I am 23 with a degree in Russian and Polish from Oxford University and have worked in finance in London and Moscow. In 2006, I was in Beijing and decided to visit the famous university of Tsinghua. As I sat in my hotel lobby browsing the university's website, I came across a link to Tsinghua's international MBA programme, the IMBA. The rest, as they say, is history.

Why an MBA? Why China? Why Tsinghua? I knew I needed the professional skills and training an MBA would give me. Looking at the courses on offer, I saw that I could build on my passions for finance, strategy and entrepreneurship. Some friends had set up a successful consultancy business in China. Could that be me in a few years?

More importantly, what would the Chinese MBA experience offer me over a typical western one? The more I thought about it, the more obvious it became.