Study Abroad Blog

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!

I know I just posted, and my last post was all about how little time I have, and now I’m posting again after one day, but I guess that’s what happens when you’re on a four-day weekend and don’t feel like doing work the whole time! So, here is another slideshow of pictures I took while visiting Malta the past two days. Enjoy.

P.S. – I feel that it is actually better to view my photo albums by going
here as it gives you slightly better images and more navigational power…if you’re into that sorta thing…and yes, my name is slow79ford on slide.com, long story.

I’m sitting in my hotel room in Malta for the long weekend before finals and I decided it’s simply been too long, so I need to make a new post. I know I’ve said in the past that I haven’t had a lot of free time lately, but this time instead of simply repeating myself, I’m going to do my best to document just what it is that has been keeping me so busy lately. I want to put into context what I do on a daily basis here while taking on Term 1 of my MBA at ESADE. So without further adieu, here is my version of “A Day In The Life Of A First-Year ESADE MBA Student”:

Tuesday, December 4, 2007

5:45am
“Buenos Dias!!” comes on the radio…my favorite thing to wake up to every morning…at least it’s better than an actual alarm sound, I can’t stand those. Slowly roll out of bed, grab my phone off the charger, turn off the alarm, walk out the room and close door behind me – don’t want to disturb my wife’s sleep.

Stagger to the shower, take a quick one, jump out, put my contacts in and now I’m about ready to rock and roll.

6:10am
Made it to the kitchen, take my vitamins, put the water on for coffee, pour me some cereal and eat quickly while the water begins to boil. By the time the water is ready, my cereal is done, pour the water in the French press and wait for my first dose of caffiene to help jump-start my day.

6:20am
Bring my nice, warm coffee into the living area, sit down at the table and fire up my laptop. Begin checking emails, send responses to two classmates who sent messages around 1:00am. Begin reading requirements for this week’s marketing PowerPoint presentation and report. Receive a few emails from team mates filling in parts of the report…look at the clock and wonder how it is already 7:00am!

7:15am
Drop my dishes off into the sink and scurry into the computer room to change. Quickly suit up in my business casual attire (what I normally wear, why not?) and survey the room to ensure I haven’t forgotten anything. Brush my teeth, kiss my wife good bye and head out into the daily unknown.

7:35am
Walking down into the subway, I fiddle with my mp3 player and pass the accordian playing hooligan and give him a nod. Hear the train as I’m inputting my pass and jam down the stairs just in time to see the tail of the train taking off into the tunnel – next train in 3minutes 43seconds…I can wait.

7:55am
Subway arrives at the Maria Cristina stop and it’s a mad dash to the ground level. I reach the cold Barcelona air and see it is still dark outside and the Christmas lights at el Corte Ingles are still on. I walk across the street to my bus stop and wait while nodding my head to the Jason Mraz tunes in my headphones. 63 bus arrives after an 8 minute wait and I squeeze on amidst the morning mob.

8:15am
Arrive at ESADE, made decent time, and immediately head down to Planta A to get my morning café con leche y un agua grande. Remember there is a quiz in finance, so head back in the building to meet with the secret finance study society for some last minute cramming.

8:55am
Head still spinning after trying to get to the bottom of what is expected to be prepared for the quiz, but it seemed somewhat unanimous that we needed to determine the cause of the financial need of our customer based on their pro forma financial statements – no biggie.

9:05am
Sitting in class, realize we are in the wrong room for the morning session and half of us have to pack up our things and move one room down the hall. Relocate to the other room and begin some new financial discussion…taking notes…sorta…also sorta taking a look at my marketing while IM’ing my wife about the light bulb we need to replace in the kitchen.

10:30am
Much needed coffee break, step outside, order another café con leche and chat with classmates for about three minutes. Head back into the class where we are finally given our quiz. It was a true or false plus explanation in reference to what caused the financial need in company XYZ…I think I got it. Were given five minutes to write our answers, then we jumped right back into class where we worked on quite a few new problems.

1:00pm
Lunch time! Walk outside to the Carpa and jump in line to order my bocadillo de pollo con queso. Pay for my meal and sit down with some classmates to chat and relax for a few minutes. One of the finance professors approaches me and asks to speak with me after I finish eating…interesting.

1:15pm
Sit down with finance teacher and discuss a comment I made during class. Basically in order to determine the total cost of taking on new debt, we were shown in class to multiply the total initial principle balance by the interest rate, then divide the principle by the number of years the loan will be repaid over, then add that product to the interest calculation to get the total one year cost of taking this new loan. After covering this, I had pointed out that if you actually work this out using an amortization schedule, the application of principle and interest isn’t so simple. When I didn’t push my statement, out of fear I was just confusing people and helping no one, she explained she was disappointed and had wanted me to help her explain the concept to the class. I guess I missed the que, so for future reference I was encouraged to participate more – I can do that.

2:00pm
Run back upstairs and settle in for back to back Organizational Behavior sessions to compensate for cancelled classes earlier in the term. We had an excellent guest speaker from the Harvard Business Review who told us about his experiences working with the UN. The second leg had us watching a video about unique working environments designed to assist employees in expressing their creativity, looked fun.

5:30pm
Class is now over, and since Spanish was cancelled due to the marathon OB sessions it’s straight to work with my marketing team to bust out our report and presentation. One member had to leave for a meeting at 6, so we had to work fast to get the most out of her.

6:00pm
Get up to shake my legs and grab a snack after the intense 30 minute dash to get things in line so that we can finish up marketing as quickly as possible. Settle back down five minutes later and begin working on the PowerPoint while my lone remaining teammate works on our report.

7:30pm
I have the template built for the presentation and our lost member returns for a quick look over on our progress and gives feedback on the PowerPoint. I take note of the recommendations and bid her farewell, as she had a flight to catch to NY in the morning, so we opted to let her go on her way to get ready. Have some quick discussions about the report and stick it on my flash drive to take home and polish up.

7:45pm
We are tired, so we decide to head our separate ways and my teammate agrees to forward his slides to me as soon as he’s done. We head out and I catch a bus around 8pm…got out very early today, so I’m excited! Catch the subway and make my way up to the apartment around 8:30pm – quite early indeed!

8:30pm
In more comfortable clothes, I quickly go to work on replacing the light in the kitchen. Easier said than done, I put it off until after dinner, as Blanca had it just about ready by the time I arrived (she’s so super!). Sit down for another excellent meal and enjoy some conversation while we catch up with eachother on our days.

8:50pm
Head back in the kitchen to tackle the busted flourscent bulb and completely disassemble the unit, see the problem was with a connector, correct the issue, reinstall the new bulb and walla! We have light again! Content with my work, Blanca and I celebrate with a glass of cava as I settle in for a long night with marketing.

9:00pm
I decide to take on the report first, as this is the basis for the presentation. Having to cope with correcting non-native English spelling and grammar issues takes time, but the content is quite good, so I do my best to utilize everything we have. Formatting takes some time, but it will all be worth it in the end. Received my team mate’s slides via email, take a look, and try to pick up the pace so I can add my part to the package.

10:30pm
Finally, the report looks good, so I’m ready to move on to the presentation. I’ve learned a lot about PowerPoint this term (did I mention these reports and presentations are weekly events in marketing? Yeah…they are…and this is just one of my eight classes, so I was lucky this was all I had for the day to complete!). I start transferring content, but decide I don’t like some of the designs I had created, so I changed it. After working this out, I have all the content down and decide to give it a test run…still lots to do…

11:30pm
I realized that when I changed the template, my team mate still had the old one, so I had to transfer and edit his content for continuity. From here, I now start to add the bells and whistles to the presentation, so I get creative with the first slide and realize I have 14 more to edit, so I cut it out after I realize my vision is a little beyond my means at this point. Blanca is now getting ready for bed, so I’m trying to get things wrapped up quickly. Finally, after much more tweaking, proofing, and previewing, I have what I feel is a solid package and do a last run-through, show it to Blanca, and make my final tweeks.

12:15am
Final drafts complete, I finally send it off to my team mates at a quarter past midnight. Even though it was sent, I open the sent email and view attachments just to make double sure I was ok with what I sent. Content with the end result, I construct a to-do list for the morning which includes the following:

• Add finishing touches on marketing paper and presentation before class at 9am
• Write 150 word essay for Spanish about the movie “Volver”
• Run through Investment Banking flash cards to prep for interviews next month
• Read and write summaries for OB articles
• Edit group paper for Econ
• Write final thread for Geopolitics

12:35am
Flip the top down on my laptop and call it a day. Go brush my teeth, put on something more comfortable and finally hit the hay. Talk with Blanca about meeting for lunch the next day to get her paperwork so she can apply for her residence card and finally dose off around 1am.

5:45am
“Buenos dias!”

I believe the digital camera is one of my favorite inventions in recent history, as it allows me to take as many pictures as I please and quickly share them with people all over. Well, after receiving various compliments lately, including in my last post, I decided to throw you two more photo albums / slideshows where you can take a look at a few of the beautiful things I have been so lucky to see during my time in Barcelona. There are many, many more where these came from, and certainly many, many more to come. Enjoy!

So, I’m finally a legal Spanish resident…even have the card to prove it! I must say it was a long and often frustrating process, but it is over now (for the first year) and I’m happy about that. I said before that I would describe the process I had to undergo in order to get this student resident card, so that is what this post is about.

First off, if you’re planning to study in Spain for longer than a visa will allow, you’ll probably have to go through this process. So, the first step for everyone will be, get a passport! After this, follow my tips in the “So You Want A Student Visa” post and be sure to check with your local consulate to ensure you don’t have different processes or required documents. Once you have your visa done, you’re on your way to becoming a temporary Spanish resident.

From here, I must say I was relatively annoyed that the Spanish government doesn’t seem to communicate well with its consular branches. At the consulate in San Francisco, there were two documents I was required to provide for my visa that were subsequently stamped and given back to me. This included the letter of clearance and the letter of good health. These were two of the more difficult documents to come by, so I was told to keep these safe and be sure to present them to the Spanish government upon my arrival in order to obtain my residence card…strange, because I haven’t had to touch these documents since my arrival – not requirements for the student resident card!!!

On the contrary, these were the documents I needed to obtain:

Evidence of housing
Basically, my landlord had to go to the local police station and get a document stating that I am living in his place…easy enough. If you wind up with a landlord who isn’t as helpful as mine, just take a copy of your contract to the police station and they’ll get you the document.

Evidence of funds
It was recommended to have a Spanish bank account with something like 4,000 Euros in it, but I heard they also accepted non-Spanish account information for the first year. Next year, when I have to renew the card (and re-do the process) a Spanish account will be required. This wasn’t a problem, but it was annoying having to pay seven euros just for a certificate stating my balance…couldn’t a statement just have sufficed?!

Copy of your visa and inbound passport stamp
Unfortunately, you cannot bypass the visa process, as you need to provide a copy of it to prove that you completed this step. Additionally, you need a copy of the page where your passport was stamped when you entered Spain. This actually was a problem for many folks, as not everyone had their passports stamped. So, people were having to get new copies of boarding passes and train tickets to prove when they entered the country. The reason is if you wait more than thirty days to apply after your arrival, you get fined…so try to get your passport stamped upon entry and apply within 30 days!

Four “DNI” sized photos
No, passport size will not be accepted, they are too big…I should know, mine were rejected. DNI is something like 3×4 cm and they will only accept this. It was frustrating finding a place to do this during the hours I am available, especially considering they don’t seem to do these on weekends for some reason, despite the stores being open. Only cost like four euros…well, seven if you count the money I wasted getting passport sized photos.

Proof of health insurance
Yeah, make sure you have evidence that you have insurance coverage, make copies of these, and you’re good to go.

In addition to this…
The only other thing I would have needed if Blanca were applying with me would have been a translated marriage certificate. Also, if I had children, a translated birth certificate would be required as well…I know personally one of my classmates had a lot of issues because they assumed, quite rationally, that his nine-month old baby’s visa would be sufficient to obtain her card…but leave it to the Spanish authorities to question that the child was even his, so they needed a birth certificate with his and his wife’s name on it, translated, as proof that their child was in fact theirs…glad I don’t have kids.

Other than that, I was thankful ESADE provided an attorney to do all the dirty work. It was pretty straight forward, just furnish the documents and he got it all done. It wouldn’t be impossible to do without an attorney, so don’t fear if you don’t have one, just make sure you know where to go and what to bring.

Hopefully this is somewhat helpful, and if anyone has endured this process as well, please share your experiences!

“Quotes are cool…but then again, if they weren’t, no one would quote them.” – Marabeth Madsen

Hola todos! Today I turned 26 years old and I figured it would be a nice gift for myself to set some time aside to finally make a new post! ‘Tis true, I really do enjoy posting, so here I go.

I can assure you I’ve been thinking about posting just about every day since my last post, however, finding time is quite another thing! But enough about that, lets move on to what is on most of my ESADE classmates’ minds – Career Week! I cannot say how many times I have heard various individuals make a complete 180 in the direction they want to head in their career, and I feel with Career Week starting Monday, there will only be even more of it to come.

Confusion is a pretty common feeling among my classmates, but I like to think it is a good type of confusion. We all want to make a good choice in our next career move and try to get into something that we are truly passionate about. Many people who pursue an MBA are doing so in order to make a career change. The problem often is, I don’t think any of us were prepared for the vast number of possibilities we would be confronted with! That said, I see the whole confusion thing as a good thing of sorts. I mean realistically, the “problem” is the amount of opportunity we are all being exposed to, so it can’t really be all that bad.

Read the rest of this entry »

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