Added: 03/10/2006 |
Top MBA schools in Europe lead the league in terms of multiculturalismLearn the art of African drumming in a day's time - this is how the RSM Erasmus University in Rotterdam helps overseas students overcome the problem of adjusting to a new environment. The students become tolerable tribal drummers towards evening and at the same time learn to cross cultural barriers and work together as a team. This is a priority task over mastering finance and accounting courses.
Nowadays, many B-schools attract students from all over the world with no nationality prevailing. The multicultural diversity helps MBA graduates tilt the odds in their favor in the job market, as multinational companies warmly welcome students, able to behave efficiently in strange cultures and milieus. It implies that people, considering which school to apply to, should know that Kellogg, Wharton and other top MBA schools in the USA are not the only and evidently the best variants.
This is one of the factors, driving an increasing number of American students to top MBA schools in Europe, like the IMD in Lausanne or London Business School, catering to a diverse student body, which one is unable to find at US schools.
U.S. students are also drawn to the Continent, since MBA courses there bring a good return on investment. Tuition and living expenses at a European school are half the cost of an average US program. The same is true as regards the duration.
Only two percent US MBA candidates still apply for their degree abroad. Nevertheless, their number tends to ascend as compared with the year of 2000. In 2005, about one thousand and six hundred prospective students sent their GMAT scores to top MBA schools in Britain as against eight hundred and eighty in 2000. Spain, with several English-language programs, including the ESADE and IESE business schools in Barcelona, may boast a growth from one hundred and sixty two in 2000 to four hundred and forty two last year.
You will be pleasantly surprised to find out that staff members of the school are going to help you adjust to an unfamiliar environment, including meeting you at an airport, taking you shopping, renting an apartment and doing other legwork to save you time and energy. Students' families are also helped to adapt: the IMD in Switzerland provides a kindergarten for students' children (though for an extra cost), while the ESADE in Spain offers partners an opportunity to participate in a two-week intensive Spanish course to acquire at least the rudimentary knowledge of the language.
Mixing with fellow students outside your national circle is as vital as mastering an academic course, hunched over the textbooks. Hence, the smartest B-schools introduce the students' diversity into the curriculum in a scientific way. For instance, the IMD and INSEAD in France create study groups of students not only from manifold cultural backgrounds, but also from diverse work backgrounds.
Nonetheless, after all the students have to cope with cross-cultural differences themselves. To give them a helping hand, many MBA schools in Europe arrange all kinds of students' activities, including various interest clubs. At London Business School - one of the top MBA schools in Europe and worldwide - students eat turkey at a Thanksgiving Day event, organized by the American Club, or they may participate in an orientation week game, in which students use parody and mockery to make fun of their own national stereotypes.
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