The quest for wisdom, from France to China, of an HEC MBA & Tsinghua MBA dual degree student (class of 2011)
Author ArchiveYou may have noticed that I’m getting to blog a bit more regularly. Well, part of it is because many interesting things happen. Yesterday and today HEC hosted the recrutment “Carrefours“. Carrefour means crossroads in French and is also the name of France’s largest supermarket chain. And indeed, the whole event seemed like a big marketplace. However, persistence (and a sustained smile) is key, as well as good preparation. On another note, while I went to the Carrefours fairly light-hearted, mainly looking for information as I’ll finish my studies from Tsinghua only in June next year, we (of the September 09 intake) noticed many old faces from the September 08 batch who finished class in December. I didn’t want to ask to many questions but it seems like the job market is tough for those who just graduated…
So what’s the deal with fajitas? You may ask. Well, I just wanted to (at last) comment on the social life at HEC, since it’s something that we’re most most proud of in our MBA. Just two days ago, we received an e-mail from the president of the Latin Club about a fajitas party organised at the Piano Bar (it’s a bar with a piano) by the dorms. That came in as a total surprise out of some ideas that emerged during the week-end (which was the January 10 integration week-end in the Alps). Here you go: fajitas, sangria, caipiroska, margarita, pisco… Total succes! Latin Club! We love you! :) Tags: HEC events, Job search, Life on campus, Social Some of you may know of my interest in China. In particular, the proposition of a double degree with the Tsinghua University was a factor in my selection of the HEC MBA. After writing 3000+ worth of more essays, sending the university my 60 euros of application fees by post, and applying to the Tsinghua SEM IMBA independently, back in December, I received their response this week:
Me happy! (^__^) I feel like I just took a step further toward China! Tags: Academics Just a quick article about the Tracks. Some of you may know that the HEC MBA curriculum is composed of 4 phases: Basically Core 1 and 2 are made up of mandatory foundation classes and Personalised Phase 1 and 2 are elective time. Until recently, only Personalised Phase 2 allowed for specialisation where we can choose between Entrepreneurship, Finance, Management Innovation, Marketing and Strategy. However, since last year, and more this year, we now have the possibility to also specialise during the Personalised Phase 1. The new tracks are planned to be more professional and one key factor is that they are HEC cross disciplinary tracks. Meaning that unlike the PP2 tracks, they are open not only to MBA students but also to other programmes from HEC such as the Grande Ecole or Specialised Masters. Now I’ll let you guess to which one I’m going to apply ;) Tags: Academics First of all Happy New Year 2010! :) It gives me the opportunity for me to look back at my Year 2009 where many things happened. 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. :) 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. 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. Otherwise, I think I’ve never seen so much snow for so long in France… Tags: Life on campus, Students Today is the last day of Core 1 and we are having our last Core 1 exam this morning (HR Management). 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: 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. Can I say that my Core 1 experience at HEC changed my life? Yes again. Tags: Academics, Life on campus, Students, TEC It’s been a month since I last wrote on this blog… That’s mainly due to the amount of work we have now. About workload, since it’s currently the hottest topic on my list, after a (sort of) slow start in September, we reached cruise speed in October with group work on top of classes and other club activities. Then in November we started to get exams at a rate of approximately one each week. So it’s getting seriously tough. Actually, for those of you who are wondering what the workload of an MBA student looks like, I’ve prepared a screenshot of my Outlook calendar. Right now, I can’t wait for the holidays at the end of year. But before that, I’ll need to go through the fire of Core 1 exams and project work. On another note, we’re now in another election period as for the MBAT. We have just elected our new MBA Council and there are quite a few club elections going on. Tags: Academics, Assignments Those who read my article about school selection know I did an MBA because I wanted to move toward Luxury. This week I discovered these two videos online (in French). It’s quite funny to see one of our teachers in a video :) Tags: Books These days I’m spending a lot of time thinking about career and, more exactly, researching what I would like to work in after my MBA. Seminars organised by the CMC (Career Management Center) of the HEC MBA are helping a lot in my quest. Tags: Job search Last time I wrote about the election campaigns going on at HEC. Well, the vote for the MBAT team were cast today and the Game On team came ahead with a lead of just one (that’s right, ONE) vote! Here’s the trailer :) But, for now on, Game On! Tags: HEC events, MBAT, Students This week was an election (and electoral campaign) week. Indeed, we had to choose 2 representatives for our respective sections. The difficulty of an election for 2 winners is that we don’t only vote for our favourite participant (such as for a presidential election) but rather for the 2 candidates which will work best together. So I cast my vote accordingly… In addition, and that’s where all the buzz is, we have to choose the team which will organise the 2010’s edition of the MBAT. The MBAT is a sport competition event amongst the top european MBAs that HEC students proudly host (and organise) every year. This year will be the event’s 20th anniversary. So the stakes are important… As a side note, I was very happy to show my parents around the campus on last Sunday. They were quite impressed by the infrastructure and by the lake side (where the MBAT is mostly held btw). We had a quiet afternoon walking around. All good :) Tags: HEC events, MBAT, Students |