On May 19, 2024, the final round of the "C.P. Cup" 14th National College Students Market Survey and Analysis Competition for graduate students officially concluded at the Sailing Theater of Harbin Engineering University. The competition is hosted by the Chinese Business Statistics Association, sponsored by Charoen Pokphand Group and organized by Harbin Engineering University. Two teams of our graduate students entered the final round's on-site defense session, making a historic breakthrough by winning two national first prizes.
The award-winning teams with their mentors
The competition, which started in September 2023, attracted 295,000 students to actively register. This a new record for the scale of participation. The competition saw participation from 1,063 universities across mainland China, including 128 first-class universities, 110 Project 211 universities and 38 Project 985 universities. Over the course of seven months, after school-level competitions, enterprise-proposed challenges, and provincial contests, 150 teams emerged victorious and advanced to the national finals.
Photo of our participating team before the competition
The final round for the graduate student category was conducted in the form of "report presentation & defense." On May 18, during the group competition, eight judging panels composed of 40 experts from both academic and industry sectors evaluated the 150 teams based on their reports and presentation defenses. They won national first and second prizes. Our university's graduate competition teams led by Ying Qu, Shiyu Gan, Zhu Yuan and Juling Zhou with their project "All Slate Streets Resemble Each Other, The Distinctive Charm of Ancient Towns Is Hard to Find" — A Study on the Homogeneity and Satisfaction of Chengdu Ancient Towns Based on Tourist Perception (mentored by Pingping Zhao and Feng Zhang) and Mingyue Zhao, Zixiao Peng, Hongxiu Liu, Yu Jiang and Kunyu Ren with their project "When Maturity Is Hard to Resist, Exploring the Reasons in the Cup of 'Baijiu'—A Discussion on Baijiu Consumption and Its Influencing Factors from the Perspective of Consumer Behavior" (mentored by Yong Li, Chen Wang, and Lan Huang) won national first prizes in this competition.
Photo from the Defense Scene
Our university places high importance on the cultivation of graduate talents and insists on promoting education and teaching reform in innovation and entrepreneurship for graduate students. Since the competition started in September 2023, under the meticulous organization of the Graduate School and the School of Statistics, the faculty team of the School of Statistics has actively held competition promotions, training sessions, and defense rehearsals. The participating teachers and students worked together closely and fought hard, achieving a historic breakthrough in this event, fully demonstrating our university's excellent qualities and spirit of facing challenges head-on and striving for progress. In this competition, our university also won two national third prizes, three provincial first prizes, two provincial second prizes, and three provincial third prizes. The information about the award-winning teams is summarized as follows:
The National College Students Market Survey and Analysis Competition has been included in the Ministry of Education's list of higher education discipline competition rankings for six consecutive years. It is one of the two major national A-level statistical discipline events in China. The competition aims to guide college students in innovation and practice, enhance their professional practical abilities in organization, planning, survey implementation, data processing and analysis, and cultivate their sense of social responsibility, service awareness, market sensitivity, and teamwork spirit. It is a multi-party educational platform for statistics discipline highly recognized by the government, enterprises, and actively participated in by university teachers and students across the strait.
