind of education Korea's aspiring business professionals and entrepreneurs look for.

Mason Korea serves as one of George Mason's overseas campuses, and all of its courses are taught in English. Founded in 2014, Mason Korea stands in the Incheon Global Campus in Songdo, Incheon, along with other global campuses of U.S. universities such as the State University of New York, Korea and the University of Utah Asia Campus.

"I like to make less of a distinction between Mason Korea and Mason students," Vinzé said. "They are Mason students that just happen to be in Korea for now."

"What we have done last year is we worked up an understanding with every college in Mason, and they are going to open up their disciplines to students here."

Students at Mason Korea get the same degree as those who graduated from George Mason's Fairfax Campus in Virginia and have the opportunity to study abroad, including the university's main campus in Virginia.

The Korea JoongAng Daily sat down with Vinzé at Mason Korea's campus during his visit to Korea to discuss the university's strength in global business education and the benefits offered to its students.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Q. What unique opportunities can George Mason's business school provide for its students when other business schools in Korea are also increasingly offering classes taught in English and hosting international faculty members?

A. Most business schools are trying to be more international nowadays, and that's because business is international. It's a global marketplace, and just focusing on domestic business is not where the action is. But for us, we really make sure the students are prepared to enter the workplace the way the workplace is set up. Another thing about George Mason is that we are a globally-oriented university. We are diverse by nature. We also understand the extent and width of businesses and their implications.

It actually makes sense for us to have a physical presence here in Korea. It's certainly a big benefit for students in Korea, but it's also beneficial for our students in Fairfax. It gives them the opportunity to experience Korea in its natural self, not just in the short-term, but actually being able to come to a campus that belongs to them.

There are various opportunities for Mason Korea students to pursue careers in the United States, such as being able to choose U.S. finance and tax industry-focused concentrations and having the chance to study on the Fairfax Campus, after which they can apply to receive OPT work authorization in the United States. How else does the school prepare its students for overseas careers?

The option for them to pursue careers in the United States is always there. We associate ourselves more closely with the local businesses and U.S. businesses that exist here, like the big four accounting firms and large multinational companies. Students can be trained here locally, but they can also do so in the U.S. They could work over there, but they could also come back here to work. So we're giving them the opportunity. Getting work authorization and so on allows them to get a flavor of whether they want to work in the United States and how things work in the U.S.

What are some of the specific career resources the school offers? We have an area called "foundations." Foundations include training on business conduct, growing online and social media presence and refining resumes that fit today's business environment. These are the things that don't belong to any particular discipline. You can't say this is accounting or finance, and it's just "business." And we offer these resources to all our students across the world.

Students at George Mason start learning these subjects in their first-year as it's not something they want to start learning in their senior year. This gears them up for success, setting them apart from just any other student.

George Mason University Korea's campus in Songdo-dong, Incheon [GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY KOREA]

Mason Korea's business school was founded in 2014 and is relatively new. But graduates have already started careers in the so-called Big Four accounting firms like Deloitte, PwC, KPMG and EY. How does the school's curriculum help students pursue successful careers?

It's because we don't think of the school as just an overseas campus but as a part of the greater university. For our business school, we have two locations even within the Washington area. We have the Fairfax Campus, but most graduate programs are in Arlington. Although it's a separate campus in Arlington, I don't refer to it as George Mason Arlington. I think of all our students here the same way. So how did we achieve success in a short time? By opening all our networks to our students.

We also have accreditations in both business and accounting by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business. Having that accreditation brings legitimacy to the degree our students will get anywhere in the world. We are an accredited business school, and we have an accredited accounting program. If you combine the two, that puts us in the top one percent, as not all schools have both accreditations. And that's also why these accounting firms eagerly hire our graduates.

There are many changes happening in the global educational environment, such as the usage of artificial intelligence technology like ChatGPT. How does the school deal with such changes?

We have to understand that ChatGPT and generative AIs are just tools, and we have to be able to incorporate them into our curriculum. What we need to do is know what their limitations are and teach at the edge. Can students use ChatGPT? I'd say go ahead and use it. But then, let's look at the outcome and understand generative AI's limitations.

You can create presentations and sales charts and do anything really quickly. But its limitation is that it's only as good as the data set it was trained with. The original version has limitations because it was trained only with the data set as of 2021, so it didn't fully understand many things that happened after 2021. What we should know is that it's an open AI platform, so we can borrow it and train it with our own data set. We should teach our students to use it and train it.

Next year will be the 10th anniversary of George Mason University Korea's business school. How do you evaluate the past few years and what future goals do you have?

I've been named the dean for a year now, and we are on a very upward trajectory. We don't think of ourselves as just a regional university. We are a regional, national and international school. And We just received a $50 million naming gift.

So we will be the Donald G. Costello School of Business, and what that does is it sets us as one of the leading business schools worldwide. But again, we always go back to our strategic priorities and how we can ensure our students get the best education they can. We aim for them to have a great experience while being educated and become career-ready and successful.

BY LEE TAE-HEE [lee.taehee2@joongang.co.kr]