[gkamin]

בתגובה ל: לחברים בלבד #19672

To: All

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sure, just write to [email protected]

Cheers,

[gkamin]

בתגובה ל: לחברים בלבד #19643

To: All

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well,
It's not easy for the partner, and it is extremely important to be prepared for this part of the experience.
Luckily, the program begins around the holiday season in Israel, which means we had a lot of visitors back to back.
This has some disadvantages, because you always have people around (either bothering you, or ones you wish you could spend more time with, but you actually can't, because you're swamped with studies).
However, it is great for the partner to better absorb the shock of you suddenly disappearing, since when you're gone, there are friends from back home to keep him/her a little bit busy, and you can actually join part of the fun, as you're still pretty far away from the mid terms, so you can manage sleeping even a little bit less.

I believe that having a partner with you, actually teaches you about the needed work-home balance sooner than most of the single students in the program, as there is someone to pull you out of the books when it gets really late at night.

Of course some understanding on behalf of the partner is needed, especially knowing that things ease a little bit as you learn to better handle the work load.

There are LOTS of activities for partners, organized by either IESE or the partners themselves, most of them being in the same situation.

Regarding partner employment, it depends on the visa or other passports your spouse may have. Basically, for Israelis, the spouse also gets a student visa, which permits her to work during your stay here.

Note that for most positions, knowledge of spanish will be required, if not also catalan. There is a variety of spanish and catalan courses (which also serve to fill a few hours in the daily schedule) she can take, thus making the most out of her stay here as well.
Some spouses work here at IESE by the way, as research assistants or in administrative positions, which is nice, since you can have lunch together, and gain an extra 30 minutes of quality time per day. Those positions however, are quite limited in number, so nothing can be guaranteed.

Hope this info helps in any way.

[gkamin]

בתגובה ל: לחברים בלבד #19639

To: All

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Hi Tom,

First of all, best of luck in your application process to all schools.

This is quite a broad question, so I'd appreciate it if you could specify exactly what it is you want me to tell you.

In very general lines, I can say that so far (we're still fresh here, as we are only a few days past our first term mid-terms), this has been an amazing but an exhausting experience.

It is no secret that IESE is a VERY demanding program, in which they make you work VERY hard during the entire program (and especially during the first couple of terms). The workload is intentionally more than you can actually handle with only 26 hours per day ;)
The first few weeks are really hard, physically and mentally. However, here comes the big BUT:

All that said, this is so far an AWESOME experience!

The people here at IESE are really down-to-earth. People are SOOOOOO nice, and even though grades are normalized and are comparative, you don't feel any stress or pressure related to competitiveness between students. People are really helpful, and willing to give you as much help as you need in those areas you know nothing about, even though it might mean no sleep at all after a long day and night of preparing cases for the next day.

So far, I can really say that the admissions here have done a splendid job, picking the students in my year (and those of the 2nd year I've had a chance to meet so far are also great!).

I don't know if you've been to Barcelona, but this is an amazing city. It has a lot to offer (which is a problem, since there are lots of temptations which make it even harder to put in all this effort in the academics) – there's music, there's art, there's architecture, and let's not forget the football…

After a few weeks in the program, you start to have a better notion of the balance you can have between the academic requirements (and the needed investment on your part), and the social life you can have here in IESE. There's a weekly school visit to a bar in town, which many of the students attend religiously, and during weekends there are lots of getaways to costa brava, or other places.
Apart from that, during longer vacations or weekends, don't forget you are in Europe, with easy access to any European country you'd like to visit.

I speak fluent Spanish, so this wasn't a problem to me. Of course you can manage without knowing any Spanish at all (but the school will teach you Spanish, which is a big plus), and you can do just find without knowing Catalan as well, although people here appreciate the effort foreigners make to learn the language.

Why I chose IESE? For several reasons:
1. IESE wasn't my first choice. There was another school, which I considered more suitable to my area of interest. However, I wasn't admitted, and I tried several others, both in the US and Europe, but as I researched more and more, my interest in European programs grew significantly.
2. I wanted a 2 years MBA program, which kinda eliminated many European options.
3. I'm expecting a baby, so I considered a geographically closer-to-israel option better from a personal point of view.
4. I've heard a lot of good things about IESE from alumni and current students, especially regarding the people theres.
5. I wanted a rather small program (IESE has about 220 MBA's per year, compared to HBS' 900 or something).
6. It was highly ranked in some of the rankings I checked (actually, in last month's Economist ranking, it came out 1st in the world, but I'd take ANY ranking with a grain of salt – each program can find some ranking in which it came out 1st).
7. The focus on academics was important to me, as some programs are well known for their inclination to focus mainly on networking through partying, I wanted a serious program, that will actually provide me with the tools and skills I assume I will need in my future professional life.
8. In a visit I had at HBS before applying to different schools, I fell in love with the case method, and IESE (as a "sister" program to HBS), is about 90% case method.

If I'm not mistaken, those were the main reasons for choosing IESE.
There were other reasons, related to some focus on entrepreneurship, some on family business, some on socially responsible business, and some on sports management, which are all domains that interest me quite a lot.

If you have any more specific questions, be my guest (and hurry up, as we are having a bit of a "lighter" week post mid-terms, but next week will be hell again).

[gkamin]

בתגובה ל: לחברים בלבד #19552

שלום לכולם! הצטרפתי לפורום לאחרונה והבנתי שצריך לספר קצת על עצמי, אז קודם כל כמה דברים כלליים:
בן 30, מתגורר בברצלונה. כרגע במהלך השנה הראשונה ללימודים ב-IESE

רקע משולב – ייעוץ מו"מ, היי טק, צבא, צילום

תואר ראשון במדע המדינה ותואר שני בדיפלומטיה

ציון GMAT: 710

בצבא הייתי קצין במודיעין

אני כרגע תלמיד שנה ראשונה ב-IESE

מעוניין לענות לשאלות של מתעניינים ישראלים ב-IESE

אז בהצלחה לכולם,

gkamin

[gkamin]

בתגובה ל: Europe #19553

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