Study Abroad Blog

I’m posting bit later than I had expected, but hey, I’ve been a little busy. As of right now I’ve been in Barcelona for just over a month, so bear in mind as I discuss the El Montanya retreat that this happened three weeks ago.

Day three of introduction week felt a lot like my senior trip during high school when our whole class (and many, many other senior classes from all around) boarded a bus toward Disneyland for our last hurrah together. Only difference this time was the older and wiser (I hope) company, the destination, and the purpose. Yeah, so this trip was exactly the same…only completely different!

The El Montanya retreat is the big leadership/teambuilding trip up into some nearby mountains about an hour and a half outside of Barcelona. No one knew exactly what to expect upon our arrival, and about half the class (not my bus) got lost and had to wait even longer to figure out just where we were heading. When we reached our destination I think everyone was pretty pleased with the setting.

High atop this mountain we were situated in a respectable hotel and had all expenses paid *cough*tuition*cough*. After overcoming the obstacle of checking in, which took forever as the hotel surely wasn’t prepare to handle 118 eager MBA students at once, we enjoyed a sumptuous lunch with everything from smoked salmon to…I don’t know, just lots of great food! We needed to enjoy ourselves because shortly after lunch we were headed downstairs to be introduced to the folks who will be working with us over the next 18 months to help us learn more about ourselves and eachother.

The classroom stuff was fine. We had to fill out surveys in advance that were intended to show you about your specific learning style and explain a lot about your character. It was interesting, but I always take these things with a grain of salt because they often include gross generalizations while in reality no one fits perfectly into any of the nicely titled boxes we were placed in.

After all this we were grouped into a few teams of about twelve and herded outdoors to take on a very challenging group task. It will be hard to explain, but basically half the group was blindfolded, half was not. The blindfolded folks had no idea what was going on other than our attempts to describe the situation to them. No one was allowed to touch anyone and we all had very specific rules about who could communicate with whom.

Now for our task: There was a bucket, turned upside down, with three weighted balls sitting on top. At the top of the bucket’s rim (by the ground, since it was upside down) were drilled six holes where three very thin ropes were strung through and extended out about five feet or so. The task was to have our blindfolded friends hold these ropes and transport, together, this bucket without dropping any balls across a soccer field while overcoming obstacles – all while us non-blindfolded folks were desperately trying to make this happen without touching anyone or anything. Our group didn’t even make it half way, while other groups completed the entire task. It was a frustrating and humbling exercise and looking back I already see that I’ve learned a few things about teamwork from it.

The next day was more exciting and action packed as new teams were formed and we had to build makeshift “cars” that we would race around a track. The engineers really had a chance to shine here, but I like to think my car skills learnt from my father also helped me rise to the occasion. Everyone essentially made wagons of sorts and two team members had to pull or push their contraptions around the track while one other team member rode the “car.” Here’s a picture of my team’s creation and yours truly making the round.

While we didn’t win, it was a fun exercise and a great way to finish up the teambuilding shenanigans.

We returned to Barcelona (and reality) in the afternoon after the car building exercise and time has definitely not slowed down!

Introduction week as a whole was a blast – Lots of good food and great company mixed with high spirits created a wonderful atmosphere to kick off the program. This is not to say anyone’s spirits have been dashed ever since the onslaught of work began, but yeah, I think we have all been knocked down a few notches back into the realm of reality…which is probably a good thing.

ESADE! That’s who! Our second year in a row atop the Wall Street Journal International rankings, and we are all pretty happy! In fact, we just got word we will be having wine to kick off lunch with a little celebration, so that should be nice.

For those interested, the following is a quick excerpt from http://online.wsj.com discussing ESADE and one of the reasons they are still number one:

This year, ESADE was rated highest for students’ personal integrity, their teamwork abilities and the career-services office. “I like recruiting ESADE students because they have true internationalism and a teamwork orientation that are invaluable at my company and so difficult and time-consuming to develop,” says Sanae Parra, a survey respondent and business management associate for Adidas AG in Herzogenaurach, Germany. “The school does not promote cutthroat competition among peers.”

At any rate, I’m still working on my next post (or rather, trying to keep up with my pre-term classes and occassionally thinking about my next post) so hopefully we will be seeing that sometime this week. That is all for now!

I have to admit that I’ve lagged on making this post. I originally began writing after my first official “meet-n-greet” with a group of my fellow ESADE classmates, but suddenly the momentum just picked me up and here I am not only past introduction week, but one week into the pre-term! I apologize for this delay, but allow me a second to try to bring you up to speed.

First off, I have had to initiate very few introductions since my arrival, as I have lost count of the great number of not only classmates, but also faculty who have approached me and said, “Hey! You’re that guy from the video!” Oh dear, what have I done? Haha, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t like the attention, but man, I never expected such a response. At least everyone who has approached me has really liked it, so I suppose it’s a good thing.

My first impression of my classmates has been much like my first impression of the alumni I’ve met: very good! Everyone is super cool, down to earth and the class seems to be extremely diverse – which is exactly what I was looking for. The class is composed of 118 students representing 36 different countries and a potpourri of professional backgrounds. I can already tell I’m going to learn a lot from my cohort!

Since my arrival, I’ve successfully opened a bank account, got a cell phone, acquainted myself with the city a little, tried lots of new food and had a jolly good tyme with a lot of my new friends. I’ve made an effort to practice my Spanish, but I’ve been a tad discouraged when I walk into places and begin talking to someone and they immediately switch to English. I don’t know if they think they’re doing me a favor, but it kinda smarts knowing I must be that bad…but hey, I’m here to learn, and learn I will!

Introduction week was a blast for the most part. It was loaded with informational meetings and the highlight was our teambuilding trip up into the mountains about an hour outside of Barcelona. We got to participate in a few teambuilding exercises that were often extremely difficult, but overall a wonderful experience. (I’m still working on getting some pictures up, but I’ll make another post about the “El Montanya” retreat complete with pictures soon.)

Now we have just finished our first week of pre-term classes and, my goodness, it has been something! We all knew we would be busy when things got underway. I had been told by anyone and everyone that I’d have no life for the next 18 months, and I believed it. I also acknowledged that while I may accept this fate (afterall, I am paying good money for this!), I knew that until I got here it would be difficult to say I truly knew what I was getting myself into…I think I’m starting to understand.

Week one exposed us to financial accounting, economics, managerial statistics, business law, and information technologies. Nothing I haven’t seen before, but the demanding nature of each course really takes its toll. Classes run from 8:00am until 5:30pm and my typical day has me leaving my apartment before the sun rises and not stepping foot out of the school until after the sun has set…but even then, once I get back to the apartment there are still things to read and individual work to do. Today is Saturday and I was working on homework for statistics and accounting from 2:00pm until just past 9:00pm…yes, Saturday, and I still have more to do tomorrow to prepare for Monday. On top of all the class work, we have a leadership and development class to prepare 11 assignments for by the 15th in addition to resume editing and meetings with career services…again, this is week one!!!

So yeah, I’m a little busy these days, and while I’m absolutely ecstatic that Blanca is finally here, I’m hoping that she will find ample things to do to keep herself busy as I’m out trying to keep my sanity. I must say, I’ve always respected the MBA, but in one week’s time that respect has increased quite a bit and I have a strong feeling that level of respect will only move higher. I don’t know if other programs are this intense, but I would imagine that this is quite necessary considering it is an 18-month program versus the traditional two years. Maybe I’m speaking too soon on all this, cause in all likelihood I haven’t seen anything yet, but hey, I gotta vent sometime!

In my future posts I’m going to try to share a little about my experiences with my fellow students and the things I’ve been learning outside of the classroom. If anyone has questions or post recommendations I’d love to hear them. Otherwise, I’m just going to do this at my own pace and address things I choose to share when I feel inspired. With that, I suppose I will say hasta luego for now.

“Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday.” – Anonymous

Blanca!!! That’s right, she’s finally here with me in Barcelona. She left California Saturday afternoon and arrived here Sunday evening. I met her at the airport and had trouble holding back my tears of joy when I finally saw her. Thankfully she wasn’t too exhausted when we got into town so I was able to take her out a little before we turned in for the evening.

The bus dropped us off at the Plaza España, so she got to see that briefly before we dropped her things off at the apartment and headed out to Plaza Catalunya to find dinner on La Rambla. We settled for a small tapas spot somewhere in the middle of La Rambla and enjoyed a nice combination of interesting food and adult beverages.

I look forward to updating this post with pictures of us together, but will need a little time before I can pull that off. At any rate, Blanca is here and will be here for nearly two months before she has to go get her visa and she’ll be back for good! Guess that’s all my good news for now…

“I ran up the door, closed the stairs, said my pajamas and put on my prayers, turned off my bed and jumped into the light….all because you kissed me goodnight!” Anonymous