汪母娘娘遊世界

At IESE, each class lasts 75 minutes. You need minimum 5 credits in this term as the maximum credit is 6. Usually the time you spent on the 5-credit electives exceeds the requirement of RSM exchange student. Some people would like to optimize the benefit so they take as many courses as they can. Some prefer concentrating all their electives in two days per week so that they have spare time to travel in Europe.

My classmates are proactive to express their idea in the class regardless of the nationality. For me, it is slightly different from what I felt in RSM. The summer internship is mandatory in first year of IESE. You would hear many people sharing their experience to serve a consulting company globally.

            I had several experiences to form a team with either IESE students or exchange ones.

1. Marketing in Latin America

(Prof. Carlos, 0.5 credits)

            In this class, Professor Carlos illustrates you a thorough picture of the successful business cases in Latino market. He optimized the diversity of the course regarding industrial sectors and nationality. Also you understand more about the Latin culture through, for instance, football leagues and coffee brand.

            The key learning is the perspective to analyze why the presented company succeeds. The discussion contributed by both EMBA from Madrid and MBA from Barcelona is very proactive and fruitful. The grading is composed by two parts: class participation and final report which states either a successful case or a failure of a company in Southern America. A group of four people sends the email to the professor to confirm the company name which is not taken by other teams.

2. Brazil Module

(Prof. Paulo, 1 credit)

            It is a project which is similar with Living management project at RSM, but it lasts from early September to mid-October. One week before the first day of project, you have to list the preference. We spent 5 work days in Brazil and then consolidated the final version of slide deck when we returned Barcelona.

There were four organizations such as NGO, consulting firm, and aircraft producer in 2016. Unfortunately, due to several reasons, the number of participants is not enough to fully support all the organizations.  We have two 6-person teams. One team works for a NGO to reposition the strategy of fund raising. The other one works for aircraft producer to design the index to focus on the most valuable project.

3. Executive Management Simulation

(Prof. Lago and Prof. Yankovic, 1 credit)

EXSIM is a five-day intense course which enables a six-person team to understand the overall business model via a role-play. You are able to preview your team composition, determine your role among C-levels, and prepare the team charter in advance. However, some students pay very little attention to this course because it is held right after the summer break.

In the course, the team generates a virtual firm in a manufacturing industry through a website. The simulated game is a combination of the ones we operated at RSM in term 2 regarding Marketing and Operation management. In addition, you involve in several aspects: the board meeting, the human resource allocation, the procurement, the negotiation with labor unions and bankers, and making financial decisions for example, dividends. I suggest to study the procedure of a board meeting carefully as the first meeting with the board is a tough lesson. It may impact the atmosphere of your team seriously if you are not well prepared.

            We have 11 teams which are divided into two worlds. Only one of the CEOs is female while none of them are exchange students from the middle of the week. It is interesting that I realized the participants of EXSIM consist of a majority of bourgeoisies. Ironically, my classmates whose family owns a business are less interested in EXSIM. Perhaps they practice being an executive management in the real world.

To sum up, EXSIM would be a proper choice if you wish to have a heavy workload at the beginning of semester in order to enjoy the light life when the end of MBA program approaches.

4. Negotiation (NEG-1)

(Prof. Mehta, 0.5 credits)

            I used to work as a salesperson for five years and realized that this course exactly provides a series of training between give and take. There are several pre-readings but the most useful practice is the role-play to physically experience the interactions in the case of sellers and buyers. Once we had a workshop with a group of guest students from Africa to simulate the complexity when a NGO for environment protection is invited to a meeting by the units who plan to develop infrastructures.

            A final report addressing a situation about your experience of negotiation in the past or the coming future takes part in grading. At that time, I was struggling to convince a company to offer me a full-time job instead of a short-term internship. In the report, I focused on the detail when bargaining over the remuneration.

5. Wealth Management (WEMA)

(Prof. Simon, 0.5 credits)

            Jen Simon is a popular professor at IESE and famous for his cold call and strict rules that mobile phone is never allowed in his lecture. Try your best to put some effort on the pre-reading and focus on his lecture. You will learn the tools to ensure a steady growth of asset.

            Class participation takes 30% of grading. The rest 70% is either exam or final report. Jen strongly recommended everyone to think about your life after retirement via final report.

6. Entrepreneurship: New Venture (NAVEI)

(Prof. Hakan Ener, 1 credit)

In this term, I concentrated on entrepreneurship. Therefore I have two electives with Professor Ener regarding individual business plan and enterprise spin-off. The workflow of these two courses is similar. Project leaders pitch at the first class to recruit their teammates. There are some workshops in the middle of the course that your presentation would be rehearsed and then improved. A final presentation in the end is taken into account of a majority of grading.

            In my opinion, I prefer NAVEI rather than CORPENT because of my personal career goal and the concept of course. I prepared a business plan of a social enterprise in term 3 and elaborated it in this class with more detail such as profit and loss sheet and product roadmap.  I also learnt a lot of soft skills from NAVEI when my teammates had conflicts or they didn’t dare to present in front of the crowd. As a project champion, I tried to assign the job to my partners fairly and enhanced my oral communication skill to pitch or coordinate.

7. Corporate entrepreneurship (CORPENT)

(Prof. Hakan Ener, 0.5 credit)

            Compared with NAVEI, this elective emphasizes the intrapreneurship in the case that a firm would like to separate its division. If your career goal is working in a giant company and planning to participate in establishing a new business unit from its mother company, CORPENT provides different experiences worldwide.

            Among 11 sessions, four of them are lectured by the guest professor who devotes himself to published case and consulting entrepreneurs. During the final report, each team will present one company about its success of spin-off and upload the slide deck.

8. Business Spanish Program (BSP)

(Prof. Christina, 0 credits)

Spanish class (BSP) is optional and free for all exchange student. I took the entry-level Spanish class and like the quality of teaching. BSP doesn’t count to the credit but helps you to communicate with locals. However, the language for the bus stop and the street names are Catalan. If you don’t ask, you may feel confused why it is different from what you learnt at campus.

            I like my Spanish teacher. She is patient and always smiles. At the beginning our class was the biggest but many people dropped the class. Because the class is one hour per day and four days per week, the students who can’t afford the workload of other electives or arranged their tour gave up. In the end of the class I am glad the high quality of course while one teacher teaches two attendants.