Back to the Toronto Routine!

I am living in Toronto again after 8 months away and it was a pretty weird feeling at first. After living exceedingly well abroad it was definitely a bit of an adjustment coming back. Although Rotman being Rotman, I got right back into the thick of things! Between:

-Class

-My involvement in the Rotman Marketing Association and Rotman Entertainment and Media Association

-Helping 1^st years with job applications/interview prep

-Keeping up with networking for my own job search

My life has been pretty busy.

While I was gone, I was pretty removed from everything my friends were doing on this side of the atlantic. But coming back, everyone has been awesome getting me right back into the fold, like I never left. I am lucky to have awesome friends and classmates! If I could have taken my classmates with me during my time in Madrid, life would have been ever better over there!

For those looking to go on exchange, some important things to consider:

-Before you pick which semester you want to go abroad, consider when recruitment is for the jobs you are interested in. For example, if consulting is your thing, recruitment happens almost entirely in the fall. So you’d want to be at Rotman for that. So obviously then go on exchange in the winter.

-Everyone that goes on exchange gets a scholarship that essentially covers the cost of your flight. So no worries on that front!

-If you plan to get involved on the exec of a club, I strongly recommend you DO NOT go on exchange AT ALL. More on that below.

It is really challenging coordinating things across time zones and because the Rotman administrators (and any execs in the business community you hope to work with to visit Rotman or whatever) get so much email daily, dealing with them is faster and easier face-to-face/by phone.

That’s not to say it is impossible to manage club stuff abroad (I managed club stuff abroad after all) but you have to be committed- which might be a challenge for some people when you are living it up on exchange in another part of the world. :-)

Reflecting on my time at IE

This week is sadly my last week at Instituto de Empresa. L With that, I thought it would be a good time to reflect on my experience here. Hope you enjoy!

--Things that were awesome—

-Living in Madrid- IE is awesome if for no other reason than the fact that it is in Madrid. My favourite city in the world. As I alluded to in previous blog posts, the weather, food, culture, etc are all so phenomenal that having Madrid as a backdrop to your MBA studies automatically makes your MBA experience pretty great.

-The Profs- Among the profs I had anyways, almost all of them teach and work in the field in which they teach (rather than just doing research). I loved this. It made the profs seem very up-to-date on best practices so learning how to use those best practices in developing business strategies I feel has really helped prepare me for success in my post-MBA career.

-REAL diversity- Every MBA school seems to talk about how much it values diversity but for most, it is just talk, with the student body being dominated by 2-3 countries or regions of the globe. At IE, diversity actually exists. My classes included south americans, north americans, Europeans, Africans, Asians and Australians with no one region dominating over the others. This was a great way to open myself up to tons of different perspectives on life and business.

-The Campus- IE has several buildings spread out across a few blocks in the neighbourhood of Madrid called Salamanca. The buildings are NICE. I mean, really, really nice. It was pretty cool studying in such cool spaces!

-Support for your own entrepreneurial venture-IE has A TON of support for people looking to start their own companies- networking with venture capitalists, support on how to build your business, etc. If you want to use your MBA to start a company, IE is probably where you should study. Given I want to be a marketing director (which is akin to managing a business), it was really helpful for me to be a part of this environment, to be better equipped for becoming a marketing director one day!

--Things that were not so awesome—

-Student life- I could go on for a LONG time about the issues this school has with promoting and facilitating a cohesive student body,  creating a more enjoyable student experience, etc but will just leave it at this. Rotman is MILES ahead of IE in this respect.

-Networking clubs- I was a member of several clubs (marketing club, north American club, etc)  and in one semester, there was ONE event (a speaker event) across all of the clubs I am a member of. Why do these clubs even exist then?

Living in Madrid was a dream come true for me. I know I will miss it here and hope I can move back one day. However, I really miss my classmates at Rotman…I am excited to see them again soon!