A human experience

posted in: Reasons why | 0

Thanks to an eclectic cohort, Vanessa Marcie, Head of Marketing and Communications at Team Côte d’Azur, is gaining more than just skills and knowledge from her Executive MBA studies.

81 people, 10 languages, 26 countries reunited once a month in one place: Cambridge Judge Business School.

Our first task on a sunny September morning is to remember the names of every single member of the cohort. We are not a high school class, but a cohort. A group of people with a shared characteristic: passion.

81 strangers in one room, each with different backgrounds, histories and cultures. Nothing could have brought those people together except the secret sauce of the Cambridge Executive MBA. Within a few hours we all learnt each other’s names.

A few days later we are inseparable. We already know that the people surrounding us will be our friends for life. It is a highly intense and emotional experience to embark on a two-year journey with highly skilled, highly intelligent individuals, sharing almost all of our free time together trying to combine our experiences and knowledge in an attempt to solve problems, to help each other be a better version of ourselves.

For better or worse, your team becomes your family, sharing your stress over exams and assignments on late Saturday nights and early Sunday mornings.

You discuss, you defend, you explain, you help, you cheer up and share the ups and downs of the EMBA experience.

Within the microcosm of the cohort, you experience the nanocosm of the team and its members: a group of strong individuals with conflicting agendas and time zones. It is hard to describe the comforting feeling of belonging that one can experience in such an environment. And the sudden lack of excitement when life goes back to its “normal” state.

After only a few weeks, life becomes this annoying down time in between the EMBA weekends. You realise quickly that you are coming for the lectures but what you are enjoying is this unique mix of people. Somehow, in being together we seem to bring out the best in each other. No competition, no hate, no difference, no judgement… just intellectual stimulation and mutual understanding.

We rapidly grasped that we all aspire to a common goal… making the world a better place.

We might not be ready yet for such a grand challenge but something magical happens when 81 like-minded people get together. Like when a member of our cohort forgot his suitcase on the train that Sunday morning. Immediately the EMBA machine got into action and a human chain of benevolent people participated in the mission to get this luggage back to its owner. And gosh, these are efficient people. Our American friend’s plane had not even touched ground but his suitcase was already on its way to the US. A human chain of good actions, a virtuous circle that restored my faith in humanity.

I enrolled in this EMBA to acquire new skills, deepen my knowledge. I am living an extraordinary human experience.

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