Frog to Dragon: HEC MBA & Tsinghua MBA Blog

Posted by Pam at 18 December , 2010

This week was the last week of class at HEC for the students of my intake.

On one hand there are those who have found a job and who are ready to enjoy the holidays before starting their new post-MBA life, on the other hand there are those who are still looking for a job end getting a bit anxious. These days there are many farewell celebrations at HEC to wave goodbye to studies and Paris. 16 months have gone past at such an incredible speed.

My situation is different because, as a double degree student, my curriculum spans accros 2 full years and will end in June 2011. As a consequence, there’s a gap between my current mindset and the one of my classmates following the normal cursus.

Indeed, even though I’m conscious that my studies are coming to an end, I’m not yet fully ready to face the professional world…

Tags: Life on campus, Students
Posted in: 2. At HEC MBA , Just me | No Comments »

Posted by Pam at 5 August , 2010

Walking out of HEC

I can’t believe it’s already been a month since my previous post.
As I’m preparing my big move to China, time has really passed without me noticing anything.

Before I go and start the second chapter of my MBA experience, I wanted to reflect back on what I have learned and what I’ll take away from it.

3 classes I enjoyed:

• Marketing (with J.N. Kapferer)
• Corporate Finance (with P. Quiry)
• Luxury Strategy (with V. Bastien)

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Academics, HEC events, Life on campus, Logistics, Students, TEC
Posted in: 2. At HEC MBA , Just me | No Comments »

Posted by Pam at 13 January , 2010

First of all Happy New Year 2010! :)

Happy New Year 2010!

It gives me the opportunity for me to look back at my Year 2009 where many things happened.
I left my job and started a new life as an HEC student.
I feel I opened up to many new things. I discovered myself a talent for topics I had no idea of (eg. Financial Accounting?!) and met people that I would have had little chances to meet before (eg. a japanese girl who worked in bulldozer manufacturing…)
At this stage, I sincerely believe that year 2009 was a cornerstone year for me and that year 2010 will bring more changes in my life.

So what’s your new year resolution? Mine is to learn Chinese. I really hope to become more conversational with my Mandarin this year. Time will tell if I succeeded. :)

View of campus from Expansiel

So that’s it! Now I’m (hardly) back from my end of year holidays and ready to take over Core 2!

The least we can say is that, academically, Core 2 starts slowly. And this is a good thing since I happen to be hammered with ever more club activities. In parrallel, I need to seriously look for a July-August summer internship.
Lots to do…

Finally, the newcomers from the Jan 2010 intake arrived last week. It’s a bit strange to now be considered as the “seniors”. Tonight we have a special “buddy” event to meet with the younger intake people we will give advices to.
It reminds me of a similar notion from the Consulting world.

Otherwise, I think I’ve never seen so much snow for so long in France…

Tags: Life on campus, Students
Posted in: 2. At HEC MBA , Just me | 2 Comments »

Posted by Pam at 18 December , 2009

Today is the last day of Core 1 and we are having our last Core 1 exam this morning (HR Management).
After that, off we go on our Christmas holidays!

View of the lake frozen

Yesterday, the HEC Campus was graced by snow. Yes! lots of snow! Making the surroundings of the campus really beautiful.

Someone organised a snow fight… which I joined ;)

During this period, I have learned about:
– Marketing (in French)
– Supply Chain Management
– Statistics (in French)
– Financial Accounting
– HR Management
– Financial Markets

Snow fight from my window

These were all subjects I didn’t know much about, except maybe HR Management. (They don’t teach you much in Consulting…)

So, can I say I’ve learned much? Yes! Definitely.
I also discovered myself a (strange) taste for Financial Accounting. In Consulting we learn the importance of reading balance sheets and income statements, but I had never got around to actually doing it. Now I discovered that: 1) I don’t mind it. 2) The information is actually interesting :)

Can I say that my Core 1 experience at HEC changed my life? Yes again.
But this one is not so much due to the education we got, but more with the people we interact with. Or more precisely, it had more to do with the TEC On-Campus Program. I wrote earlier that I had been accepted in this coaching group but never actually wrote anything about it. I should really correct that one day…

Tags: Academics, Life on campus, Students, TEC
Posted in: 2. At HEC MBA | 2 Comments »