The ESSEC Master in Management (MiM) students are a diverse bunch. 24-year-old Yiran Wei is from China, 26-year-old Harshit Agrawal hails from India, and 28-year-old Carlo Alberto Calcherais is from Italy.
Besides having varied nationalities, they also come with vastly divergent interests: Yiran joined ESSEC in 2020 and wants a career in data science; Harshit, who entered in 2018, looks to move into a management position, and Carlo, who started in 2019, is interested in strategy consulting.
With over 200 modules, 11 double-degree programs, and exchanges with 105 partner universities, the beauty of the MiM is that they can customize their learning to fit their unique goals.
Yet, beneath the flexibility, one thing remains constant: These dreams are launched from a solid foundation of industry-relevant training.
Designed to Understand What Employers Want
After all, a defining feature of the MiM is its “effective, hands-on pedagogic approach,” Carlo declares.
He adds that it’s not every day that students work closely with a global business and develop an omnichannel market strategy to increase customer retention. Yet, this is precisely what he did as part of his Junior Consultant Experience (JCE) with Unilever.
The JCE, where students consult for global businesses, is a MiM signature known for its learning-by-doing approach. Besides offering students a chance to acquire soft skills, “being able to have assisted such large companies is also an experience worth writing about,” Yiran explains.
Consulting is not on the cards for her at this point. Still, she says that having the JCE on her portfolio and training in areas like big data and machine learning that the MiM FinTech track offers helped her secure a data analysis internship at an e-commerce business.
Building Bridges Across Countries and Industries
Besides its solid curriculum, the MiM is known for its international focus and global reach. Mobility across countries and sectors is expected, thanks to the assistance of the “top-notch career service at ESSEC Asia-Pacific,” Carlo says.
“Despite the pandemic, they organized several meet-and-greet events with companies from Singapore and neighboring countries. It’s through these events that many of my classmates secured internship offers across the world. I was also blessed by having multiple offers to choose from!”
Carlo’s journey saw him jump from Singapore to Dubai, where he interned at PwC’s strategy consulting business, assisting in telecom, media, and technology (TMT) sector projects. In 2021, he found himself in London, interning at Amazon UK Services as a Program Manager.
Harshit, who started his internship journey at Airbus Singapore, has similarly traveled to France. Then, he interned as a sales operations analyst at Uber, worked as a strategic marketing analyst intern at BNP Pariba, and eventually found full-time employment at MongoDB.
Diving Deep Into the Heart of Business
Reflecting on his journey, Harshit declares the business world “a fascinating environment, where we need to adapt to the changes happening all around us.”
“This is where managerial load comes into the picture; you need to be flexible about what to prioritize and be quick to make decisions that matter.”
His ability to do so is because the MiM offers both breadth and depth.
For example, by participating in the strategic business analytics chair—one of the many professional tracks sponsored and co-designed by leading companies—Harshitcouldo dive deep into data and see its impact on business value.
Working on various industry projects alongside mentors from the Accenture team only refined this knowledge. It gave him a practice ground to apply his new skills before officially moving to the working world.
Harshit’s story only reiterates the value of the MiM: With its solid foundation, the MiM sets the stage for freedom to take flight. It encourages risk-taking, enables exploration, and, in the process, inadvertently imbues you with the courage you need to take on the world.
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