ie business school - aalto...travel report: ie business school madrid / fall 2016 / 423771 4 the...

Travel Report: IE Business School Madrid / Fall 2016 / 423771

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IE Business School Madrid

Fall 2016 423771


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Contents

Preparing for the exchange 3 Paperwork 3 Housing 3 Reception at the school 4

Exchange studies 5 IE Business School 5 Student life at IE 6 My courses 7 Business Intelligence for Startups Family Business Internet of Things Introduction to Coding Unplugged: the Marketing Workshop Political Theory Español 1.1

Living in Madrid 10 Basics 10 Transportation 10 Climate 10 Sports and Culture 11 Cost Level 12 Travelling 12

Final comments 13


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Preparing for the exchange

It had been clear for me since the beginning of my studies that I want to spend at least one

semester abroad studying at a high quality business school and learning a new language. The

main reasons for me to apply to IE Business School were:

1. Spain as a country: I’ve always been interested in Spanish culture and the language is one

of the most important ones in the world.

2. Madrid as a city: City of 3,2 inhabitants, lots to see and experience.

3. Reputation of IE Business School: According to Financial Times (2016), IE is the 4th best

business school in Europe.

All the pre-exchange paperwork was pretty straightforward and easy. In April, already been

accepted for exchange by Aalto, I had to send a separate application (including transcript of

records, photograph and passport information) to IE faculty by email. In June I signed my learning

agreement, filled the Aalto exchange student grant application and, a few weeks later, submitted

the Erasmus language assessment. During the summer I also completed the IE language course

placement test (as I wanted to study Spanish) and picked my courses for the whole semester.

However, these choices weren’t binding: the enrollment window opened again in September and I,

as well as most of the other exchange students, made a lot of changes.

In the end of August it was time for me to move to sunny Spain. Norwegian offers quite affordable

direct flights between Helsinki and Madrid. I had already bought my tickets (31/8 & 23/12; 210€ in

total) in spring because I wanted to buy the Christmas time return flight early enough.

Housing

As I had decided not to rent any accommodation beforehand, I spent my first days in Madrid

staying at a hostel and looking for a room to rent. There are several good Spanish websites for

apartment/room hunting, e.g. idealista.com. Most of the students in Madrid share a flat with 4-15

other people since studio apartments are relatively expensive. I ended up renting a room from a

shared flat of eight in barrio (≈ neighborhood, part of town) Palacio. Even though the location of the

place was amazing (400m from Puerta del Sol), I only paid 389€ a month. The price was low

because didn’t have a window in my bedroom. Although usually cash is king in Spain, my landlord

wanted me to pay the rent fee by bank transfer. All the contracts are, of course, written in Spanish.

After the semester in Madrid, I can definitely recommend:

1. Living in a shared flat: I found it fun and interesting to live with people from different

backgrounds and cultures. For privacy reasons, make sure there’s a lock in your bedroom

door.

2. Living in city center: Even though well-located apartments are always more expensive,

living close to the center is absolutely worth it. I bet my friends who lived on the outskirts of


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the city agree since they often had to leave dinners and parties really early in order to catch

the last train or metro. To name a few, I’d recommend barrios of Palacio, Cortés,

Centro/Sol, Malasaña, Justicia and Latina.

If I could change anything afterwards, I would have definitely:

1. Lived in a flat with Spanish as the main language: All my flatmates in Madrid were

foreigners, most of them exchange students like me. My friends living with locals improved

their language skills way more than I did.

2. Rented a room with window: to be honest, hot September nights weren’t too enjoyable for

me.

View from my flatmate’s room

Reception at the school

Before moving to Madrid, I was in touch with my amigo student, nominated by IE. He gave me

some good tips about Madrid and IE Business School. The first day at school (September 5th) was

a bit confusing as I had two lectures before the official welcoming meeting and had no idea where

to go. The welcoming event was quite brief - just some good-to-know information and school

policies. Making friends in the exchange student community was really easy from the very

beginning as everything was new for everyone. During the first week we had access to orientation

events IE organized for first year students. However, many of the events had conflicts with each

other and/or lectures so we weren’t able to attend all of them. I took part in a paintball event and

two parties. Also, IE organized a tapas night exclusively for exchange students and our amigos.


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Exchange studies (Sep 5th-Dec 21st)

IE Business School

IE University is a private university with two campuses: the main campus is located in town of

Segovia (90km from Madrid) and the secondary campus is in Madrid. The latter one is located in

barrio Salamanca close to the city center. Salamanca is one of the wealthiest parts of the city and

considered a bit posh. The campus consists of two main buildings (see the picture on next page)

and two smaller buildings close by. All the facilities are well-functioning, the buildings are modern

and, comparing to other universities in the city, IE’s faculty handle all the administration efficiently.

Summarized into three adjectives, IE Business School is international, practical and career-

oriented. Most of the classes at IE are held in English and 49% of the students are non-Spanish.

All the classes are very interactive and student participation is highly required. Generally, theory

and numbers don’t play a big role at IE. Weight of final exams is really low as IE students have to

submit dozens of assignments during each semester. Due to the fact that most of the teachers

aren’t actual full time university professors (but business professionals), all the projects, as well as

classroom activities are very practical and based on real working life needs. Group work and

presentations are emphasized a lot.

The BBA program differs a lot from the business school studies at Aalto University. Unlike in

Finland, business students do not specialize in e.g. accounting or marketing after their first

academic year but study multiple subjects throughout the four years. Thus, it was possible for me

to pick e.g. fourth year marketing classes, as the deepness of the courses wasn’t as high as at

Aalto.

Generally, most of the courses are really easy to pass as long as you get all the assignments

done. However, (total) workload is relatively high due to the high number of assignments and

required classroom attendance (minimum of 70% - otherwise you fail the course automatically).

After all I think that the quality of the classes is usually pretty much at (sometimes even below) the

level of Aalto.


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IE Business School Madrid campus

Student life at IE

Student life at IE isn’t as active as it is at Aalto. As the annual school fee is almost 20 000€, the

university organizes basically all the student events. During my stay in Madrid I took part in a few

of them. Generally, IE parties, activities and bonding events are well organized as the school uses

lots of money providing free transportation and cool venues as well as food and drinks (often open

bar) for the students. Especially IE paintball event was one the highlights of the semester for me -

we had a blast! However, I find events organized by Finnish student organizations a lot more fun

as they are more genuine and informal. Also, number of the events is relatively small and most of

them are held during the first weeks of fall semester.


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Courses

As most of the bachelor courses are held in Segovia, number of courses available for us in Madrid

was limited. IE faculty recommended us to pick elective courses of BBA program but we had a

possibility to choose law and international relations modules as well. Courses held in Spanish were

open for us too, but I decided to study in English since my Spanish wasn’t good enough.

Business Intelligence for Startups (BBA, 6 ects)

Brian C. Winans

Mr. Winans’ course started straight on the first day of school. Classroom was filled with exchange

students and, thus, offered me a good chance to bond with them. The course presented tools for

analyzing consumer behaviour and improving your website and app based on your objectives.

Studying was really practical: examples instead of theory, group work and presentations instead of

readings. I found the course really interesting and all the lectures very entertaining. Mr. Winans is

an entrepreneurial, relatively young man from Chicago who wanted to keep the classes very

informal, filled with humour (lots of banter), discussion and teamwork. Thanks to the course, I

improved my presentation skills a lot and learned the basics (again, the depth wasn’t remarkable)

of BI. Difficulty and workload of the course were reasonable. Definitely recommendable for

exchange students!

Family Business (BBA, 3 ects)

Cristina Cruz Serrano

Beforehand I had never truly realized the difference between running a family business and non-

FB as the family aspect has an impact on so many different functions. In my opinion, Family

Business was a high quality course. Mrs. Cruz is a globally valued family business consultant and,

in addition to her competence, she was good as a teacher. Her teaching methods consisted of

traditional lecturing, case studies and role play. We learned a lot about characteristics of family

businesses with different levels of family influence. In the case studies we analyzed the roles of

family members and discussed about the competitive advantage companies may or may not get

from being in family control. However, after all, the course was much more useful for students with

entrepreneurial families - not so valuable for me. Workload of the course wasn’t too high but

getting a good grade was difficult.


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Internet of Things (BBA, 3 ects)

Pierre Auger

I picked the course because I find the topic really interesting. The course presented possibilities,

risks and different concepts of IoT. In my opinion, the depth of the course was way too shallow.

The objective seemed to be making the students interested in internet of things and aware of the

business potential - the key message of the course was “the change is happening, you have to

take it into account”. Mr. Auger is a really extrovert and entertaining French businessman. Due to

his good connections, there were several really interesting guest lecturers presenting their

businesses to us. However, his teaching methods weren’t too efficient and e.g. the final exam was

really weird. So, after all I didn’t learn too much during the course. It may, nevertheless, be a

decent option for an international student since the workload was really low (more time for other

exchange student activities).

Introduction to Coding (BBA, 6 ects)

Ignacio Larru Martínez

Introduction to Coding was a basic level course run by skillful Mr. Larru Martínez. The course

consisted of the classroom sessions, one group work and exam. For students without any

programming experience the class was pretty demanding. The programming language we used

was Python (which is a usual choice for beginner classes). I didn’t find the course too interesting

but it is really recommendable for e.g. business students aiming for ICT sector.

Unplugged: the Marketing Workshop (BBA, 3 ects)

Emilio Lliteras Araño

This one didn’t begin until mid-October. We only had six regular sessions and one session for final

presentations. In addition to the lectures, the course consisted of four individual assignments and

one bigger group assignment. We used standard models (such as 4Ps and brand key) a lot trying

to dive deeper towards the essence of each brand we analyzed. Mr. Lliteras is a really competent

marketing professional and I found the classes very interesting. I learned a lot and, in my opinion,

did pretty well even though marketing isn’t my major. The course wasn’t too time-consuming.

Political Theory (IRR, 6ects)

Timothy Syme

Political Theory was my absolute favourite of all the courses I had. We studied the foundations of

politics broadly, from fundamental concepts such as rights, to ideologies such as nationalism and

liberalism. Mr. Syme had a new topic for every week and made us read pieces of famous books

and essays regarding them (Locke, Rousseau, Smith, Engels, Mazzini, Rawls…). I found it really


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fascinating to get to know classics of western philosophy. All the lectures were worth attending:

classroom discussion was constantly really high-quality - mostly thanks to a few bright law students

in the front row and Mr. Syme, a Scottish historian, who’s a really competent and engaging

teacher. Workload of the course was very high since we had to read a lot and write numerous

summaries and essays.

Español 1.1 (3 ects)

Jeffrey Bruner

IE decided my group behalf of me, based on my language placement test result. 1 is the second

lowest tier of Spanish language studies (range: 0-4). At first I found the difficulty pretty low for me

but step by step it became harder. We had a midterm and final exam, both consisted of three parts:

writing, reading and listening. Also, we had an oral exam in the end of semester. We focused a lot

on grammar and vocabulary - even too much in my opinion: we hardly ever discussed in Spanish

in the classroom. We had to buy two books for this course (~50€ in total).

I recommend IE Business School for entrepreneurial people and students who prefer learning in

very practical way. Personally I found the lack of theoretical learning often a bit frustrating. When it

comes to course choices, I encourage everyone not to choose only business modules - semester

abroad is a unique chance to widen your perspective. Also, I recommend hiring a personal Spanish

teacher or practicing with friends instead of studying Spanish at IE.

Barrio Salamanca


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Living in Madrid

Madrid is the third biggest city in Europe with population of 3,2 million (metropolitan area 6,5).

Even though it isn’t as globally recognized as other European major capitals and e.g. Barcelona, el

Foro offers a lot to experience and see.

Madrid’s barrios differ a lot from each other, which I found really fascinating. You notice the

versatility walking around the city (lifestyles, outfits and behaviour of people; streets, bars,

restaurants, political views, arts, et cetera).

The biggest cultural difference, in my opinion, between Spain and Finland is the daily timetable.

Spanish people lunch in the afternoon, usually between 2PM and 4PM. They also have dinner

really late - normally at 10 or 11PM. It's not unusual to see little kids playing in the streets after

midnight. Youngsters go to nightclubs around 2AM or even later. Also, Spaniards are proud of their

strong bar/restaurant culture which differs a lot from Finnish one. Spanish people seldom drink

without eating simultaneously. Usually when socializing at bars, Madrileños order a caña (0,2L

beer), and a tapas plate.

Even though Madrid is an international city (lots of foreign people, mainly from South America and

Western Europe), knowing Spanish language is definitely an asset. Especially outside the city

center people are really unwilling to speak English. That makes Madrid a good place to improve

your language skills comparing to e.g. Barcelona (where the number of American tourists is

enormous).

Transportation

Madrid’s public transportation is definitely one of its strengths. Youngsters (>26yo) get unlimited

transportation access for 20€ a month. Madrid’s metro web is really broad and delays are rare. The

transportation card also enables you to use busses and cercanias (local trains). However, I didn’t

really use them as I walked a lot and usually took a metro for longer distances. Taxi and Uber fares

are also relatively cheap.

Climate

Due to Madrid’s location in the middle of Spain and the altitude of more than 600 meters, there’s a

big contrast between summers and winters. My first weeks in Madrid were really hot as the

temperature rose up to 35 degrees day after day. After early September the climate showed its

good side - it was sunny and warm almost every day until mid-December. Winters in Madrid are

really cold comparing to Spanish coast.


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Sports and Culture

Football is famously the number one sport in Spain and Madrid is one of the greatest football hubs

in the world. Real Madrid is the most successful club in Europe with 11 European Cup/Champions

League trophies. The club is both the most loved and hated in Spain. It’s a club of success, money,

influence and glamour but also a symbol of Spanish nationalism (due to support of General

Franco). Los Blancos’ main local rival Atlético Madrid on the other hand is traditionally a working

class club (even though the polarization isn’t nowadays as strong as it used to be) without success

(since the 70’s) and star players. However, within the last 10 years, Atleti have become one of the

big boys. In addition to the major clubs, there are many smaller professional clubs in Madrid,

mostly located in the southern suburbs, such as Rayo Vallecano, Getafe, Leganes and Alcorcon.

In addition to fútbol, e.g. basketball, tennis, cycling and motorsports are popular in Spain.

Spanish football was one of the reasons behind my choice of moving to Madrid. I saw many great

matches during my stay, most of them at Atlético’s Vicente Calderon stadium as I find Atleti the

most sympathetic and entertaining of the Madrid clubs. Also, atmosphere at Calderon is always

impressive, and, I often got affordable tickets due to my connections. I also enjoyed watching

Spanish basketball as two of Madrid’s basketball clubs play in the national top division: Real

Madrid (one of the greatest clubs in European basketball) and Estudiantes (club of Finnish

international Jamar Wilson).

Madrid is also an important city when it comes to culture. Its famous art museums such as Prado

and Reina Sofia display works of great Spanish artists such as Goya, Picasso, Dalí and

Velázquez. Continuously there are lots of festivals, concerts, fiestas etc. in Madrid - keep your

eyes open.

Tifo of Atleti fans (Atlético Madrid – Bayern München 28/09/16)


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Cost level

In general, living in Madrid is cheap, in comparison with Helsinki. Restaurants and bars are

generally really affordable, depending on the neighborhood though. When it comes to grocery

stores, especially drinks are notably cheaper than in Finland. Bigger supermarkets on the outskirts

of the city are a lot cheaper than smaller ones in downtown. Services are inexpensive as well, you

can, for example, get a haircut for less than 10€.

Travelling

Despite Franco’s efforts, Spain is very diverse as a country and all of the regions have their own

characteristics. During the fall I travelled to Seville, Barcelona, Granada, Malaga, Segovia and

Salamanca. I wanted to go to Basque country and Portugal as well but unfortunately didn’t have

time for those trips.

Recommendations:

1. Travel as much as possible - there are countless cool places in Iberian Peninsula and, due

to Madrid’s location, all the distances are doable.

2. If you are price-oriented, use busses, BlaBlaCar (blablacar.es) or rental cars. All these

options are very affordable – for example bus rides to Seville and Barcelona cost around

20€. Train is a good option if you want convenience and easiness. However, train tickets

are a bit more expensive (e.g. Madrid-Malaga ~50€).

3. Travel to Andalucia: medieval Muslim influence + Christian cultural heritage unique

Andalucian architecture and traditions.

Noche Vieja party in Salamanca (15/12/16)


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Final comments

Fall 2016 was really unforgettable for me. I made life-long friends and learnt a lot. Even though IE

Business School wasn’t entirely my piece of cake (too practical and a bit too posh for me), I

certainly became better at presenting, improved my group work skills and learnt lots about e.g.

entrepreneurship, management, marketing and politics. In addition to educational development, I

became more independent and international as a person. The SWOT table of exchange studying is

filled with strengths and opportunities – I definitely recommend it for everyone!

ie business school - aalto...travel report: ie business school madrid / fall 2016 / 423771 4 the...

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