Back to MBA Form?

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The break is over and I think I'm still in the non-MBA world-- a place where sleep exists, where not speaking up is actually an option and the word "case" denotes a container. Good thing the AIM MBA program folks were kind enough to schedule only two classes for today. We had our first shot at Financial Management 1 (FM1) under the indefatigable Prof. Larry Tan and a Statistics session in Quantitative Analysis (QA) under Prof. Ricky Lim.

I think most of us in class has yet to get back in MBA form. The classes earlier were a bit sluggish, not because of the lack of energy most of us were experiencing before the break, but because of rust. I'm pretty sure we'll be up to speed soon as we will be facing the Language of Business (LOB) finals this Wednesday and our Economics midterms this Friday and Saturday.

--

I was talking to a classmate earlier and one of the topics we briefly touched on was the ISEP or the International School Exchange Program. For those unfamiliar with it, an MBA student participating in the ISEP would be spending some time in a school outside of the country. Some of the schools an AIM student can go to are the Wharton School and Columbia Business School in the United States, Groupe HEC and ESADE in Europe and Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad and the National University of Singapore in Asia. He asked if I was thinking about it, and I said not really. His point for bringing it up was, although I have yet to validate, is that going on the ISEP will mean you will miss the recruitment season here in campus. (Coincidentally, an AIM faculty brought up the ISEP topic in a separate but brief conversation.)

In any case, that's a bit of a tough choice for an MBA student. Do you take a chance on ISEP and get foreign academic exposure or focus on the recruiters which might land you a job with global exposure?

Comments

Anonymous said…
I would suggest that you aim for the ISEP program. There are 3 main reasons why you should:

1) Adds value to your resume; the participating school lends its name to you for attending one semester with them
2) Global experience; MNC's now look for people with global exposures. So attending an ISEP program will not only give you a global perspective of doing management but it will also expose you to global cultures; and
3) Global Network; needless to say, it is always good to have contacts from abroad.

I did my ISEP in the US, and my AC in India. This not only provided me with good leads for a job, but it was also a great experience.

Do not worry about the recruitment phase in AIM. You can try to get your employer on your own, before, during or after your ISEP.

milo

"work hard, party harder"
October 17, 2007 at 12:22 AM
Unknown said…
Hi Milo,

I was reviewing my blog's archives and I was happy to see you chimed in last year.

I'm also doing my AC in India; as for ISEP, our 16 month program's sched may be too restrictive to go ahead with it.

:D
April 24, 2008 at 4:27 AM
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