A trip to London, career fair and OB

Soon after recovering from MBAT, I went to England for more formal discussions on the nature of my summer internship and it looks like this summer is going to be an exciting one. My training and work experience before the MBA are going to be put to test besides using elements from the MBA program. I will be travelling to Alaska for a short period to familiarise myself with the intricacies of exploration and production. This trip will also give me the opportunity to talk to people in the field and get data to carry out my work - the work part is confidential so no details here! :-) I am excited and keenly looking forward to it but, right now, I have some nitty gritty details to sort out like where to live, how to commute to work, and how to manage my time so that I can return to Paris as often as possible. Following the discussions, I went to the HEC Paris career fair at J P Morgan in London where I caught up with my classmates, alumni and representatives from companies who were looking to recruit us. I am also beginning to find these visits to London on the Eurostar quite intellectually stimulating. Last time I went to London, I happened to sit next to a full-time mum (by choice) who has an MBA from INSEAD and discussed work-life balance in great detail. This time, I sat next to a medical doctor, American by birth, trained in the UK and resident in Paris, who commutes, though not everyday, to London for work. His job is to introduce cost cutting measures by transfering technical know-how and operational schemes from countries like France to the UK so that hospitals under the NHS become more efficient. So, as a person living in Paris with his family but working in London, which could very well be my situation in the future, he had some good advice to offer.

Today, we had over six hours of Organizational Behaviour. It was interesting with lots of opportunities to work in little groups and reflect on one's past career but, as with any course that is this long, there was also the occasional moment or two when one was just daydreaming. Now, my group has a research case to prepare studying the OB of a company that is the result of a merger between a French and an American company. Next week is also when we present our final work on the marketing project we have been working on for the last few months and then we have exams coming up soon after. It is as if, at HEC Paris, one is always a bit stretched whether it be a test of academic rigour or sporting vigour.

PS: There are now a lot of videos available online from MBAT 2007. Click here to watch the videos.