• ESSEC Business School’s curriculum develops confidence.
• Opportunities to hone both hard and soft skills abound.
• Students are well prepared to handle the international world.

Just past a year into her journey at ESSEC Business School, Global Bachelor of Business Administration (GBBA) student Sagarika Majumdar is interning at global marketing agency, TEAM LEWIS.

Her summer job is one of the three compulsory internships that GBBA students must complete before graduation and her first foray into the working world.

Despite this, she carries herself with enormous poise—excited as she applies her classroom lessons in the real world and confident as she articulates her thoughts during team meetings and presentations with clients.

Sagarika is not unique in this measure. Fourth-year GBBA student Avantika Dube had a similar experience during her first internship at a specialized laboratory, CORE Diagnostics.

Working directly under the CEO, Avantika was responsible for designing social media posts, evaluating the company’s marketing effectiveness, and developing social media analyses and employee productivity plans, all of which she quickly tackled.

They could do this thanks to the training at ESSEC Business School.

Gaining the Confidence to Stand Tall

“I’ve felt my comfort and confidence in public speaking skyrocket since joining ESSEC,” Sagarika, who graduated from The Heritage School in Kolkata, says.

This is partly because the rigorous curriculum lessons on relevant modules like marketing and entrepreneurship have given her the knowledge and credibility to hold her ground and somewhat because the regular presentations have honed her communication skills.

Avantika, who previously studied at Hiranandani Foundation School in Mumbai, echoes these sentiments, candidly recalling how she grew up with stage fright and, in eighth grade, even backed out from a performance after seeing the crowd.

After numerous group projects and presentations at ESSEC, no trace of her shyness remains. Instead, one will find a confident young woman, seasoned at public speaking and driven to back up her ideas.

“What really helped was the multicultural environment,” she declares. “ESSEC focuses on soft skills like cultural adaptability and teamwork, so although I was shy at first, I gradually became more sociable and open to interacting with my classmates.”

Learning Continues Outside of the Classroom

For example, as a Student Ambassador, Avantika has run a webinar for potential students interested in the GBBA program and helped develop a monthly newsletter for freshmen to help them adapt to life at ESSEC.

These instances required her to network and learn from students in Singapore and at the ESSEC Cergy campus. It allowed her to develop cultural sensitivity and communication, alongside picking up skills in organization and management.

Sagarika, also a Student Ambassador, took on an additional role as Director of Events for E-HUB, the ESSEC Entrepreneurship Club.

“Through this experience, I’ve learned how to develop, plan, and execute event concepts—importantly, to do so alongside a team. It’s just some of the many ways I’ve grown personally and professionally,” she says.

Accessing the International World

Reflecting on her decision to choose ESSEC, Sagarika muses that she had been most excited about the opportunity to exchange at one of ESSEC’s over 175 partner universities and intercampus mobility between France, Singapore, and Morocco.

She was pleasantly surprised to find that the international exposure would start from day one in Singapore, as ESSEC requires students to take French classes and encourages them to pick up a third or even fourth language to prepare them for life overseas.

“This emphasizes the international experience, and being fluent in different languages is a huge plus in the working world as companies are becoming more global and multicultural,” she enthuses.

She notes that students moving abroad for the first time may be conflicted between wanting global exposure and worrying about adapting to a new culture.

She says, “I’d encourage students to choose ESSEC! For those from India looking for something closer to home, ESSEC’s Singapore campus truly encapsulates the meaning of East meets West, and there is so much diversity regarding food, festivals, language, and the people!”