In today’s competitive business world, everyday it gets harder and harder for us to climb the career steps and differentiate ourselves among our colleagues. As a person who has been working for 8 years in the insurance sector in my home country Turkey, I started to have the same feeling that I am falling behind, even though I was working in the leader company of my industry and changed my department 2 years ago by having a promotion.
As a result I took a bold decision to change the direction of my career. I am saying it was bold because I was not only going to leave my company that I worked for my whole career, but I was planning to change my country, too. It was time to enhance my skills required for future management positions that I was aiming for, but more importantly to answer a very basic but fundamental question “Am I willing to work in the same industry for the rest of my life?”
Taking the decision to change the direction of your career is one thing, but acting accordingly is another. How was I going to solve the aforementioned problems? As a person coming from an engineering background and worked so many years in a technical position, I decided to have an MBA degree. An MBA degree would not only help me to acquire new skills and knowledge about business, but also provide me the necessary opportunity for a transition into a new career. At first when you look at MBA options, it looks like you have so many options all around the world, but when you start to prioritize your needs and think more comprehensively, the list is actually shorter.
First of all, the length of the program plays a very important factor. As a person who worked for 8 years, I had an amount of savings, but this would not maintain me for years without working, considering the tuition fee and living costs that I was going to pay; so the duration of the program had to be 1 year. Moreover, being away from the professional life more than 1 year wasn’t something that I wished for.
Second important factor for me was the location. Since I wanted to become an international professional, the location had to be outside of my home country. France is already known as one of the leading countries in terms of success, quality and variety of business schools. Additionally, it is located in the middle of Europe and Paris is one of the largest and most important business districts in the world. More importantly, I always enjoyed its culture & lifestyle during my previous visits. As a result, I decided to apply to a business school in France.
Third major factor was the recognition and success of the program. As a business school with three different accreditations and offering a top-ranked international MBA program, IÉSEG looked very promising. Additionally, its IMBA program was offering something else as stated in its name; “being international”. This was something that I was always aiming for; having a very diverse student group and learning more about the cultural differences and gaining different perspectives.
But there was a small problem! Even though the program was fully in English, living in France was requiring something else that I didn’t know; speaking in French. But again IÉSEG was meeting this requirement, too by offering French language lessons at every level for international students throughout the program.
Because of all these, I decided to study in IÉSEG’s IMBA program and when I look behind I feel pretty happy with my choice. I hope I will have the same feelings once I’ve graduated from the program and managed the change in my career, that I ‘ve been hoping and working for. After all this is also the vision of my school: “empowering changemakers for a better society”.
IÉSEG International MBA Student Blog 