NYU Shanghai entered 11 student teams into the 2014 College Students Emulational Decision-Making Contest at Donghua University. Of the 11, one team took first place and two teams placed third.
Contest participation required connecting to an online platform, where each team acted as an entrepreneur competing against other teams in a simulated market. To excel in the contest, a foundation of math and economics was imperative. Teams considered each member’s intellectual strengths and course backgrounds when dividing up the work.
A team of sophomores—Hu Siyuan, Ma Yinmeng, Shen Kuan, Tang Yaowen, and Ye Tiange—placed third under the mentorship of Assistant Professor Offer Shapir and Professor Moshe Kim, both recipients of the Outstanding Tutor award.
"Our professors, both micro-economists, kindly provided an abundance of theoretical guidance to help steer our team in the right direction," Ye said. "Before the contest began, our team also did online training offered by Donghua University and spent quite a few days practicing online in order to gain some skills and understanding of the contest rules."
The NYU Shanghai participants believe that the two months of practice provided a great opportunity to evaluate and improve the foundation of skills they had already built from their major courses. The contest proved to be a solid team-building experience and a true test of putting knowledge to practice.