Frog to Dragon: HEC MBA & Tsinghua MBA Blog


The quest for wisdom, from France to China, of an HEC MBA & Tsinghua MBA dual degree student (class of 2011)

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Archive for the ‘Just me’ Category

Posted by at 5 August , 2010

Walking out of HEC

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)


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Posted by at 3 July , 2010

Summer has arrived. After a little struggle (15°C on June 21st) heat has settled on campus, as well as the football world cup :)

Now, PP1 is almost done for me. I still have a couple of classes next week but I’ll be on vacation right after.

During PP1, we had the options of doing a long internship (5 months) of study electives. I was more interested by classes (and vacations) and I made a scrupulous selection based on my own interests and feedback from previous intakes.

Happy participants of the theatre elective

Happy participants of the theatre elective

In addition, as I was not accepted to the Luxury track (very selective) I tried to pick classes that would be most useful after my MBA, while being unique and hard to get at Tsinghua, as I will still have the chance to study electives there in September.

As a result, I took the following classes:
– The Financial Dimension of Strategic Decisions
– International Entrepreneurial Finance
– The Macroeconomics of Emerging Economies
– Marketing and Strategies in Luxury
– Managing the Growing Company
– International Negociations
– Discovering your Leadership Path
– Theatre (in French)

The quality of each class was variable, but I was generally very satisfied by my electives.

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Posted by at 26 April , 2010

Hey there!
Spring has finally arrived!

Violets blooming all over the campus woods

Violets blooming all over the campus woods

What can I say, I’m very glad I could pack away my coat and enjoy again nice walks around the campus. Flowers are just about everywhere these days. Everybody is in good mood :)

It is also time to look back as we have now completed our second Core phase.

During this period, I have learned about:
– Business Economics
– Corporate Finance (in French)
– Decision Making
– Organisational Behaviour
– Management Accounting & Control (in French)
– Strategic Management (in French)
– Sustainable Business Strategy

Like in Core 1, I didn’t know much about any of these topics.

I confirmed my strange taste for Financial Accounting as I enjoyed the classes we had in Management Accounting. This is big news for me and I’m now starting to include this skill into future career options. (Seriously, who’d want to include Accounting as a career option!)

I may say that this period has been as life changing as Core 1. But maybe as a continuation. I felt that Core 1 was a “Reset” time, while Core 2 was about (re)building my expectations.
I’ve definitely started to think of career options in a different way and now I’m seriously considering options that would have sounded wild when I left my job, just under a year ago.

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