Ignacio

My name is Ignacio and I am currently a student at the London Business School and working as a summer associate at Bain and company. Prior to this, I worked as a Supply Chain Manager at Safran.

My story is the traditional story of every child who was considered a good student. I studied maths and physics at school and applied for an engineering degree in college. I graduated manga cum laude from the ULB. It was only after I had worked for almost five years in the industry that I decided that I needed a career switch into a more responsible role. But since my degree was mainly technical it would take me years or even decades to attain a position of responsibility. So I decided that an MBA would be the next logical step to help me move up the ladder.

I understand that my decision to choose LBS over INSEAD sounds a bit strange because INSEAD is better ranked and also ha choices in terms of which campus you’d like to go for. However, I decided to go for LBS after much deliberation. I see that LBS gives me two great assets: first, it gives me an education in a truly English speaking country, which is essential to me, and second, I believe that the two year degree at LBS gives me a much better chance of a career switch than a nine or ten-month program at INSEAD. Of course, LBS is more expensive than INSEAD, probably costing double, life is much more expensive in London, but the quality of the education, the internationalism of the city, the dynamism of London, and also the duration of the program that allows for a summer internship would be more to my requirements.

During my time at the MBA Center, I was with students who chose to go with the easy route and went with INSEAD. Most of them did not have a great career chance as they expected and ended up going back to their former companies with a promotion. I am glad that I chose LBS because it faces me a chance at a summer internship at Bain and Company and I hope at the end of the program I will be able to secure a job with them.

As an engineer and being completely fluent in English, the GMAT was pretty easy for me. Still, the support of the MBA Center was very interesting as they gave me a targeted training that allowed me to get the 720 required in less than three months even though I had quite a huge workload. The most difficult part was really the application as, being an engineer, I’m not much of a creative writer, especially not while writing about myself. Taking to the advisors and counselors at MBA Center allowed me to interact with people who explained to me how to value my experience, what to develop, how to sell my project, etc which was very valuable because I had no clue about how to speak about myself without boasting. And the MBA Center helped me in finding the right approach and valuing my experience without it sounding like a boast. This was a very long process. It took me six months to write my application and it was not easy for me at all.

LBS has a great campus in one of the picturesque areas of London. The environment on campus is truly international, with a huge body of students from more than 70 countries from around the world. There are a lot of social activities and parties that go on in the campus which help with networking and forming new connections. There is a high level of interaction with the corporate world too. Overall, LBS offers a great campus life with enough social gatherings as well as networking opportunities both within and outside the campus.

A piece of advice that I would give prospective applicants to the MBA program is this: before deciding to get an MBA, make a deep introspection about yourself to understand what you truly want, what you can expect from the school, how to value what you have done in life, and what you can sell. In my case, I wanted to apply to INSEAD, because, for me, the school was number one in the ranking, not too far from Brussels, quite economical and affordable. However after talking to other students and coaches at MBA Center, I found that LBS was probably a better school for me and my career aspirations a without these people who forced me to deeply introspect, maybe I would have made the wrong choice and accepted INSEAD.