Have you heard, that the first year at IESE is supposed to be extremely tough? From what I can see so far, that’s true. The last days hit me (us) like a hammer. But it’s amazing. I love the dedication that you feel everywhere, the collaboration and of course the learning. I find the things that we study, day in day out, absolutely interesting and can only now realize, how much more we’ll know after the MBA.
You might think that the Introduction Week is an easy progression into the MBA life. But it’s not. Although there is just one case to prepare, the events have a rapid pace and you spend all day in school. We got to know our teams, worked on our CV’s, crafted a “Team Contract”, got in touch with Career Services, visited an Alumni Panel and started the case preparation for the first real MBA week.
In the last week, the MBA was basically omnipresent. We have 3 classes a day, each 1:15 h. You need to prepare 1 case per class, so it’s a total of 15 cases a week. The easy cases take 1 hour of preparation, but overall 2-4 h is more realistic (at least for now, until we get a better grasp and develop efficiency). It depends also on the subject: Analysis of Business Problems (ABP) is challenging and you need to dive deep into the narrative and the numbers. Leadership on the other hand is easier to digest. Accounting takes time as you need to carefully do all the bookings.
This term we have: ABP, Marketing Management, Decision Analysis, Leadership, and Accounting.
So my typical day looks like this:
08:00 Team Meeting
09:15 Subject 1
10:30 Subject 2
12:15 Lunch and studying in the library / team meeting / last-minute case preparation
14:00 Subject 3
15:15 Studying in the library, open end – I had days when I left at 19:00 and continued at home, and others, when I stayed until midnight.
One thing is true so far: There is not enough time in the day, to prepare every case to the quality level you would like to, and working until late into the night was inevitable.
On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays we have additional Spanish classes and the other days are usually full with consulting preparation or Company presentations.
I enjoy it though. I came here, to be pushed towards (and beyond) my boundaries. You can only grow, when you tackle these challenges. The surrounding is also full of motivation, and the people are great.
This year can only be incredible.
barcelonaMBA 