My ESADE MBA

The student association MBASA has set up a Welcoming Committee to make the arrival and transition of the incoming students easier, by providing them with buddies, who are current students. I have been fortunate enough to be selected as member of the Welcoming Committee for the One Year MBA 2010 group and I would like to share some insights with you.

Why participate?

The buddy program provides a great opportunity to get in touch with current students and have some insight information about the upcoming life in Barcelona. It is much easier and comforting to know somebody already locally than heading blindly overseas. The buddy will be able to provide invaluable information about accomodation, transport, social life, academics, weather, etc.

How it works?

The incoming students receive a welcoming email from ESADE introducing the buddy system. If you are interested in having a buddy, who helps you move to Barcelona and get started, you reply to the MBASA Committee. You simply state the basic facts about you like who you are, where you are from, the languages you speak, professional background, date of arrival etc.

At the same time MBASA Welcoming Committee sends an email to the current students and looks for volunteer-buddies. The current students provie similar information, which the committee then records in the database.

Then these profiles will be matched according to numerous variables such as country of origin, languages, professional backgrounds, etc. The profile of the incoming student will then be forwarded to the current student who needs to confirm the willingness to be matched with that particular incoming student. Once the current student agrees, the incoming student will be put in touch with his/her buddy and off they go.

My experience

My personal experience was great and therefore I was very happy to have taken part in the program. Obviously not everybody shows the same level of committment but you have to make the best of it, as always. I strongly recommend it however there is a likely chance that there are more incoming students requesting buddies than there are buddies available simply because the incoming group is much bigger. Give it a shot and make us work ;)