This week was amazing in terms of work load, level of stress, meeting new people, surprises and having fun!
We start networking. Being a part of the IMD community is a great honor, a significant responsibility and a great fun! It is very selected, but very strong. Bonds between people are rather strong and people share a set of similar values. I enjoyed my first networking events and learned a lot!
I start realizing the power of our career services with all the support and learning, company presentations and preparations we get through. When in our normal professional lives, could we have a comprehensive feedback from our job interviewers? I used to think of myself being quite experienced: previous job interviews, my interview with IMD during the admission process seemed well enough. Well… now I see that there is some room for developmentJ
Then we prepared and participated in the conference “Navigating The Future 2016”. I must say, that in my case preparation was really tough, as we built the whole presentation in almost two days. My journey can never be verbalized. Yes, together with my teammates Robin, Mati and Revaz we built the storyline, split job and each did a thorough research on our topic. We knew the main idea behind the storyline, we supported each other and worked hard. The morning of our presentation was very nervous: all classmates in business attire, rash steps in corridors, dry-runs. Two hours to go and a mess in my mind – what shall I say… And then – the IMD magic. Our program director Ralf listened to our presentation, praised our slides and retold us our story in a couple of simple and clear sentences. All of a sudden, it finally clicked in my mind, I calmed down and visualized it. We did our presentation, just as other eleven groups of MBAs, in front of our classmates and senior executives, in a beautiful and solemn conference hall. I can never express how grateful I am to Ralf for this invaluable lesson on ingenious simplicity and grace of thinking over unfamiliar and complex topics, on pulling yourself together at critical moments and on power of believing in people. That moment of accomplishment, of being shoulder to shoulder with my teammates and silent mutual support, and of trust from my superiors gave me a grain of self-confidence and confidence in people, that I want to nurture to grow into a leadership pearl throughout my life.
I want to praise all my classmates, who did a fantastic job in preparing and presenting, in writing their theses and handling Q&A. There were a few of us, who run an extra-mile in helping the MBA office to organize the class, communicate with IT and other departments, design printing materials and host the conference. Thank you, Kevin, Robin, Shashank, Alex, Waqas and Hani! Thank you to all, who made this real learning, real conference and real achievement happen!
Till soon,
Aysylu
