Aida

My name is Aida. I am Algerian but moved to France where I attended the preparatory classes at the Lycee Saint-Louis. I graduated with a Master of Engineering in Civil Engineering from the Ecole Speciale des Travaux publics, du Bâtiment et de L'Industrie. After my studies, I began working for Unibail-Rodamco as a Junior Project Manager where I worked for almost four and a half years.

After my Masters in Engineering, I got a job in the field of Civil Engineering. I realized quite early on that working in this type of environment meant that my career evolution would be pretty slow. Being completely fluent in English and having a global approach, I wanted to explore more and studying abroad was the first step. 

The best way to get international legitimacy in business is to get an MBA, and MIT is one of the best MBA programs in the world, with a great deal of focus on global entrepreneurship, IT, consulting, three fields in which I wanted to acquire knowledge and develop myself on, was my first choice.

The GMAT was not very difficult as I got a 780, with a perfect score in the verbal section. I am very thankful to Dr. Hubert Silly with whose help I managed to go from a 720 to 780, an excellent GMAT score to an outstanding GMAT score. However, the most important thing was the written application. I am not a naturally gifted writer and I was not at ease with writing the application, the tone it required, the values I needed to show and the words to show them through. I was grateful that Dr. Hubert Silly helped me to identify in my work and life all the activities that could convince the application committee at MIT.

MIT is the hub of innovation and as an engineer, MIT excited me. I was very happy when I realized that I was not wrong in my estimations of the quality of the teaching at MIT. there is a lot of focus on innovation and entrepreneurship here. It has led to astounding discoveries in the recent past. I am very proud of the fact that I have been a part of MIT.

An MBA is a huge change in your life it is not just about quitting your job for two years to go on study leave. It makes you a different person and changes you in the process. You need to prepare the people around you, your family and friends, that you are going for such a program so that they understand and support you as you aim for something better. A lot of women from North Africa would be content with a Masters in Engineering and would move on to having a home and family. It was very difficult for me to explain to my own people why I needed to stop my career and go for an MBA even after having graduated from a top engineering school and having a good job. Communicate well so that you get their support.

An MBA is an expensive undertaking. Even though I received scholarships, assistantships, and internships somewhere over $100,000 worth of support, it was still not enough to cover the whole MBA. That is an expensive thing. So save and secure your financing. Think over this aspect of the MBA and prepare well in advance for the cost.

Finally, I was very lucky to have come across Dr. Hubert Silly and his team who helped me get accepted into INSEAD, LBS, Columbia, Yale apart from MIT and I know that most of this would have been impossible without the support of Dr. Hubert Silly and his team at MBA Center. So my only recommendation to people looking to do an MBA is to get in touch with Dr. Hubert Silly.