Last week, the International MBA April intake arrived and commenced their programme with the inauguration ceremony at the IE University campus in historic Segovia, north-west of Madrid. The students’ arrival reminded us, the November intake, how quickly the IMBA programme passes and that not so long ago we, like the April new arrivals, were experiencing IE and Madrid for the first time.
The past 5 months have flown by and as we now approach the conclusion of Core Period 2 all of us are starting to look ahead, beyond the program, at where our future careers will take us. From experience IE has realized this and so at this time the Careers Centre has launched professional services training tracks for Consulting, Marketing and Finance. All these have been well-received and well-attended by the International MBA students, all of whom are keen to gain exposure to and learn from the market experts that IE Business School invites to lead the training seminars.
In early May Core Period 2 will be complete and our International MBA cohort will start to fragment as potentially 100 students take advantage of internship opportunities and go into the workplace for a period of 2-3 months, thus postponing their Core Period 3 classes to be taken in catch-up sessions alongside the core classes of Core Periods 4 and 5 (Elective Period). Classmates of mine have secured exciting opportunities with Johnson & Johnson in Mexico and Colombia, with BT in London and entrepreneurial projects in India. We look forward to welcoming them back in late August.
Next week, Spain celebrates Easter Holidays (Semana Santa), and I’ll be returning home to London for the week whilst classmates of mine either fly home too, or take advantage of the fine spring weather to travel through Spain, Portugal, Morocco and further afield across Europe and the Middle East.
Upon our return we have a week of classes before the Core Period 2 final exams start. They last for 10 days after which a large contingent of IMBA students, me included, will fly to Paris to take part in the annual MBAT (MBA Tournament) hosted by HEC Business School. It promises to be a seriously fun 3 days of sports (from chess to dodgeball), socializing and hopefully some sightseeing too.
I wish all my fellow IMBA students an enjoyable and relaxing Semana Santa holiday and look forward to catching up on our return!
Richard Barnard, current student of the International MBA – November intake, Class of 2010.
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