HEC Montreal ranked Top 10 International MBA!

I'm so proud! The prestigious and untouchable MBA ranking of the Businessweeek magazine released its 2004 edition BW Online | B-Schools | Full-Time Profiles 2004-2005. For the first time, HEC Montreal (my Business School) enter the very exclusive International Top Ten for Non-US MBAs. This is amazing!

Here is the ranking:
1 Queens
2 IMD
3 INSEAD
4 ESADE
5 London Business School
6 Western Ontario
7 IESE
8 HEC - Paris
9 Toronto
10HEC - Montreal

Last of 10 but we beat these prestigious schools only ranked in the second tier only:
• British Columbia
• Cambridge
• Rotterdam
• Instituto de Empresas
• McGill
• Oxford
• SDA Bocconi

Aren't we proud?;-)

HEC naked picture

Want to see HEC naked? Click here: Pommerleau construction. Just before they built the walls or it could be after a nuclear explosion. That could be a nice April joke! I wanted to make a bad joke sending that to a friend and pretend there was an explosion at HEC, but there is no snow yet in Montreal as there is on te pic... I'll have to wait.

Ikea marketing strength killed 3 shoppers

Wow! I'm stunned by this news: News: "Saudi bargain-hunters killed in Ikea stampede". The 50 first shoppers at Ikea were meant to receive a $150 gift voucher and... 20 000 people showed up! It's the first I hear that people get killed due to the efficiency of a marketing campaign. That's awful.

Words aren't free anymore

Some people like to make money with Google Adwords advertising system, others like to male art out of it. Have a look at net art : adwords happening, this artist has a great idea to misuse the Google system while having fun. On a more serious side, reading this article allowed me to understand how Google adwords really works and the words pricing is very interesting. 'Free' is the most expensive word on Google and the word "sex" is worth $3,837.

The MBA best friend

Yeah, I can finally publish picture on this blog. So there it goes, first pic is your best friend you will have as a mba student.It's sad to say but you can break your leg, can lose your dog, your house can be on fire...these things are unimportant but if your laptop get broken and like me you've never done any backup because you believe in your good faith or you're too lazy to archives stuff then you will be in serious trouble!!!
And like every MBA's in the world, your school will kindly advise you to buy this ugly and heavy IBM for the same price as an equally performant but much nicer and lighter other brand of laptop. One advice for the new MBA students, don't order the IBM from abroad before you arrive like HEC advise its students but instead, wait and shop around and buy something nicer and lighter. I still can't believe I have been fooled and spend somthing like 3000$ on that thing.

Work permit easy to get in Montreal after the MBA

I found out this week that as a HEC Montreal MBA graduated, we can easily and quickly obtain a work permit right after graduation.

The steps are as follow. You finish all your MBA duties, exams and all. You find a job. Bring the job offer to the International Students Office at HEC Montreal. By some magic and privilegiated contacts, they can manage to get your work permit sorted within 2 weeks of time. Well, in case of emergency only if you need to start working right away. Otherwise, you will have to follow the normal 2 months process.

Your work permit will be valid for 12 months. If you want to stay longer, you need start the process ASAP.

It's cool to be an HEC graduate, isn't it? After knowing that, I started to look for jobs in Montreal since the idea of working another year without the hassle of immigration was quite appealing to me. I did a search for Marketing jobs on Monster.ca and obtain a page of 'so-so' jobs. I search the same query in The Netherlands and found 5 pages of really cool and appealing jobs, working for the European HQ in Amsterdam for Ford, Nike or Frito Lay (Pepsi). Since, I didn't find that quality of job in the Montreal area without having at least 10 years of experience in everything, I think I'll better head for Europe and kick off my career there. Home sweet home!:-)

Life's short...

Rabeh Hawi was a MBA graduate from last year promotion. 'was' because he died a couple of weeks ago from a heart attack. This news shacked a lot of us. Not just because we had the chance to know him and that he was a fantastic person but also because we all know how hard it is to get the mba and how tough is one year of mba. Dying less than one year later is not something we have in mind in our career plans eventhough it can happen to each of us anytime.

The death of Rabeh reminded me that I should enjoy life everyday and not wait the end of my mba, which I already did actually but it is good to really act in that way and not feel guilty about having fun and enjoying the moments we share with the great people I met during my year in Montreal. On this sad note, 'Carpe Diem'!

Thinking of work again

It is now time to look for a job and beside browsing the job websites, I'm also trying to make my outermost beautiful resume to seduce the employers, companies and jobs of my dream. I love Montreal and my lazy student life but I can't wait to start working again and go back to Europe and to the Corporate superficial and useless life making money and trying to find ways to spend it.

Mindless Summer in Montreal

Shame on me! i haven't updated this blog since May eventhough the statistics show that this blog is read everyday a bunch of vistors from all around the world. I guess I should be delighted and start writing something interesting...Hmm... let me think.

First of all, let's summarize what I have done since my last update. Loads of classes, very intense. So much that I haven't had time to update this blog. Then in July our supervised project started, it's not that the project was using all my time but the numerous festival in Montreal (Jazz festival, Festival Just for Laugh, Theatre festival and Gay pride coming up next week) are taking loads of my time. Also, the BBQ, Picnic in the Parc, Lazy afternoon in the swimming pool + usaual parties of all kind are just multiplying during the summer and it is hard to catch up with everything. One thing is sure, I love Summer in Montreal!!! I've never been as lazy as now and it is a nice break from the rest of intensive year and winter spent working like mad.

Boycott Esso (Bush's best friend)

The increase of oil' prices everywhere are leading people to take action towards oil companies. An interesting website ask us to boycott 'Esso': StopEsso
Why Esso/ExxonMobil?
While the rest of the world is trying to stop global warming and protect the planet for future generations, Esso/ExxonMobil is busy drilling for more oil and polluting the atmosphere. What's worse, Esso/ExxonMobil is doing its best to stop other countries' attempts to prevent the world from heating up.

Here are five reasons why Esso/ExxonMobil is worse than other oil companies:
- Esso/ExxonMobil tries to convince the public that global warming isn't happening even though Esso/ExxonMobil is one of its main causes. It spends millions of dollars on misleading propaganda every year.
- Esso/ExxonMobil has played a leading role in sabotaging international attempts to stop global warming. It would rather sell more petrol than protect future generations.
- Esso/ExxonMobil doesn't believe renewable energy has a future. "With no readily available economic alternatives on the horizon, fossil fuels will continue to supply most of the world's energy needs for the foreseeable future." --Lee Raymond, ExxonMobil CEO, 1997
- Esso/ExxonMobil is the biggest oil company in the world - its profits totalled more than US$12 billion in 2000. If anyone can afford to help stop global warming it's Esso/ExxonMobil.
- Esso/ExxonMobil was one of the main financial contributors to George Bush's election campaign. As soon as George Bush became president, he announced that the US would pull out of international agreements to stop global warming - exactly the position that Esso/ExxonMobil was promoting.

By the way, do you remember March 24 1989 when the Exxon Valdez ran aground, with its drunk captain, on Bligh Reef, Prince William Sound, spilling 11 million gallons of oil into the pristine waters.
Well today, oil still sits just a few inches under the surface of the sound’s beaches. Yet ExxonMobil still hasn’t paid the nearly $7 billion it owes to local fishermen.

==> Esso & Exxon choose to wreck the climate. We can choose not to buy their products. Don't buy Esso/Exxon/Mobil!

Gay Marketing

'Decades after reaching critical mass, a breakthrough July 1991 article in the conservative Wall Street Journal called the lesbian and gay community "a dream market.":Commercial Closet
Various studies have estimated that between 4% and 10% of populations are homosexual, meaning between 12 million and 28 million in the United States alone. The incidence of gay women may be slightly lower than gay men, but lesbians are estimated at over 6 million in the U.S.
The gay market is sometimes referred to as DINKs -- double income, no kids -- who have the freedom to travel more often and higher "disposable incomes" to buy luxury items.'

Green MBA

An excellent resource for anyone interested in MBA progammes with a social or environmental impact slant: Beyond Grey Pinstripes- Preparing MBAs for social and environmental stewardship

HEC MBA ranked 17th in Forbes

Forbes magazine has produced a ranking of the world’s best business schools, and added a further eight institutions to its Top 10 non-U.S. schools. HEC Montréal ranked 17th.
Forbes.com: Forbes Best Business Schools The Forbes ranking was based only on the return on investment in a business school education.

Hell Period

Period 5 finished 'officially' this weekend and this week is period 6 kicking off. Well, period 5 is not completely finished as we've been some individual assignments and take home's exam which deadline expires this week. I've finished 2 on Monday before starting my 9 hours day of classes for which I had also to prepare readings and case but for which obviously I didn't prepare as most of my felllow mates. What do these teachers expect us to do? Study for exams, finish the huge unfinishable assignments, hands in the take home exams and ALSO prepare the about 100 pages readings per day??? When are we meant to sleep really?
I'm afraid my Maslow's needs pyramids is not scoring very high these days. I barely have time to feed myself. Monday, class from 11.45 to 21.30 with only 15 mins break in between classes which are unexistant as teacher overlap and never finish their class on time so I end up bringing my food in class and having a full meal in the face of the teacher. Some might think I'm rude but I'm hungry and MBA or not, I'll feed myself. Luckilly, Monday is an exception and I 'only' have 3 or 6 hours a day of classes the rest of the week. Yeah! That's looks like hollidays to me!:-)

Question from new MBA: Can I work beside the MBA?

As I start receiving a few questions from prospective MBA students by email, I will answer them online so it can benefit everyone.

Question:
'I have recently been admitted to the MBA program at HEC Montreal for the Fall of 2004. I came across your blog through a Google search. I am trying to gather information about the program, in particular the time structure of a typical week. I am considering continuing some of my consulting work during the program and want to determine whether that is realistic.
If you have a chance, would you please tell me a bit more about the program and how a typical week is structured outside of class (i.e. team meetings, research, et cetera)? How much time should I expect to devote to work outside of class? How flexible have you found the scheduling of team work/meetings?
I thank you for any information/advice you can offer.'

Answer:
If you're talking of the Full time MBA program, I don't think you can conceived to do any work aside from the mba. If you have enough time to sleep, eat and maybe some little time for fun maybe once a week consider yourself as lucky.
I knew that some people tried to work as well but that's almost impossible but maybe if you're a surhuman and don't need to sleep at all then it's ok. There is so much work beside the course (meetings, readings, individual and team assigments) that you won't have time to do anything else, weekend included often.

It's a one year mba intensive and it really means intensive. Just imagine how they manage to fit a two year program in one.

Scheduling of teammeeting are slightly flexible depending of your teammembers schedule and flexibility. Team are composed of 5 people and some like to work early in the morning, others like to start late like myself so they can work overnight and still have decent amount of sleep. It's all depend of the consensus but having to work is not a good excuse not too meet in the full time MBA as you're not actually meant to. Same for people who have family obligations and are reluctant to meet during weekends because of the kids, that's tough as most of the MBA's have no obligations.
Well, family are more frequent in the French MBA program as the English program is mostly composed of International students either single or whom family stayed in their home country so most of the students really dedicate 100% of their time to the MBA and they will expect the same from you.

Good luck and hopefully we'll meet.

Montreal Mirror: "Freebies for overcharged customers
Attention all Quebec shoppers! Freebies await if you keep an eagle eye on cashiers ringing up your bill. That's because retailers in la belle province - unlike those elsewhere in Canada - are forced to hand over a product gratis to any customer who notices that he's been charged higher than the posted price on an item costing $10 or less. Any overcharged item above 10 bucks immediately gets reduced by a tenner."

Interesting... I run a Googlism for HEC Montreal and the result is quite accurate. I thought I'd share this here.
Googlism: "Googlism for: hec montreal
hec montreal is french
hec montreal is affiliated with the university of montreal and is recognized as a world leader in business education
hec montreal is recognized in canada and abroad as a dynamic crossroads of teaching and research in every management discipline and it boasts one of canada's
hec montreal is the business school of the university of montreal"

Golf made easy by Nike

Nike plans to sell non-conforming clubs: "Nike plans to sell non-conforming clubs" Why not? me think. I don't plan to play the LPGA but I would love any kind of enhancements that would help me to get the ball in the hole in a more efficient and fun way and look like I can actually play. At the other hand, it's true that it would affect the authenticity of the Golf but hey what's more important, the fun or the rules?

Did God decided to punish Coca Cola for selling tap water?

Coke recalls controversial water: "Coca-Cola is to recall all bottles of its Dasani water in the UK, after levels of bromate were found to exceed legal levels. The recall is an embarrassment for the drinks giant, which has faced criticism for selling what is treated and purified tap water." Ironical, isn't it? I knew there was something wrong with selling tap water...

Period 5: When time and team management matters

We're in 3rd week of Period 5. Time flies. Not many exams at the end of this term but tons of assignments in each class. Individual, Group assignments, presentations, papers, research, etc. and some take home or vanilla exams at the end of the period. The worse is that since it is the first time we were able to choose our courses, each class is composed of different students. So instead of having the same group in each class, we have a team in each class. Friday becomes the team meeting day by excellence where people try to meet each of their 5 or more differents teams + the supervised project one. Luckilly, I manage to team up with almost the same people in a few classes so it is not too bad to coordinate team schedules and so on but that's not that easy for everyone.

Spring but still Winter in cold Montreal

Just when we though the Spring was back during the weeks preceding the 1st day of the Spring. We had soft temperatures which we can qualified of warm spring feelings and mood here in Montreal. You could see girls starting wearing mini-skirts again, eventhough it still felt too cold to be honest but hey, that's Montreal.
Guess what, winter kicked back this weekend with snowstorms and all. Monday hit us with minus 25 C or so with the chill factor... Is that the nordic way to celebrate Spring? Hmm, I'm quite happy actually. I almost thought I wouldnt be able to use my skis again. After all, I bought skis because someone told me that winter and snow last 6 months here in Montreal, so let's see.

Does the tap water taste better in bottle?

Coca Cola admitted recently that Dasani was tap water.BBC NEWS | UK | Soft drink is purified tap water So the second most popular bottled water in the US is in fact expensive tap water.

Mid term break

One week. That's all you get for working 6 months days and night on the tight intensive MBA schedule. I had a long thought about what could be fun to do in 7 days. Well, the choice wasn't that hard. I found a 'relatively' cheap ticket to London (UK) and head back there to see all my friends and loved city. I won't say here how I filled these very intense and highly enjoyable days but all I can say is that I had such a blast that it took me the first week back to school to rest from this not very restful break. So what? Who needs to sleep anyway when you're in heaven?

Quebec, like in a dream

I found this really cool video presenting Quebec. It's absolutely beautiful eventhough after spending 5 months in Quebec, I've barely see 10% of what is shown in the video. But again, I'm here to do a MBA not as a tourist. I hope I'll have the opportunity most of these stuff before I leave the country though.

4 Finals down!

The Finals exams weekend came to an end. Started Friday, we went through 4 exams in 3 days. I should say 3 nights and 3 days where I haven't much sleep. Marketing, Operation Management, Strategy and Finance are now part of the past. Well, not for long because we're going to have more flavors of these in the next courses. I think that most of my exams went well, beside the last one: Finance. I've never seen so many people completely pissed off after an exam. Me and my mates were so frustrated that we climbed the desks after the exam and start shouting and fighting to release our high temper. Same in Salon National, where we proceeded to sumo fighting then same again at this pub/restaurant where pints of Heineken helping, we had our final blast and finally manage to laugh about this bad joke of an exam.
I won't go into details of the exam to avoid reviving unwanted negative feelings but it really sucked and most students couldn't answer most of the questions. I expect some more sumo action within the mba in the next few days. Ok, back to work because lovely HEC doesn't give its students a break so I have to prepare an assignment for tomorrow...Life sucks!

I'm just being lazy.

I found something useful while I'm studying for this weekend finals. I can't be bothered to open my books so when I need to review or document a particular concept, I just google it. And look at what I found: QuickMBA: Accounting, Business Law, Economics, Entrepreneurship, Finance, Management, Marketing, Operations, Statistics, Strategy
All the stuff we need to know are there and very well and clearly summarized in just a few pages instead of having to go through pages and pages of longwinded litterature. I'm SO damn efficient!:-)

Want to see my school?

I just found out that HEC Montreal made a Video of the school. It looks like a commercial 'Wall Steet' like rythm. The music is a bit 'too much' to my taste but a good overview with nice shots of the building and the setup of the school.

Holliday Break

Ok, so let's me summarize the holliday break in one post because I was too busy to update this blog during the hollidays.
So, 2 weeks off for Christmas and New Year. loads of students went back home. Others, like myself, stayed in Montreal and took the opportunity to discover better this city and what's around.
I'm very happy I did because in two weeks, they're loads to be done here that we usually don't have time to do with the tough MBA schedule: I did loads of clubbing (with of course the memorable NYE blast), meeting new people, shopping (including the fabulous boxing day), skiing (even tried snowboarding), sleeping, doing just nothing, watching the snow falling, spending time with friends, going to the gym, celebrating Christmas, etc,etc....
Yes, I know I forget to say studying...Well, I haven't had time to even start the very tough and intense study plan I had scheduled. After enquiring to my MBA mates, no one did actually and it's all good because holiday is meant to chill out and have fun. We have enough work during the normal weeks so... fuck it!;-)

Snowboarding or studying...? Tough choice!

Studying in Canada has the disadvantage that it is freezing cold but at the other hand you can enjoy wintersports easily. Where else can you be on the ski slopes in less than an hour driving? Montreal is surrounded by small and larger ski resorts. The closest is Bromont. I spent last night there learning how to snowboard and enjoying the fresh snow that just starting falling this weekend. Mondays are not too busy so there's not much line. The resort is quite large. I was expecting something smaller. Nothing compares to the resorts that you would find in France or Switzerland but it's perfect for a day out. Great for beginner as for experts!
Most of the slope are lightened up which allows people to go skiing after work or even during the night. On some days, they organize ski night from 7pm till 3am. I'd like to go to one of these. It's meant to be very popular for the young crowds.
Downside from the early stages of snowboarding is that you only start feeling the pain from falling the day after and I'm afraid that tomorrow will be even worse. Anyway, the fun snowboarding was well worth the aftermath pain. Awww....

MBA Christmas party

We had our MBA Christmas party last night. It was setup as a Wine and Cheese slightly formal party where the teachers, academics and partners were invited too. I haven't see many teachers nor partners. Only the friendly ones were there. Quite frankly, i didn't feel like talking to teachers during the party anyway. I'm quite fed up with them and the workload they give us.
Wine and cheese parties seem to be very popular in Quebec. The wine is cheap and the cheese too but still since cheese is so expensive here in Canada and that you could compare that to caviar for us Europeans, people jump on the cheese plates as soon as they arrived and if you're not doing so too then you won't eat, let alone taste much of the cheese.
It's fun though and the cheap wine make you become drunk very quickly so everything becomes perfect, even the cheese!;-)
Our chinese delegation presided by Nicole teached us so more Mandarin. Well some rude words and expressions this time, much easier and exciting to remember than the usual vocabulary. It was so funny to try these words on random chinese students to check if our pronounciation was correct. In the beginning, they didn't actually realise that we're speaking chinese but once they did, they freaked out so I guess the pronounciation was accurate.;-)

MBA in a nutshell

NetMBA Business Knowledge Center Another great knowledge database where the main theories and notions key to the MBA are summarized and clearly explained with a few examples. Ideal if you need to work on something and that you don't have your books around to remind you the theories (OR if you haven't had time to do the readings...;-)). I find the marketing and strategy parts really helpful.

Girlie afternoon gossip & dinner

Yesterday, me and Little Tree went to S.’s flat to get some training on how to make sushi and chinese dumplings. We arrived late there because we couldn’t stop making pictures on our way there posing with random snowmen and making naulghty HEC building shots (that I’m afraid we’re not allowed to show to public audience…) then we had a few snowfights too. In short, we arrived late, frozen and wet from the melting snow.
N. teached us the Sushi bit, she’s not japanese but she’s so smart that she figured out herself. S. teached us the art of making dumplings. I managed to make three of them (while LT and S. made almost 30 of these) but mine were really bad and opened while cooking so Shiny forced me to eat them to punish me..., well they were delicious anyway! Sushi were absolutely delicious too.
S. is the best host in the world and also the poshest MBA student. She’s got a pool at the top of her building with view on HEC!!! and a sauna as well. Next time, we’ll come back for a dip in the pool and spend the afternoon studying finance in the sauna. Who said that MBA life was tough???

My yearbook text

As it is customary for HEC MBA graduates to select someone in their graduating class to write a brief note about them for the yearbook, we were asked to find classmates to write a notes for them.

R. & S. wrote some lines for me, they are both so sweet and nicely written. It is so interesting and sometimes surprising to see how other people see you and for them to summarise that impression in a few lines. I had to write a few texts too myself for my classmates and I have to say, this is a very delicate and stressfull exercice but so relieving and enjoyable once you finally put down on paper the representation of that person that is usually very close to you.

Case studies

The Times 100 UK: Marketing Theory, Business case studies: Wow! I found this FREE educational resource for students, teachers and lecturers of business studies. 'The Times 100 brings business studies theory to life with case studies on real companies, written by leading business studies textbook authors and linked to all exam specifications. "

It's excellent and there's a lot of cases regarding major companies illustrating interesting marketing and business concept. You also get to see the analysis of the case and all that without having to register nor pay. It's extremelly useful for MBA's student!!!

Freak

Man hid in wardrobe to avoid work: "A German man who did not turn up to work because he fancied a day off was found hiding in his wardrobe."
Poor man! Amazing how going to work can become scary for some. Never thought of hiding in the wardrobe though...lol!

Graduation Picture

Today, we had our individual graduation pictures taken to appear in the MBA class of 2003-2004 mosaic and yearbook. It was so funny, we had to pose with the graduation cap and gown, as well as the diploma just like if we were already in September 2004 graduated and done with the MBA.
Well, I was quite difficult after a course and with all the workload we're going through right now to express the joy and relief that will be on my face once I actually finish this MBA.
I remember the day that I was graduated in Psychology, I think it was the happiest day in my life and I still remember that day that I sweared that i would never go back to school again because i was so fed after 5 years spent at the University. Well, here I am again in a business school this time and for one year only but intensive. I can't wait to be at graduation day, I think I'll cry of hapiness to be over such a stressfull and intense year of labour. I'll be proud of me though!;-)

First Class in english MBA

I had my first class in the English MBA today and I really liked it. Our Operation Management teacher "Joseph N. Kelada ", is like a master in his field. he developped and applied his own concepts which are really fascinating.

I also met my new teammates. There are one Canadian, 2 Chineses and one Pakistanese students. I only met them briefly but they all look very friendly and bright so I'm very delighted with my new team.

End of Period 2 Exams

Yeah! The last exam of the three days exams weekend is now finished. I'm so happy and reliefed but very disappointed that the weekend is almost gone (Sunday afternoon) and that the new term is starting tomorrow morning already. The Operation Management's teacher already sent us a case to be prepared for tomorrow. 'Great!'... :-(

Tomorrow will be also my first class in the English MBA with my new group. I can't wait! This term, we will also have our first Marketing course and since I want to take that as my concentration choice, I'm ultra motivated for that class. I can't wait to start!

Fly to shop...

Tickets to fly to Ikea sell out in three minutes Tickets for a plane charted by Ikea to take customers in remote northern Norway to its store in the south of the country has sold out in three minutes. Ikea took the step after 6,000 residents of the northern towns signed a petition asking Ikea to build a store in northern Norway.'
What a brilliant idea but I can't believe how desesparate are these customers to shop at Ikea. When is Mc Donalds going to arrange flights too???

Transfer into English MBA...Yeah!

I'M HAPPY! I had initially applied to be in the English MBA program at HEC Montreal but since I applied at her later stage and that the English program was full, I had been offered a place on the French program, which I accepted.
When I joined the program in August, I noticed that a lot of people didn't show up the first week to start their MBA and therefore some places remained vacant. I immdiately asked to be transfered into the English MBA. Since the program already started, the MBA management asked me to wait until the next period to be transfered. The two first period are coming to an end next weekend and I'll join the English program as of Monday the 24th of November!!!

I'm so happy that I'm finally transfered to what I initially applied and paid for. Beside that, the composition of the new groups have been made known and my class is composed of my best mates that I have met on the MBA so I'm even more delighted by all these good news!

Not so good is that the end of the period means also exams... and next weekend will be 1 exam on Friday, 2 on Saturday and 1 on Sunday!! Hrgh.. Ok, I better get studying then...:-/

First snow in Montreal

We're going to have some snow tomorrow!!! The first time since I'm in Montreal. It means that the winter is officially there. I can't wait to see the first snow falling on Montreal and take some pics!

Macro-economics teacher doesn't know about 'Europe'...

We had our mid- term test in Macro-Economics today. Grr...
Then we had our usual lesson. I thought the teacher knew his stuff but it sounds like he knows only Canada and the rest of the world which is FOR HIM...USA. All the examples in the course are given regarding Canada's situation and THE foreign country: US! At one point, my French colleague asked him if he could illustrate one of his theory in regards to Europe. The teacher said textually: 'Well, I'm not sure... I haven't follow the situation since the European countries have been united... Well, before the European Union, i know that Germany blablabla....'.
Gosh, I couldn't believe this guy! It's been more than 10 years now that Europe is united... Does he never read The Economist or watch CNN or whatever international newspaper to know what the situation is like in Europe....? Since Macroeconomics is the analysis of a country's economy as a whole, I thought that he would at least have the curiosity of lurking into Europe or whichever country to know how things are organized there. Nope, Canada, US...That's it!

Halloween party

The MBA Halloween party last Thursday night was ace. Almost everyone was dressed up in some very original and unexpected outfits. I was a witch which is not very original but quite good regarding the time I invested in looking for an outfit and end up with a one dollar hat and nails at Dollarama. Cheap but efficient as I was in the halloween mood to the full!

Welcome to my blog!

I always wanted to start a blog but I didn't know about what I should write. Me, my life, my thoughts, others, my hobbys...No,! All this is quite boring. To make it useful to some, I decided to write about my current MBA experience at HEC Montreal.

Since English isn't my mother language, this won't be written in the most poetic nor stylistic splendor so I'll 'try' to make it interesting to read by just being ME and telling you the truth about this experience and what I think about it.

Since Truth is not always politically correct and that I don't want to be sued nor arrested by people's sensibility to what I might write, I will avoid to write real or full names if there is no reason. The point of this blog is not to sell the MBA of HEC Montreal to anyone and tell beautiful stories about it nor diminishing or critisizing it for no reason. It is just my reflexion, vision, mood and often bitchiness about the whole thing in order to make me feel better and for the eventual reader to know my point of view.

This is a free blog written in a democratic country so if you don't like what you read, go watch tv or read vogue but don't complain about it.

This is my journal of one year of hardship spend at HEC Montreal to obtain my MBA degree. Enjoy!