As my colleagues have said in previous posts, we are only a few weeks away from the end of the 2010 edition of the Lisbon MBA - it's hard to believe how it all went so quickly! As we approach graduation, we are all fully focused on our careers post-MBA. Landing that dream job opportunity is now the main priority... There is a lot of interaction with our Career Management Center, interviews being scheduled, coaching for different aspects of handling this transition phase, and some stress as well, as would be expected.

This brings me back to a point already covered by Nuno and André in their posts, but that is important to stress: the importance of our summer internship. The internship is a golden opportunity for doing our dream jobs and showcasing our talent at it for 2 months, making valuable contacts in the industry and company of our choice, and leaving our mark through our project deliverables. Not surprisingly, many of us are visiting our summer employers again, now discussing full-time opportunities. It's the internship seed bearing fruit... And it makes a huge difference in this wintry economic climate.

Now that we are ready to give way to the Lisbon MBA class of 2011, I look forward to come back to this blog as a nostalgic alumnus and read posts by the 2011 cohort! Prepare yourselves for a fun and challenging year...

It's truth... The 4th term is over and is only missing the 5th one...
I'm already feeling that I would miss this spirit... This has been a fantastic year.
Since my last post, I had the possibility of being 3 amazing weeks in Boston studying in MIT Sloan. What I can tell about these weeks, is that they were very hard weeks in terms of workload, but very intense weeks of having fun with my colleagues. The classes were amazing, the professors outstanding and Boston lovely...
Afterwards, I went for my summer internship in São Paulo, Brazil, where I worked 7 weeks at Kemin applying some of the knowledge acquired during the first terms of the program, because I choose to stress my self in this internship: I'm from Finance and I did my internship in Strategy and Marketing! I asked for help to some of the teachers and all of them were willing to help me, it was very nice!
Now the electives courses are being very challenging, but the workload has been almost the same, but now I have to split my time to find my job after the MBA.
Wish me luck!!!

Last Wednesday I gave the final presentation of my summer internship at a Portuguese company called Critical Software. The internship was about business development for the Aeronautics, Space and Defence department, and comprehended strategy definition, marketing analysis and technical guidelines creation for an emergent software system in the logistics branch. The whole experience was tremendously gratifying because it allowed me to explore a wide set of business concepts learned throughout the MBA, with some depth. In general, I felt confident and well prepared for the assignment.
I had the luck of finding a great team that gave me the freedom and trust to prove my worth within these 2 months. The output was a business plan and a new product definition, which together allowed me to get creative and thus exercise some of my favorite skills.

In summary, it was one of the most valuable experiences so far in the MBA and I am sincerely grateful for that.

My MIT experience started in the wrong foot, since I got sick when I arrived, and it took some time to finally get fit and join the classes. But once I was able to attend school, I remarked that the courses were lectured by most renowned professors, who approached classes with an open, moderating posture, generating 2-sided abundant in-depth discussions, which took us far in the topics analysis. The topics included strategy, innovation, ethics and law. I liked innovation a lot because of my inclination for software development, but I was especially surprised with ethics and law. The debate-based approach triggered a sudden interest for these social sciences, so far undiscovered. All of the courses were intensive and required a lot of preparation, but were at the same time rewarding in terms of the interaction and learning. In the end, we still found some time to play soccer and go out at night. Next time you’ll go to Boston, try the fancy environment of the Liberty Hotel or go dance at the Rumors. But don’t take a cab there – use the school bus…

Three terms are already behind us. As we send our last exam through e-mail, we realize that we reached a turning point in our MBA.

For the first time, every single one of us will become a true international student. No comfort zone, no strings attached, no rules(?).

Will it be a reboot on the MBA or will it be an extension of Católica? It's in our hands not to squander this opportunity, and to make sure that every second of free time becomes an unforgettable experience.

No regrets!
Motivation!
Watch out Boston, here we come!

Cheers.

After 5 months of intensive work at Católica campus we are going to have something completely different: we are going to MIT Sloan in Boston.
Of course the experience of studying at the MIT will be fantastic, but changing places will be outstanding.
Everybody is very excited to go 3 weeks to a new city, new school, new teachers, new country, etc...
This immersion will be a new start to same MBA and, for me, this is very important to recharge the batteries and keep the motivation at a high level.
My next post will be from Boston!
I can't wait!

First of all let me set the stage: I'm currently a Full Time student of The Lisbon MBA, I'm 35 and I'm currently an entrepreneur (after having main roles in medium size companies). Sometimes times through this MBA I place my self in my older place as a CFO in one of the medium size company that I've worked for and I think how can apply this knowledge in that particular situation, how can I presented to the stockholders, what are the pros and the problems...
Now I want to think in this perspective. Imagine that your boss comes to you and says: Look, the company is having lots of problems in surviving through this crisis and we have to come up with something to turn the thing around. What you you do? You'll redesign the company's strategy? Do you make a new marketing plan for a new product? Do you think in switching the capital structure of the company? You redefine the incentives of your sales force? You can do a mixture of action? But you can challenge yourself and The Lisbon MBA is design to do that...
Why instead of applying the same old formulas why don't you think in a different angle, try something new, have a creative approach to some of the problems? Think about most of the success companies that you know and think how its success his related with that creativity.
Most of the Lisbon MBA Friday forums puts you in this kind of situations where you have to show creativity, where you can see thing from a different perspective and that would help you to come with a new solution for old problems.
Being more specific.
We had a Friday Forum on Fado (a Portuguese traditional song) and we have to sing it to all our colleagues, to a jury and even to one television. Some of us said that they wouldn't do that, because they were not used to and other excuses. But in the end everyone challenge themselves, wrote part of the song and sang it to that audience.
The last Friday Forum we had to come up a creative idea to promote a product from scratch. We were divided in groups and each one had to present a creative idea to promote with that product (which was not easy). From the 3 groups the creative agency said that 3 of the ideas could be used in real campaign.
The Lisbon MBA challenges you in very different dimensions, its not just Finance, Marketing, Operations, etc... it really challenges you to think out of the box, for you to be a more complete leader after this MBA!
Challenge yourself in the Lisbon MBA!

This is a hot topic in the LisbonMBA so I want to make clear that this is my view on the subject. I'm stating this because I know that there are several different opinions among my colleagues about this issue...
First of all, I want to state the importance of the existence of the internship in The Lisbon MBA program. After 3 terms (plus the MIT that will come in June), we will have the possibility to be away from Campus and put what we've learned in practice and this link between academia and real corporations is very important. This will have the advantage, in my opinion, to recharge the batteries to the final 2 terms of the MBA. I'm not saying that the internship will be vacations and certainly mine won't be, but it's a completely mind set and I think this would be very important for the final part of the program.
The second main advantage of the internship is the boost that it can provide to your career, because it could be the driver for a change in the career, to test some specific industry or to fill the gap in your résumé. When your managing your career it's very difficult to make this changes but an internship of 8 weeks this is a rare opportunity so we've got to take advantage of it!
My case: I have some gaps in my résumé that I wanted to take care. Therefore, my internship will fulfil my gap of having a big international experience, so I'm going to make my internship in Brasil and I would be having contact with most of the South American markets. For me this is extremely interesting and challenging, so I'm looking forward to it.
The question that can arise is: how do the Students of the Lisbon MBA find their internships. Well, again, I'm going to tell my experience on the issue. Since the beginning I knew that the CMC would be working to find us some internships but we were strongly advised to search for our dream internship, like in a specific company, function, location, etc.. Therefore, I was making my own efforts but I was also applying to the interships that CMC posted that were align with my interests, mainly those that were abroad, but also others that could fill other gaps in my resume. In the end of my process I choose the first offer that was presented to me but that suited my goals.
Most of my colleagues are still in interviews with several companies and also there is others that already have their internships settled.
From what I know the CMC posted more internships that the existing students and, in my opinion, there was a good variety of areas of those internships.
In conclusion, the existence of the internhip is key in program in my point of view, but it has a disadvantage: we have to work harder during the on campus terms but it worth the trade off.

Definitely yes, but in the case of The Lisbon MBA small is better!
Let me explain. Before I came to The Lisbon MBA I talked to a big friend of mine that had is MBA in one of the Top MBA programs in world and he said: That place is like an industry, in every intake there are 400 students!

That's impressive, I thought.

Today, I have the pleasure to study with the only The Lisbon MBA 2010 class, with only 30 students. I say pleasure because all of them are very good not only in terms of personality but also in terms of capabilities. Also, this year students have very different backgrounds and are willing to share their experiences. That is very possible with a small class like ours.
But, for me, this is not the main advantage of a small class, the real advantage is because you are really important to the program. You are not just one more student in a industry, you are the program!
For instance, last week I sent an email to the executive director to the program suggesting the invitation of one external speaker and after 30 minutes I received the answer saying that it was a good idea and she would try to invite him! Other example was, one of my colleagues suggested that we worked on Case Study of Cirque do Soleil that we barely spoke in other context and today we discussed that in the Managing People class.

I could write about many more examples, but this is why I say: Small is better, because you really count you can fell everyone engaged in the success of the program.
Due to the law of reciprocity (new knowledge from People and Organizations ;-D) we give in the proportion of what you receive. That's why I write this much in this blog.

Breathe in, breathe out...

It's still hard to believe the crunch time we've been put through the last two weeks. The pace was intense, a few hours to sleep, individual quizzes and group reports finished in extremis, borderline exhaustion, four very different exams (both in content and... "control"), and even though we wished for it badly, it felt like Thursday afternoon would never come... and then, after the last final... came release.

Release!

It's a funny sensation, waking up this morning, thinking "something's missing" and "what am I going to do?". It's like full-stop after speeding at 300 km per hour. But it's fleeting like the Formula 1 pit stop, a mere 7 seconds - you blink - and you're back on track.

You want to make the most of those 7 seconds, and whether individually or in groups we do.

Cheers.

One the things that most surprised me in this MBA is the excellent team spirit. It's great in this intensive year to have most or all your colleagues willing to help you in some kind of problem that you have... I'm not saying not only in academic issues, like in some subjects, but in regular stuff, like giving clues, tips and contacts about internships, future prospects, feedback, everything! It's a give an take relationship that everybody takes advantage of it.
I had some doubts about the size of the class of the Lisbon MBA program (we are only 30) but now, to me, it makes all the difference: I know all my colleagues and everybody knows me, but also the goals the strengths the weaknesses, which it makes the difference in this demanding year. In my opinion the size of this class is perfect, even the professors (at least most of them) are really attached to us and treat us all by our name and are really interested in ear what you have to contribute.
Team spirit of the Lisbon MBA - one of the greatest assets of this program.

This past Friday I had the honor of being invited to eat, drink and take a timeout at the 2010 International Lunch. Unlike the lunch that was held during my year in The Lisbon MBA, this year the students decided to have it at Quinta da Bonaparte in Trafaria. Not only did I get to enjoy the beautiful views of the river and the great weather, but I ate some amazing food from all over the world. Nobody take offense, but my favorite dish was the sweet and sour lamb that Phil made (you have to send me the recipe pleeeeeeaase!) It was a great opportunity to get to know some of the International students better and I have to admit, I was a bit jealous seeing all of you together - it made me very nostalgic for my MBA days and the awesome times I had with my classmates last year. Let me know when the next lunch is so I can bring you some yummy food from the US :)

Despite my efforts to engage my colleagues in writing in this blog the fact is that the work load doesn't give us much time free... However I can assure you that the time that we have is being great: in classes, in the Friday forums, in the MBA club but also in get togethers.
This Wednesday a great number of us is going to have dinner together... yes we are together all day and even though we still want to have dinner! This class has a great spirit.
Regarding the theme - MIT Collaboration - although we can fell the invisible hand of MIT in the program there is a real live one that occurs when MIT professors come to our campus to teach us. In he Last Friday forum "Navigating into Politics, Power and Influence" was presented to us by John Van Mannen from MIT Sloan and was really fantastic, brilliant, unexpected, totality relevant, fundamental to today's leaders and, also, was not about state politics...
With this quality I'm really looking forward to go to the MIT Immersion!

One of the best things that I'm really enjoying the Lisbon MBA program is the Industry Weeks. We can learn a lot about different industries, different cultures, different organizations, different everything!!!
I've just finished to watch a presentation TIM w.e. company and I didn't realized the potential of this company and this market, it was impressive.
The industry weeks are live business cases with some of the key persons.
It's really an advantage.

Ok, before we start seeing cobwebs appear all over the same two posts, here is my meager contribution.

What is Lorem Ipsum? Funny you should ask that, let me google that for you -> http://tinyurl.com/yem4uz4

Now, over to your right there are some links to the blogs of some of the Full Time students in TheLisbonMBA 2010 Edition. Care to check them out?

Cheers.