Nov. 9
Wednesday was the day the students had been preparing for since arriving in Shanghai. It was cut day. By the end of the morning’s presentations, they would know if they would be in the running for a pencil from The One Club. Team Flight Club woke early to meet with two of their mentors, Albert and Mo, at 10 a.m. – just two and a half hours before their scheduled presentation time. Albert emphasized to them the importance of how they performed their presentation. During the meeting, they were given instruction to change pieces of their plan, sending them back to work prior to their pitch at 12:30 p.m. Meanwhile, Team Pulp Non-Fiction arrived at the conference center to give their presentation at 11 a.m. Each member walked in wearing a “Snickers Society” sticker that they created, ready to show their class and mentors the meaning behind them. Eric Schwartz represented the team as their speaker. Mary Jane O’Connor assumed the same role for Flight Club. They put all of their work on the table for their mentors and the other competing groups. The ideas they had been building – sidelining sleep in order to get them right – were in the mentors’ hands and it was up to them to determine which plans had the most potential. The mentors took a few moments to deliberate following the conclusion of each classes’ presentations. When they returned, they announced the four teams that will compete for a pencil on Thursday. As they read through the names of the teams that will be continuing on, Team Flight Club and Pulp Non-Fiction were not on the list. The two teams from MSU will not move on in the 2016 One Show Greater China Festival. Their mentors were insistent that they are willing to work with the teams that were not selected in order to improve the parts of their ideas that they felt were necessary in order to move on. One of the goals of this competition is for the participants to walk away with a portfolio piece, so the mentors want to ensure that they feel satisfied with what they are taking home with them. Despite being eliminated, the MSU teams said they were proud of the work they had accomplished and the experience as a whole was more than worth the journey. On Thursday, the final 24 teams will present for the judges and the rest of the groups. The students will have the opportunity to watch the presentations and learn from the others’ ideas and implementations. The winners will be announced later in the evening at the official closing award ceremony. While the MSU students’ time as participants in the competition has ended, the time to return to Michigan is still three days away. There are so many sights to see in Shanghai that are waiting to be explored. To boost their spirits after being cut, the students ventured into the city to see the beautiful and beaming Oriental Pearl Tower, one of the city’s famous landmarks. See a video of the visit to the tower on Instagram!
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About the blogThe students' experiences in China will be documented in both English and Chinese by two journalism students from Michigan State University traveling with the group.
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