My ESADE MBA

Moving to a new city and starting a MBA program abroad requires significant preparation and things to consider. After have been accepted to ESADE for example, you will be required to submit the acceptance letter, letter of undertaking and a financial plan to start off with. These are more than legal formalities but rather a good starting point to financially structure your coming year. After having reserved your place with the deposit payment you will receive a welcome email with access to the intranet, which gives you excellent access and overview to all the information that you will be requiring throughout the MBA program.

In addition you will have to arrange numerous things for your private move to Barcelona, which shall be well planned, too. Probably most of your have already moved abroad several times in the past but I would like to list a few things to remind you:

• Terminate your lease agreement or sublease the apartment in your resident country (garage, parking lot, etc.)
• Unregister at the local authories and apply for a NIE number (Número de Identidad/Identificación de Extranjero) a foreign resident ID, in Spain
• Change or update your medical insurance (ESADE can help you with a local Spanish insurance)
• Set-up a mail-forwarding order at your local post office
• Prepare your tax declaration for last year prior to your departure (even if the end of financial year is not imminent)
• Prepare a list of things/furniture/clothing that you wish to bring along. Arong for storage if need be.
• Print out your new addresses, maps, important contacts, etc. prior to leaving in case you don’t have access to a printer upon arrival.

You should also consider to change or terminate the following contracts:

• Cellphone/fixedline/internet contract, gym membership, water/heating/electricity supplier (don’t forget to read the meter before leaving), newspaper, car registration & insurance, insurances, etc.

Update your contact information for following services:

• bank, medical insurance, email-provide, website provider, professional networks (xing, linkedin, etc.), relatives & friends (consider to use auto-update programs such as Plaxo), etc.

Good resources of information about a new city or country are usually the expatriat websites for a particular city or country as well: Spain Expat, Expat Blog, Expatica, etc. Feel free to contribute anything here that you consider worthwile adding.