The famous Integrated Core is over. It is famed to be one of the most challenging and stressful parts of this program because it is an intensive three months that give you an unbelievable broad view of management. In 14 weeks we learned about Accounting, Supply Chain management, IT management, Finance, Ethics, HR… in all, 13 different subjects that serve as a crucial base for any manager.
Though it requires a lot of stamina, this is a really exciting experience. What I enjoyed the best is seeing management tasks from a multiple perspective. Most professionals start their career by choosing a major and then spending the next year specializing in their career. The great thing about the core is that it gives you the opportunity to step back and see it from all the perspectives of a company… For me (a humanities major), it has been great to analyze issues with numbers, instead of using my soft skills, which I have been perfecting for years because of my career. For others, it was the other way around.
As I mentioned in my previous entry, another great advantage of the Integrated Core is that it is made so that you build on your network of classmates to make the most of your time, energy, and to have fun. I made a conscious effort to hang out with different people all the time. In assignments where we were asked to work in teams I also made an effort to avoid working with the same people. It really paid off. I learned so much from the interaction with different people and their ways of accomplishing tasks. One of the most important elements of the Core and the integrated cases. These cases were analyzed from different perspectives for a class discussion. But before, we met with a small case discussion group to prepare for this. Our team was made of a Chinese student (Ken), an Indian student (Murtaza), a Canadian student (Patrick) and I (Venezuelan). We wanted diversity in our team and really saw great results. In our meetings, some would come in with great financial analyses, while I could add a lot of thoughts on marketing and OBHR, which are very easy for me to see. Thanks to our discussions, I became better at those financial analyses and at seeing the cases from a more international perspective.
I’m still recovering from the all-nighters and enjoying these first days of vacation, but looking back, I know that this has been a unique experience and I will always remember it with a sense of pride and accomplishment.
