Reflections on Spain

Well here I am, back in Canada after my semester abroad in Spain. So I thought I’d use this blog entry to write about some interesting things I noticed during my time over there:

I lived in the neighbourhood called Salamanca. This is the richest neighbourhood within the city (before you jump to conclusions about me, I lived there because my school was there, not because I am a spoiled fancy boy or anything!). As a result, I’d become accustomed to being surrounded by people dressed impeccably well. All the time. I remember one day I needed to go to the grocery store quickly to pick up some milk. It was a 5 minute trip and for such a trip in the past (in Canada), that meant a hoodie and flip flops. But now, I thought “wait a minute…I’m going to look like a bum compared to everyone else. I can’t have that! Better put on something nice.” My oh my had I become “pija”! (spanish for “posh”) I NEVER thought that would happen to me but there it was…

Cheeses and meats are MUCH cheaper in Europe than in North America. For example, a mozzarella ball in Spain: 55 cents. Here, $8.  Very unfortunate state of affairs here. I ate very, very well in Spain. 

Breakfast cereals in Spain are a bit different too. Here and in Spain, the “healthy” cereals are basically the same- Corn Flakes, Special K (although the Special K in Spain is SO much better than ours!! I love it so much I brought some home with me haha), etc. Our sweet cereals in North America have a pretty big range- honey, chocolate, cinnamon, frosted, fruit flavours (i.e. fruit loops), other (such as French toast crunch). However in Spain for some reason, sweet cereals are: honey, chocolate or frosted flakes. That is all. I can’t believe things like Cinnamon Toast Crunch or Sugar Crisp wouldn't sell in Spain. I wonder what the business reason is behind such a lack of variety?

One of the big reasons why I love Spain is how chilled out people are. For example, if I tell you I will do something, you can trust that it WILL get done, without a need to create a formal agreement stipulating every minute term or condition, etc. I noticed this on day one dealing with my landlord and found myself becoming this way as well by the time I left Spain. I really like the idea of being able to actually trust people’s word and not worrying that you are going to get screwed somehow.

Madrid has one of the best Metros in the world (in fact, that statement is part of their slogan).However until I lived here I never realized how crazy interchange stations were (that is, at a station, you switch from one line to another). The lines at every station are SO FAR apart!! It’s nuts. If you need to change lines, that instantly adds 5-7 minutes to your journey in walking from one train all the way to another. Also, most metros in the world have timers at each station telling you when the next train is due in the station. In Toronto, if it says “3 minutes” it always feels closer to 1. In Madrid, “3 minutes” really is 3 minutes. So prepare to wait!  That being said, Madrid’s metro is still pretty freaking awesome. I enjoyed riding it (and have the metro chime as my ring tone now!).

Pretty much everyone that knows me knows my time in Spain was probably the happiest 4 months of my entire life. I absolutely loved it there and sincerely hope I have a chance to return one day. But first, I have an MBA to finish in Toronto!!

Recruiting season at Instituto de Empresa

As I may have mentioned in previous blog posts, job recruiting as facilitated by Rotman basically involves companies visiting campus whenever and then you applying for jobs as they are posted on the Rotman careers website.

Here at IE it is interesting to note that the website IE uses for you to search and apply for jobs is the EXACT same one that Rotman uses. I guess good MBA schools share similar tastes in job tools.

Everything else though is a bit different. IE has 1 specific week where ALL companies that recruit at IE come to campus. Rather than each company having info sessions whenever, IE has a career fair: each company that recruits at IE has a booth on campus during 1 or several of the days of the week and you come to the booth and talk to the companies.

What I like about this approach:

-You don’t need to sit through tons and tons of info sessions where every company says “we’re the best ever! You can grow your career here like nowhere else! Everyone likes working here!” So you have more time to allocate to other things in your day :-)

-Although if you do like info sessions, some companies that recruit at IE do do them as well.

-The chances of you getting to talk to an employer one-on-one are much higher given you don’t have 100 people who just sat through an info session trying to speak to the same 3 people at the exact same time with this being the only time you will get a chance to speak to the recruiters (given they have a booth at the fair as well).

-Companies can weed out people with poor communication skills right away.

-You know you will have been exposed to all of the companies coming on campus by the end of career week so can plan accordingly (i.e. if a company you want to meet isn’t on the career fair guest list, you can plan appropriately to meet them separately).

What I don’t like about this approach:

-Talking to a recruiter in one company while the recruiters from every other company can see you is kind of awkward. Like say you weren’t as articulate or polished as you would have liked with company A. Company B’s recruiters can see this in plain sight. So when you go visit company B’s recruiters they may already be biased against you.

-The recruiters are at the career fair all day. If you meet the recruiters at the end of the day they might be totally wiped and uninterested in talking to people anymore, thus reducing your chances to connect well with them.

-If you can’t be at IE that week for whatever reason, you’re screwed (unless you take the initiative to find a way to meet the companies you are interested in a different way).

Anyways, after getting exposed to the corporate world from the North American point of view at Rotman, it was also pretty cool seeing things from the European side here at IE. It is interesting to note that apparently MBAs are in relatively high demand in Spain despite the employment crisis. Like, my IE classmates have been telling me they have had no problems getting interviews/job offers thus far. Interesting…Another reason why an MBA is valuable ;-)

Life on exchange at IE Business School

Me in Spain isn’t all just fun times; I AM here for school after all! I am studying at Instituto de Empresa (loosely translated as “Business Institute”). According to the rankings in Financial Times, Business Week, etc. it is one of the best MBA schools in the world so I was pretty excited for the opportunity to be in it.

The student body here is similar to that of our exchange group in that it is a very, very diverse group of people. Like with the exchange group, no one region of the world dominates the student population. In fact, even though this is a school in Madrid, maybe only like 10% of the class is actually spanish!

Something else I found pretty interesting was the IE curriculum. It is almost the exact same as ours at Rotman! In 1^st year they learned basically the same stuff we did, were subjected to the same ridiculous quantity of work, etc. I guess that is a testament to both IE and Rotman’s calibre of MBA schools (although why Rotman is ranked so differently than IE in global MBA rankings is beyond me…).

Also, IE’s careers/networking portal is the exact same tool that we use in Rotman. Good MBA schools clearly think alike…

At Rotman our class schedule ran like clockwork in that the class schedule was the same every week for the length of the quarter (as you may remember from my earlier posts, the Rotman first year was split into quarters, not semesters). At IE, the class schedule is super random. I might have a specific class 3 days in a row and then not again for like a week. Or one day I might have a class for 3 hours and then the next day, only for 1.5. It was a bit weird but once I got my schedule on my iphone, I could follow what was going to be happening when so I am pretty fine with it now. (especially because it also results in me having long weekends several times a month!).

Finally, it’s pretty cool to be learning from the profs I have. The profs at IE are obviously experts in their fields as would be expected in any solid MBA program but my profs this term teach but also work in the fields they teach. In fact, my Emerging Media class is taught by a guy who manages and marketing agency and created one of the most successful iphone apps ever (here: http://www.mobilecommercedaily.com/2010/07/02/ikea-takes-its-product-catalog-mobile-with-augmented-reality-app).

So that life here at IE!