# 9 ESADE Business School (ESADE)

CEMS at ESADE – Barcelona, Spain

Fall Semester 2013

At ESADE you will have a deep business approach of the courses. Even though there are some finance courses, the majority of the courses are for management. The workload is similar to Nova, with maybe more group works on a weekly basis but less exams (and quite easy to do, no worries).

This year was somehow atypical for CEMS since ESADE is restructuring its programme. Therefore, during the Block Seminar there were only incoming CEMS students (no home students, because they had all taken the course before). However, we had classes with home students and next year everything will go back to normality (hopefully!).

Sant Cugat Campus – Undergraduate & Masters Building

Block Seminar: 

For the Block Seminar there were two options: Global Strategy or Energy, Climate and the Business Response. I took the Global Strategy one and it was quite interesting, based on international management skills and practices. We had to make a final presentation and read some papers and study-cases for every class. As participation is graded, it is convenient to read the cases and the readings. The workload was quite heavy for a block seminar and, since we had classes all day long and had few time to network.

The Energy, Climate and the Business Response seminar was easier (but also with classes all day long), but it also required a presentation to be presented two weeks after. 

The only events for networking (for both seminars) were a hiking event on the first day of the block seminar and a visit to Codorniu Cavas on the last day. 

Academic Curriculum

The course offering for the Fall semester was the following:

Course	Type/Department	Language	ECTS/days
Block Seminar Global Strategy	CEMS Block Seminar	English	3
Block Seminar Energy, Climate and the Business Response	CEMS Block Seminar	English	3
Corporate Strategy	CEMS Core Course	English	7
International Entrepreneurship	CEMS Core Course	English	7
CEMS Business Communication Skill Seminar	Skill Seminar (Mandatory)	English	2 days
Inter-personal Communication Skill Seminar	Skill Seminar	English	2 days
High Performance Teams	Skill Seminar	English	2 days
Negotiations Skill Seminar	Skill Seminar	English	1 day
Negotiation within Organizations	Skill Seminar	English	2 days
The Manager of the International Environment	CEMS Exclusive (not mandatory)	English	7
*Leading the Management Consulting Firm	International Management	English	4
*Retail Innovation	Marketing	English	4
Loyalty Management	Marketing	Spanish	4
Marketing Communications	Marketing	English	4
Digital Marketing: Social Media	Marketing	English	4
FC: Mergers & Acquisitions	Finance	English	4
Global Financial Management	Finance	English	4
Financial Statement Analysis	Finance	English	4
Corporate Interaction with Markets	Finance	English	4
Geopolitics	International Management	English	4
Global Supply Chain	International Management	English	4
Social Entrepreneurship	International Management	English	4

*Intensive courses: 1 week courses.

I took the courses in bold and I will now present a brief description/personal judgement for each one. 

I would recommend you to take the Leading the Management Consulting Firm if you are interested in consulting as it is given by an American professor who worked for several years at McKinsey. 

The Geopolitics course is very interesting and it has no exam (just a final paper) – however there are weekly assignments on readings too… 

The Corporate Strategy course is just an elaboration on international corporate strategy – it is quite easy and the cases studied in class were interesting as well. 

Digital Marketing: Social Media is good for those of you that would like to have a deeper understanding of this marketing area. 

Mergers & Acquisitions was a very enriching course but it can be a little “heavy”. 

Finally, Global Supply Chain is also a nice course to have since you get the perspective of how a multinational can manage its supply chain and the workload is appropriate, although based on group works (group case-studies preparation every week + final group project on a specific case + exam based on that final group project).

ESADE’s strengths:

•           It is needless to say that one of the advantages of studying at ESADE is to get the opportunity to live in Barcelona. It’s an amazing city to explore – full of touristic attractions, very nice food and, of course, great nights & parties!

•  Secondly, I would point the fact that ESADE is a top European Business School where you have definitely a very good learning experience – professors have a deeper business insight, since many of them also have non academic jobs.

• Thirdly, the courses are very interesting and you have a deep “business” approach to the topics – usually there are many guest speakers and you discuss a lot of case studies. 

Plaça de Catalunya

 

What can be difficult:

• A lot of group work – but common, Nova is the same :) 

• Evaluation/Grades conversion: even though exams and overall evaluation are not difficult and you will probably get high grades (over 8.0 on a 0 to 10 scale), when they are translated into an A/B/C scale, the grades usually come down – this happens because, when transferring from their own scale (0-10) to CEMS A/B/C/D scale, ESADE follows the curve specification (e.g. 10% corresponds to an A, 20% corresponds to a B… NOTE: this is just an example). Therefore, as most CEMS students are quite good, the average is usually around 8.0 and so your chances to get an A are quite diminished.

• Take into account that ESADE’s campus is not in Barcelona; it is in Sant Cugat which is more or less 25min train trip from Plaça de Catalunya. Overall you will take more or less 60 min to arrive at the campus because you have some walking until the train station (15min) + train (25min) + walking (15min). You have a residence at the campus but as you can see you will be far away from the city – and that is bad for going out at night (but good for sleeping one more hour for morning classes)! The majority of the students rent apartments in the city. You just need to see want you value most: excitement vs. comfort.

Attention: ESADE is rearranging the CEMS curriculum and passing it to 2 years like NOVA, that is one year normal Master program, one year CEMS program. So some changes may occur eventually. This semester, Spring 2014 ESADE will not receive nor send any student due to this changes.

Any doubt you have or if you want just to talk a little bit more about Barcelona & ESADE fill free to reach me! ;)

 

View to Plaça d’Espanya

 

---

By Ana Sofia Cardoso, Class of 2013/2014

Term abroad - Fall 2013