Nuno is a graduate of the MBA programme at ISEG Lisbon School of Economics and Management. He took some time out to tell EDUopinions about his time as a student there.
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Getting Started
In 2013, as an entrepreneur, I decided to take the one and a half year MBA at the Lisbon School of Economics and Management, in ISEG, in Lisbon.
As a student of the 30th edition, the MBA was built in a three-month module sequence, intercalating soft skills with hard skills, creating a balanced scheme that allowed the existence of dynamic projects aggregating the different learning into a consistent whole.
Surrounded by a series of events and projects integrating with the learning process, we started with a two-day team building event at the Portuguese Air Force base in Sintra, creating bonds and introducing the students to each other.
The Programme Itself
The MBA was oriented through a series of case studies and projects, mostly focused on the new mobile technologies, and app market, in which the student teams combined different backgrounds.
We were introduced to a dynamic project that worked outside the normal course, in which the different teams were embedded in companies that allowed student access to their core, their knowledge, and their team spirit, to develop technological and IT projects, developing such different projects as mobile payment apps for banking, or a new gamification process for mail delivery.
The classes were taken three days in the week, and the projects developed in the remaining time, with the evaluation periods in the last days of the three-month module.
A series of practical classes such as Global Management Challenge were destined to give an onboard chance to use the acquired skills in a close-to-real scenario, enabling a learning by mistake methodology, consistently structuring the learning process.
A Fully-Rounded Experience
During the one and a half years we had a different set of experiences, such as Theatre classes, Presentation experiences (integrated in classes), a Myers-Briggs Type Indicator test, as well as a series of networking, and Alumni events, integrating the students in a larger MBA community, such as a yearly Alumni dinner.
Close to the end of the MBA, we had a new outside experience, this time in the Portuguese Naval base in Almada, providing a different experience, with a series of trial outs, teamwork, and a sail out of port experience on a beautiful sunny May day.
How Studying Fit In With My Life
The integration of the MBA in professional life was easy, creating working and scheduling methodologies inexistent until then, facing each project by itself, integrating them in the whole of the company, but focusing each case by itself.
Networking issue was also important, creating bonds with other students, each with its own professional background, forming a larger picture of the corporate processes and methodologies, enabling a collage and adaptation in my own company.
Not so easy was to integrate the MBA with personal life, since the one and a half year time frame was narrow for the whole of the subjects to take. There was no time for teamwork during class time, so weekend meetings and Skype calls were frequent in order to create working understandings.
How I Feel About The Programme Now
Looking back as a whole, the experience was highly enlighting, providing a different experience, working and organising methodologies, introducing ways of creating, evaluating and deploy different types of projects in reality. The larger view of the working and corporate ways provided technical means to look at the architectural environment in a larger sense, allowing the stretch for new markets, as well as a whole new area of expertise, and market, in real estate consulting.
The networking created with my fellow colleagues, as well as the MBA Alumni as a whole, enabled an increase of resourcefulness, and benefits on personal relations, both personally, as well as professionally, generating sustainability for the future.
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