A week in the life of an Executive MBA student

Rama Santhanam, one of the participants of the Executive MBA program, summarized her experiences during the first course week of the program:

“I arrived in Maastricht excited about the Executive MBA program and very curious about how the initial 8 days are going to be. I had not sat in a class room in more than a decade and wondered if i will be able to pull through the 8 hours of lectures. I had so many questions running through my mind, Will I fit in? I hope my classmates are good! I hope the professors are helpful and dear god, I hope it’s better than my Bachelors. All my questions were answered positively. The lecturers gave confidence that each one of us, had it in us to get through this program successfully. And it was evident that they had cherry picked each one of us because we jelled in together so beautifully. After the first day I could see that lifelong friendships are going to be made here and may be future business partnerships and innovations are in the making as well.

For the first module we had Marketing and Supply Chain Management courses and both the lecturers, Oliver Olson and Ed Weenk were great. They explained concepts very well and even though EMBA lectures are like crash courses, they made us comfortable with the subjects very fast. I very much enjoyed reading case studies in the Marketing course and each morning I wanted to beat Oliver in already guessing what will be the minute paper question. And for the first time I could see what it is to run an organization and how complex supply chain management is. As a customer one doesn’t see these things and complain when services aren’t provided as expected, but sometimes a company has to figure out humongous complexities in order to provide a simple service/delivery.

For these courses we as well had work visits to companies DLL Financial Solutions and Sabic. The workshops provided by both companies were very insightful and we could participate in real world problems rather than just learning concepts. The representatives from both the companies were very approachable and full of patience in answering all our questions. There were some moments we questioned their practices and they handled it very professionally. I was very much inspired by the work culture of DLL and the inspiring speech given by its COO Carlo van Kemenade.

We also had a wonderful guest speaker Mr. Marc Lammers, a former field hockey player and head coach. He was very inspiring, insightful and very pragmatic. He gave us tools that can be used in every profession and I was amazed when he started listing issues that could impair success. When he was giving examples, all I could think was that’s so true, it happened in my previous job. He as well made me think the mistakes that I made and how I could avoid doing them in the future. I will be using these tools, both professionally and personally. MSM does really know how to design the Executive MBA!

Overall the first module turned out to be a great start and I’m super excited to study and work with my classmates throughout the Executive MBA program. And honestly I can’t wait for the second module in January 2017 to start. Five of us from the class, already rented a house for January in Maastricht. Second module, here I come!”

Rama Santhanam, originally coming from India, but now a German national, shares her Executive MBA experience with 32 fellow students coming from 14 different countries.

One of her classmates is Tamari Mattson from Sweden. Also Tamari looks back at a great first experience in the Executive MBA course, although she also realizes that this program is “serious business”. A highlight for her have been the group assignments, “I found the group work particularly challenging as we were people from very diverse backgrounds that had to collaborate, but equally rewarding as I had to relate to other points of view and find a way to work around that.” Tamari was specifically excited about the business simulation game “Fresh Connection”: “I found it absolutely captivating and I believe I managed to evoke the competitive spirit of my team. All in all, I returned home feeling energized, and ready for a new round of Fresh Connection!”

To see a photo impression of the Executive MBA course week, watch the video below!