Top business school opens door to international students

Business internships are more than just a practical way for business students to gain workplace skills and experience. They're highly valued by future employers too, as recent graduates of the prestigious business school ESCP Europe's Bachelor in Management (BSc) programme are finding out.

After high school, students often find themselves wondering how to take the next step. Choosing a track that leads to a brilliant career is always not easy.

"I found it hard to choose a particular field at such a young age. A lot of young people are struggling with making this decision," said Ellen Neschev. Growing up in a bilingual family in Germany, Ellen hoped to become a journalist, and obtained an internship at a regional daily in Düsseldorf.

Soon after, she discovered the ESCP Europe Bachelor in Management (BSc), an international BSc that offers a range of subjects designed to equip students for life outside the classroom. The program lasts for over three years and has been launched in three countries.

For the first year, classes are taught entirely in English in either London, Paris or Beijing, with the potential for some lessons to be taught in the local language over the following years. Students will also study French, Spanish, Italian or German to gain proficiency in the language of their chosen campus during the last two years.

Since graduating with the programme's inaugural cohort in October, Ellen has had some time to reflect on how the course influenced her career path. She ended up working as a full-time account optimiser at Accenture for Google in Dublin instead of landing a job in the local newspaper.

"We had the opportunity to choose internships in any sort of field, whether it was a social project or a position in finance," Ellen explained, adding that entrepreneurship is a common thread. "If you want to get involved in a project or set up a company on your own, different courses, opportunities and services are always available and professors are always ready to help."

Ellen spent her first year in London, where the school's career service helped her secure her first internship in the wholesale department of US fashion brand Juicy Couture, which Ellen then followed up with a product marketing internship at L'Oréal in Düsseldorf one year later.

Ellen's experience is typical of what our Bachelor in Management (BSc) students can expect, said Hélène Ourbak-Louit, who, as the first Director of Studies, pioneered the programme from its inception to the first graduation.

"The most impressive thing is that our graduates are far more mature than others, and companies can feel that. In France, students often study general subjects and topics, yet employers expect you to have practical skills, and business degrees meet their requirements in this regard. The work experience gained through internships and the language skills acquired throughout the programme give students access to desirable jobs when they graduate."

Hélène admitted that she was surprised at the positions secured by graduates at Amazon, P&G and other renowned enterprises, and showed her appreciation for the courage of the Bachelor in Management (BSc)'s first graduates.

"To join a first cohort, you have to be an adventurer, and get on board something new without any graduates before. Students had to trust the school, and we had to live up to their expectations. And we made it!"

The outstanding success the programme is experiencing is partly due to what Hélène calls the course's ‘Anglo-Saxon approach', referring to its emphasis on practicality that encourages students to gain practical work experience through at least two obligatory internships.

Another student, Estevan Villar, benefited a lot from this education approach. He said: "It was fun to get used to the British academic style, which gave us much more autonomy to find reading material and prepare essays for the final exams."

Moving to Madrid and Berlin after leaving London, Estevan worked in Bloomberg LP as a data analyst intern, where he discovered the pleasure of non-hierarchical management and improved his programming skills.

He later worked part-time at Accenture, while taking the time to pursue an online micro- master's degree in data analysis at MIT. He later started a six-month internship at the United Nations in Mexico.

But Estevan's accomplishments did not end there: he's currently studying for a master's degree in philosophy and development studies at Cambridge University, and recognises the role of ESCP Europe in helping him get there.

"The management background allowed me to analyse various challenges. The language and interpretation skills helped me to demonstrate my flexibility and willingness to learn with other people. And the internship at the UN I obtained while studying at ESCP Europe proved that its brand is well-known enough to help me get that opportunity. Choosing ESCP Europe was a very wise step in my career!".