I am on the way to Paris and as I look outside the train at the snow clad trees, I feel very conscious of the fact that our journey in this MBA program is over. It is hard to be objective at this time with emotions running high. Emotions of relief associated with the end of an intense program, of joy associated with seeing our families after a long time and grief associated with not being in the Lorange auditorium again.
What never seems to amaze me is how our experiences and what we take away from this program can be so different. However as I reflect about the year gone by, I realize that this journey has not only made me stronger but also cognizant of courage I never knew I had. Through this journey and my own peaks and troughs, I learnt not only about leadership, strategy and finance but also about how businesses function in Europe and the power of networking. I learnt about people and about life. So in this post, I want to talk about three things that I cherish the most about the MBA experience.
Friendships: As we get older, we stop making new friends or at least make fewer new friends. We have a professional circle and a personal one which is mostly friends from college and sometime neighbors. This program gave me a chance to befriend 89 exceptional individuals from all across the world. I always found people willing to lend a patient ear, to share a different perspective and provide bucket loads of encouragement when I was low. I made great friends and thus I believe friendship is the most intangible yet the most precious take away from this year.
Strong Alumni Network: Daniel from our class spoke about sending the elevator down during our graduation speech and I couldn’t agree with him more. I have found both friendships and professional support in our alumni. I have received guidance and good advice, help on preparation for interviews and even gotten access to their professional network. A small batch has its advantages and disadvantages but I have always found a lot of support from alums and I hope to contribute to this network as much as I can.
Embracing failure: At IMD, we celebrated our failures as we did our successes. We even had a wall dedicated to our recruiting failures to not only share but also remind ourselves that we are in this together. As Confucius said, “Our greatest glory is not in never failing but in rising every time we fail”
When I started writing this post, I was tempted to title it “Au Revoir” and finally decided against doing so. Over the years, I have come to realize that at the most basic level there are only three levers that guide all our actions- Greed, Hope and Fear. The lever that guided me the most to participate in this program has been hope. When I started the program, I was hopeful about the future and my first blog before joining the program was titled the one above. We have all changed in many ways (for the good of course !) during the course of the program, but I truly believe “Le meilleur est à venir” as our best is yet to come. On that note, I wish all my classmates loads of success in their professional and personal endeavors and the MBA batch of 2018 lots of luck for the year ahead.
Till we meet again..
Priyanka
