In this post I’ll look back at the first semester of our MBA studies spanning September – December 2010 and summarize key aspects of living and studying in St.Gallen so far.
Academic Content
As you may know, the first semester of St.Gallen MBA program consists of the core module that is split into three blocks each consisting of 3 courses and spanning slightly over a month. Firstly, we had International Management, Marketing and Communication, and Finance I, then Business Environment, Strategic Management, and Finance II, and lastly, Leading Change, Personal Development, and Finance III. I’d say that we had both courses with a general market and management perspectives, such as Business Environment or International Management, and those focused on more specific issues such as Finance I-III or Leading Change. I think that overall, that mix was fairly well balanced and covered a broad range of business related issues. I have to say that by and large, all of the courses were interesting and relevant to one’s future aspirations. Personally, I liked the content and delivery of Business Environment the most, even though in terms of deliverables and reading volumes the course itself was one of the most challenging ones.
Intensity
If you used to be a workaholic or at least a really hard working person and you think that you can handle any load of work during your MBA studies better than everybody else, bets are high that soon after the program start you’ll realize that that was a misconception. First of all, you’ll be surprised that almost every person around you in the MBA program is just as much a workaholic as you are. Secondly, it’s very likely that you’ll discover anew the true limits of working really hard. Looking back at those four months of MBA experience I can say that the whole thing felt like a single big dash. It was a never-ending sequence of reading, writing, searching the web, sitting on lectures and corporate presentations, meeting with teammates, and making presentations. It won’t be an overstatement to say that I was studying all the time when I wasn’t sleeping or eating (and I made a lot of inroads into these two territories too). Weekends were marked only by absence of lectures – otherwise they were another working days. With exception of one day that I spent on going to Octoberfest and another one on bicycling in mountains I don’t remember a single weekend when I was doing anything else besides preparing deliverables or catching up on reading. There were moments when I really doubted that it was possible to do all the work in allocated time, but, strangely enough, every time everything was working out fine. The time was just enough though to pass all of the “checkpoints” so in a sense, the whole thing resembled a rollercoaster experience, the peculiarity of which is that you know for a fact that you’re going to be safe and alright because everything’s planned and calculated, but you can’t help questioning that in the process as sometimes it’s just overwhelming. All said, I believe that there’s an upside to that kind of studying experience. First of all, we’ve been learning how to survive and be efficient in the harshest working environment and since no casualties were incurred and everybody’s safe and alright, I can infer that we became stronger, more flexible and efficient, capable of multitasking and working under stressful conditions. Secondly, I think that potential employers have a very clear idea of what St.Gallen MBA students are being through and obviously, that adds extra value to our MBA degree.
Teaching Methods
Different courses were constructed in a slightly different manner, but almost each of them was a mix of lectures (often involving corporate speakers), individual assignments (essays, papers), team assignments (a very big component usually), and cases (often in collaboration with a variety companies).
We had quite a number of people from corporate world conducting teaching sessions. Most of the time, it was an altogether great experience to have someone from a real organization providing us with valuable insights relevant to subjects that we were studying. To give you an idea of the kind of companies that were participating, we had people from McKinsey, UBS, Hilti, Bombardier, JP Morgan, Sulzer, IBM, Deloitte, Lufthansa, and EQT Partners. Besides obvious advantages for the learning process, having industry insiders in the class was always a great networking opportunity, which we never missed – you’d always see companies’ representatives surrounded by students during breaks.
As for the individual assignments, mostly it was about writing lengthy essays (up to 12 pages) or preparing an executive summary – something of that sort. By no means it was dull or easy. Most of the time, considerable research and applying of frameworks and techniques learned in-class was necessary for successfully finishing the job. In some cases, it was really mind twisting and therefore challenging – you would spend the whole weekend on one assignment and still have some editing left. Some people don’t like writing essays too much, but to me it’s another way of personal development and sometimes a good opportunity for reflections.
I have to say that the team component of MBA experience was really challenging. Only when you move past Apero’s pleasant cheat-chats with your classmates and submerge into harsh working environment with one deadline looming after another you start realizing how difficult it can get working in teams, even with brightest people. Everyone has her/his own ego, own opinion, own understanding of a problem, own punctuality standards, and so on. You have to deal with all these differences by trying to find a common ground that often is not easy at all. I must admit that on some occasions I wasn’t happy at all, while sometimes everything was just perfect. I believe that ultimately, working in teams under extremely stressed circumstances was an absolutely valuable learning experience, especially at times when negativity prevailed. You learn how to be assertive and persuasive, how to compromise and manage your temper, how to cut down on perfectionist things, and so on. And the progress is something that you really can feel – over time you see how people change and how you change as well.
As for the cases, I can say that so far we had loads of them as part of just about every course that we had, both quick and simplistic ones that we were solving just during a class or lengthy and complicated ones that we were doing in teams over a one to three weeks period. We had a number of cases presented to us and supervised by people from the corporate world and so far, we’ve done one real-life project with Sulzer, the details of which I cannot explain due to confidentiality agreement that we signed. I’d say that solving cases is another crucial element of learning process since most of them neatly simulate the real-life working environment.
Career Services
In fact, career services activities were something that the whole program has started with. In the process we had a lot of soft skills workshops, we had corporate presentation and networking events, we had individual and team coaching sessions with outside coaches and so on. Here are some examples of companies that were participating so far: IBM, Buhler, ATKearney, Novartis, Syngenta, LGT Bank, IWC (the list is not complete – those are the names that instantly came to my mind). On average, there was one corporate event every one or two weeks. It was a good opportunity for everybody interested in working for a specific company to interact with its representatives, discuss employment options, especially since most of the time, there were HR people among them. For everybody else, it was a great opportunity to have free snacks and wine during Aperos after presentations and I must admit that sometimes it was quite handy. I can’t say how effective the whole thing was so far because up to now I was concentrating on studies rather than on attempts to find a job. On the other hand, I know that some of my classmates who actually have been applying have already been through some interviews. We even have a number of people who already got job offers. Anyway, Career Services is something that works for us throughout the whole MBA program and I think that most of students tend to stay optimistic on their employment prospects.
Out of the class
However intense our program may be, we manage to engage in “out-of-the class” activities both as a class or a group of people and individually. First of all, I’d like to say that from the very beginning there was a strong sense of friendship and support among us and we’ve been really enjoying spending time together. Often it’s just a couple of beers on Friday night (I’m not participating though since in line with Russian traditions, I’m not consuming any alcohol at all), sometimes it’s a birthday party or a trip together. MBA office organizes events time after time, so for example we had a hiking day in the beginning of the program, a Christmas party, and a skiing event. We also do sports together, for instance some people play basketball, some badminton, and some tennis. I would say that St.Gallen’s location allows for quite a variety of ways to interestingly spend time. I won’t go too much into details, but to give you an idea, I’ll just list places and events that I’ve been to so far both with my classmates and without them. In the course of studies (and especially during the Winter brake) I’ve been to the following events: Octoberfest, Lady Gaga concert, OLMA, Ski day at LAAX, Sledging in Matt; and the following places: Genova (I), Portofino (I), Lavagna (I), Verona (I), Cannes (F), Nice (F), Monaco, Milano (I), Liechtenstein, Zurich (CH), Appenzell (CH), Rorschach (CH), Winterthur (CH), Schaffhausen (CH), Bregenz (AU), Dornbirn (AU), Konstanz (D), Munich (D), Frankfurt (D), Dachau (D), and Dusseldorf (D). As you can see, it’s not only the program itself that’s intense over here.
Living in Switzerland
Probably the first thing that comes to one’s mind when s/he thinks about Switzerland is that the country must be very expensive. Indeed it is. A dinner at a local restaurant may easily set you back 30 to 50 Swiss Francs, and you would pay CHF2.5 to 3 for a bus ride and about CHF40 for a kilo of meat at a local supermarket. But remember that you’re paying for the highest quality and if that’s not of so much a consolation to you, note that it’s possible to find ways around. Well, maybe the only way not to spend a fortune on restaurants is not to dine out that often, and the only alternative to a 3 buck bus is walking or bicycling, but with everything else it’s not that hard to find ways of saving money. For example, instead of buying groceries at such stores as Migros or Coop, conveniently located just about everywhere in the center of the city you can go/drive/ride a bit towards outskirts to Aldi or Lidl and pay about 50% less. And if you think that it’s awfully long way to go there you’re wrong because it’s no more than 2 to 3 km – in Switzerland the distances tend to be shorter than anywhere else. I went a bit further in that respect and, since I have a car here, I’m doing my groceries in the neighboring Austria every week or two. It’s less than 40km and everything’s awfully cheap there. I’m sure that one could easily survive on no more than 50 Euros per week when buying stuff there (if you buy at METRO, which is already among the cheapest outlets, they even pay you back the VAT because you’re taking goods abroad). So I would say that Switzerland is definitely among the most expensive countries but living here is manageable should one spend wisely.
Apart from financial aspect of living in St.Gallen, I can say that, provided that you’re industrious enough (and average MBA student tends to be like that), there is quite a number of ways not to get bored when you have some free time. Museums, parks, lakes, zoos, night clubs, just about any kind of sport facilities not to mention Swiss-specific activities such as hiking, skiing or sledging – everything’s here. The only thing that you would probably miss will be your free time, at least that is the case with me.
To sum it up…
I would say that the first part of our studies was quite eventful, adventurous, and intense. I’m pretty much looking forward to the next phase of the program that will consist of electives. People say that it’s going to be slightly less intense and more flexible, which is good since most of us will surely start exploring job opportunities or at least look into summer internship options and those are obviously time consuming endeavors.
