No institution is more aware of this than City University’s Cass Business School, which offers an impressive nine international electives, including their acclaimed new excursion to Cuba, as well as consultancy trips to exotic locations such as Vietnam and Iceland.
Cass students have the chance to visit Silicon Valley to learn about entrepreneurship or digital strategy, can venture on international study tours in China and the UAE, and explore themes from sustainability to strategic marketing in Las Vegas, Cuba, South Africa, and Israel and Palestine. There’s also the London Symposium, which explores the city from an international business perspective.
What’s more, the application process is as easy as choosing a location that interests you, and every effort is made to get students onto the elective they select. There’s even the option to select more than one when designing the second half of your MBA.
We talked to four Cass MBAs about their respective international electives, what sort of specialized knowledge and contacts they gained, and how they benefited from such unique cultural experiences.
Kathleen Edmondson (Full-time MBA) - Former PR Account Manager, Citizen Relations
My experiences on the Innovation & Technology study tour in Israel and Palestine taught me not to pass judgment before reading the full story, and that both sides of the story should be heard.
Israel’s characterization as the "start-up" nation is, from my perspective, very fitting. It is very apparent that Israelis create their companies with the focus on solving a strategic issue that their country or their countries residents' face, which I feel is quite unique.
My impression of Palestinians is that they truly embody innovation, pursuing all avenues and possible solutions to overcome problems. I think because comparatively, they have so little, Palestinians think outside of the box when it comes to facing adversity. It was an illuminating and thoroughly enjoyable experience.
Felix Hieronymus (Full-time MBA) - IT Services Entrepreneur, apreet
During the design thinking elective in Silicon Valley, we visited the Institute of Design at Stanford and learned to apply design thinking in workshops at the SAP innovation center and with the innovation team at Salesforce.
It was a very enriching experience for me, and I gained valuable insights for my MBA dissertation, which I undertook in cooperation with a design thinking consultancy in London.
The most interesting observation I made was that even though the companies in the Valley differ in size and scope, they are all born out of that unique culture of risk-taking forged there in the 1980s.
Lawrence Jewkes (Executive MBA) - Investment Manager, WH Ireland
The Vietnam consultancy trip was a brilliant experience. We were broken into groups and assigned to everything from breweries to banks, airlines to scooter manufacturers. We spent a week working closely with these companies on their strategic issues.
Given the timing of the trip in the context of the degree, I felt it was a brilliant opportunity to put into practice what I’d learned on the Cass MBA.
Speaking to business leaders and entrepreneurs in both Israel and Palestine provided unparalleled access to a complex and fascinating region, and was brilliantly organized to ensure we had exposure to a wide range of companies as well as academic institutions. We even had dinner one night at the British Embassy in Tel-Aviv, where we met with venture capital funds and start-up accelerators.
It also provided me with a far better understanding of innovation and how it is crafted by regional dynamics. It has historically been fostered out of hardship, which is certainly the case in that region. That said, it would also have been amazing to visit Silicon Valley and get insights from leaders in the world’s top start-up hub.
Eric Kardonski (Full-time MBA) - Project Manager, Marine Engineers Corporation
Cass’s London Symposium examines how business is done in the city and situates it in a global context. I had the unique opportunity to hear from and interact with an amazing roster of speakers, including the former Lord Mayor of London, the Chairman of PwC, and the first British astronaut.
I also had the opportunity to go to Iceland to consult for Vivio, a video sharing platform catering for student communities, and I was tasked with developing an entry strategy for international markets.
Even though I hope to start my own company, I had no previous experiences with start-ups, so Iceland provided me with a fantastic learning opportunity.
The Israel and Palestine elective gave me the opportunity to visit two fascinating countries and provided unique cultural insights. It also gave us exclusive access to inspiring businesspeople and the projects they’re undertaking, such as the billionaire Bashar al-Masri, who created the first planned city for Palestinians.
In Israel, innovation is driven by a combination of government incentives and military factors which have lured hundreds of venture capitalists. In Palestine though, it is driven by the need to survive and provide. All in all, it was a fascinating place to visit.
Find out more about the Cass Business School MBA here.
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