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ESSEC Business School’s curriculum develops confidence
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Opportunities to hone both hard and soft skills abound
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Students well prepared to handle the international world
Just past a year into her journey at ESSEC Business School, Global Bachelor of Business Administration (GBBA) student Sagarika Majumdar is interning at global marketing agency, TEAM LEWIS.
Her summer job is one of the three compulsory internships that GBBA students must complete before graduation, and her first foray into the working world. Despite this, she carries herself with enormous poise—excited as she applies her classroom lessons in the real world, and confident as she articulates her thoughts during team meetings and presentations with clients.
Sagarika is not unique in this measure. Fourth year GBBA student, Avantika Dube, had a similar experience during her first internship at a specialized laboratory, CORE Diagnostics. Working directly under the CEO, Avantika was responsible for designing social media posts, evaluating the company’s marketing effectiveness, and developing social media analyses and employee productivity plans, all of which she tackled with ease.
The reason they could do this is thanks to the training at ESSEC Business School.
Gaining the Confidence to Stand Tall
“I’ve felt my comfort and confidence in public speaking skyrocket since joining ESSEC,” Sagarika, who graduated from The Heritage School in Kolkata, says. This is in part because the rigorous curriculum lessons on relevant modules like marketing and entrepreneurship have given her the knowledge and credibility to hold her ground, in part because the regular presentations have honed her communication skills.
Avantika, who previously studied at Hiranandani Foundation School in Mumbai, echoes these sentiments, candidly recalling how she grew up with stage fright, and in 8th grade, even backed out from a performance after seeing the crowd. After numerous group projects and presentations at ESSEC, now no trace of her shyness remains. Rather, what one will find is a confident young woman, seasoned at public speaking and with the drive to back up her ideas.
“What really helped was the multicultural environment,” she declares. “ESSEC focuses on soft skills like cultural adaptability and teamwork, so although I was shy at first, I gradually became more sociable and open to interacting with my classmates.”
Learning Continues Outside of the Classroom
For example, as a Student Ambassador, Avantika has run a webinar for potential students interested in the GBBA program and helped develop a monthly newsletter for freshmen to help them adapt to life at ESSEC. Both these instances required her to network and learn from students both in Singapore, and at the ESSEC Cergy campus. It allowed her to develop cultural sensitivity and communication, alongside picking up skills in organization and management.
Sagarika, who is also a Student Ambassador, took on an additional role as Director of Events for E-HUB, the ESSEC Entrepreneurship Club.
“Through this experience, I’ve learned how to come up with, plan and execute event concepts—importantly to do so alongside a team. It’s just some of the many ways I’ve grown both personally and professionally,” she says.
Accessing the International World
Reflecting on her decision to choose ESSEC, Sagarika muses that she had been most excited about the opportunity to go on exchange at one of ESSEC’s over 175 partner universities, and intercampus mobility between France, Singapore and Morocco.
What she was pleasantly surprised to find was that the international exposure would start from day one in Singapore, as ESSEC requires students to take French classes, and encourages them to pick up a third, or even fourth language to prepare them for life overseas.
“This really emphasizes the international experience, and being fluent in different languages is a huge plus in the working world as companies are becoming more global and multicultural,” she enthuses.
She notes that students moving abroad for the first time may be conflicted between wanting global exposure, and worrying about needing to adapt to a new culture.
To this, she says: “I’d encourage students to choose ESSEC! For those from India looking for something closer to home, ESSEC’s Singapore campus truly encapsulates the meaning of East meets West, and there is so much diversity when it comes to food, festivals, language and the people!”