Study Abroad Blog

So we have this grade non-disclosure policy here at ESADE, which basically means I’m not supposed to disclose (or I have a choice to disclose, I believe) my grades on campus. I’ve never had this before, but still, every interview I’ve had thus far the interviewer has asked about grades. Well, up until yesterday, we hadn’t even received our first term grades, so I really couldn’t say either way. But, as of late in the afternoon yesterday, the numbers are in, and while I’m not going to specifically “disclose” all my grades, I will share a few things now.

First off, I’m not used to the European grading system. In my mind, anything less than 90% means I did something wrong. Over here, I’ve heard some of my European classmates say “average” is around a 5 or a 6 on a 10 point scale, so based on this, here is how I interpret my grades for term one:

Applied Quantitative Models, Economics, Leadership Assessment and Development, and Managerial Accounting (four classes) I scored in the 8s. Again, to me this is like “What? 80%?!” But this isn’t really the case, as I understand 8s are very solid scores, so hurray for my performance in these classes, I guess it was pretty decent.

Geopolitics, Society and Culture and Marketing I (two classes), I dipped just into the 7s. I must say these grades disappointed me, as I felt my group did extremely well in Marketing and received nothing but praise from the professor throughout the term. I believe the final exam (which was based on text that simply did not get read given time constraints) is where I went array. While I disagree that Marketing should be taught out of a textbook, there is really little I can do about the matter now. As for Geopolitics, I felt folks with backgrounds in NGOs or with less “businessy” backgrounds had an advantage in here, so I’m just happy I did much better than a 5!

Now, the outliers.

Organizational Behavior was a psychology class, basically. We were given hundreds of pages of reading throughout the term, never really discussed them, the professor had his own topics to discuss every time we had class, and there were zero assignments, quizzes, etc. The whole grade was based on the final, which was very theoretical and involved a great deal of writing. Many of my classmates spent around 3 hours on the exam, and many did not pass. I finished in just over a half hour, as I didn’t feel dedicating more time would help me in any way, and this was my only grade in the 6s – at least I passed!

Finally, my bread and butter, Financial Analysis. I was disappointed throughout the course, as I felt the weekly quizzes were ambiguous and ill-communicated. So, going into the final I was quite unsure how I’d end up doing, despite having my undergrad been in Finance and my work experience, also in Finance. Well, I must have done quite well on the final, as I ended up with a very high 9, which satisfied me nicely and gave a slight rejuvenation to my confidence in the subject.

So if you count, those were the results of eight courses. In addition to that, there was a week-long Strategy course where I was simply given a “Pass” because it is Pass/Fail, and we have our Spanish final next week. Do the math, and at one point I was juggling ten classes…this is yet again why I’ve been so busy!

All that said, looking back now I am truly amazed at everything I accomplished over the last few months. Now, the cycle is starting over again, but hopefully this time around the load will allow a little more breathing room (and time to post!) – We shall see.

I know, this is a sorry excuse for a post, but it has just been so long since I wrote that I feel like I at least need to write something! The quick and dirty is that after Malta was finals, after finals kicked my butt my mother and “little” sister visited Barcelona for three days, from there we went to Paris to bring in the New Year and after that we spent three days in Rome. As soon as we returned I had one day to catch my breath and it was back to the school grind with an intensive one-week class on Strategy, which we have the final for in two days, and I had an interview with Goldman Sachs, as well as a brief phone interview with Citi. I was waiting until all this interview stuff transpired so I could share my experiences, but it just took too long! So, I do plan to make another post soon with more details on my quest for an internship, but for now this is all I’m going to share.

And now, I leave you with a couple slideshows of some pictures I took in Paris and Rome over winter break. I know there is some redundancy, but like I said, I was just in a rush to get something up here so I don’t feel as much like a slacker! Enjoy!