Voices from Abroad: Emanuele Seghetti

London, ON (Canada), CEMS MIM, Richard Ivey School of Business
Geneva (Switzerland), International internship, Procter & Gamble

Students hiking near London

What does it mean to be enrolled in an MSc in International Management? During my year in Milan I had the chance to be exposed to both an international class and an international faculty. However, Università Bocconi gave me the possibility to go a step further in the understanding of the real meaning of these two words – International Management – thanks to the CEMS-MIM program.

I had never left Italy for more than few weeks before the beginning of the CEMS year while last September I was flying to Canada and I was going to spend an entire term abroad. I looked forward to it! And so did the CEMS coordinators at Richard Ivey School of Business: that was Ivey's first year as a CEMS Academic member. Before my departure, my expectations were already very high: I was not only part of a top ranked program like the CEMS-MIM, but I was going to study in a prestigious university whose mission is to develop business leaders who think globally, act strategically and contribute to the societies within which they operate: does this statement not make you shiver? I could say tons of words on why I am very thankful to Ivey's faculty for what they taught me and the way they did it by using the successful case method, but I prefer to use this page to go beyond and talk about life.

When I arrived in London, I didn't know that I was going to celebrate the Canadian Thanksgiving at one of my professors' house, together with his family and some of my classmates; I didn't know that I would have sung in the choir of London's cathedral; I didn't know that I would have had some small chat with employees from some of the biggest Canadian and Chinese banks; I didn't know that it would have been warmer than Italy for two months and then I would have seen one of the strongest snowstorms London's inhabitants have ever seen. However, when I left Canada I knew that I would have kept on talking about business ideas with a friend from Asia and that I would have commented on any football match in which my European friends' and my national teams would have competed; I knew that I would have never forgotten the breathtaking landscape of Canadian forests; and I also knew that the exchange had been a 24/7 educational process that I wish many other people could join.

When working in Geneva, Emanuele visited CERN

If you think that such a wonderful experience in a foreign university is the only thing that Bocconi can offer you...well, you are wrong. Indeed, I just had time to spend Christmas with my family and then it was time for me to leave again: another exciting adventure was waiting for me in Geneva. You might know that Procter & Gamble has its regional headquarters there. How does working in a Fortune 500 company sound? To be an intern or a new hire at P&G does not make a lot of difference: the selection process is the same and so the expectations from management are the same too. By working in a regional business unit you not only have the chance to speak three languages during the day by making decisions together with your team that spread from Europe to Asia and US, but you also have to do it by considering the commonalities and the differences in the markets where your products are sold without forgetting to exploit best practices developed by colleagues across countries and years.

I have to tell you the truth: undergraduate and postgraduate students like you and me cannot fully understand what a multinational company is and what challenges it faces every day until we work for one of them. How can we miss the chance to be exposed to such a powerful learning experience, especially if you consider that it will allow you to explore another nice city and its treasures, like it was for me with Geneva and the CERN?

I remember when, during the interview for the admission to the CEMS-MIM program, I was asked: "Emanuele, in your motivational letter you wrote that your aim is to make Italy a better place to live and work: can you talk about this objective?" "Of course." I replied, and I shared with her some of my dreams and projects. In fact, the reasons for someone to leave his or her country can be different and all valuable; according to these reasons each of us will potentially arrange different durations for staying abroad. But at the end of the day, it is not important how long you stay away from your home. What really matters is that you leave, whatever the destination and the doubts. When you have come back home, a wiser person will stand in front of you in the mirror, smiling at you.