Back in Action

First-year MBA bloggers at Alcatel-Lucent headquarters in Paris. Juan Molina, Sarah Gaddis and Louis David.

After more than two weeks in Europe, it’s back to work for many of us first-year MBA students.  Two weeks ago, we left for a Global Leadership class in Paris.  The following week was our Spring Break – so many of us stayed in Europe to travel.  Along with some friends from school, I left Paris for Nice, Monaco and Barcelona.  It was an amazing trip.

The school portion was fast-paced and pretty interesting.  We learned about working overseas, doing business in a foreign country and how global corporations evaluate investment opportunities around the world.  Add all of that to having nearly 90 classmates in a foreign city and you can understand how things got a little crazy.

My favorite parts:

School – Definitely our trip to visit with Alcatel-Lucent executives at the company’s headquarters in Paris.  Alcatel is a French telecommunications company that merged with Lucent, a spin-off from the old AT&T.  We got to meet a number of company executives from the US who are now working in France.  They went over the benefits and challenges of working overseas.  It’s a great experience, but there are certainly drawbacks. Above is a picture of the three fist-year bloggers (Juan Molina, Sarah Gaddis and myself) at Alcatel-Lucent.

Traveling after school – Barcelona.  What an awesome city.  I’ve been lucky enough to travel Europe a few times before this trip – but this was my first visit to Barcelona.  I think it’s now my favorite European city.  The architecture is beautiful, beaches are gorgeous, it wasn’t too touristy and the locals are beyond laid-back.

Louis David