Full-time MBA: International study and sector treks

At the end of the spring term, our Full-time students reflect on the international study week to Vancouver, an industry insight day to Silverstone and employer trek to Dublin.

Ralph Abou-Mrad

"An amazing opportunity to study for a week in Vancouver was part of our MBA study programme which we were all looking forward to. Warwick Business School has a long standing partnership with The University of British Columbia (UBC) – Sauder School of Business where we spent a week on their campus. The educational part of the programme included lectures in corporate ethics, entrepreneurship and innovation, economics and one of my personal favourite a lecture on the indigenous nation in Canada. Those lectures were delivered by Sauder multicultural academic team which gave us a further global perspective on those subjects. 

Alongside the academic part of the programme was the opportunity organised by our corporate and careers team at WBS is to meet local companies. An important element of the MBA is the strength of our corporate and careers team to coach you and introduce you to potential global employers. To name a few, we were fortunate enough on this trip to meet with Port of Vancouver which focus on trade and passenger cruise liners as well as Vancouver Whitecaps Football Club which gave us an interesting insight to the world of football in Canada. Some other companies we visited were: Ballard Power, Traction on Demand and FP Innovations & Sustainability.  

We also managed to cover a lot of site seeing where some of us decided to head to Whistler which is about 2 hours away from Vancouver city and hit the slopes. I decided to organise a group of us to hire a car and cross the border to the US for a day and visit Seattle which is about 2.5 hours away. Vancouver has a small population of 1.6 million people. It gives the city a homey feel and beautiful scenery. I highly recommend a long walk in Stanley Park - it is a big park so make sure you have comfy shoes on.

A trip to Canada wouldn’t be the same without an ice hockey game, the local MBA students invited us to attend the Thunderbird game playing on campus. UBC campus is also home to Museum of Anthropology where it holds historical culturally sensitive materials and artefacts as well as 535,000 archaeological objects from around the world." 

Related video: Full-time MBAs in Vancouver

Sarah Farnham

"As part of the Full-time MBA we are given the opportunity to visit companies from a wide variety of industries. This is to give students first-hand experience of industries they perhaps had not seen before, and to truly understand what is out there when deciding on the next step of our careers.

WBS has a strong connection with the automotive industry, much of which is based in the West Midlands. We often hear from many automotive manufacturers and Formula 1 companies, however, the opportunity to visit Silverstone, the home of British Motor Racing, meant we could see the industry from a completely different perspective.

Silverstone is a company that is rich in history, has many different stakeholders, and its position in the local community is paramount to its success. This affects how it does business, who it operates with and how it innovates. One thing that also added to the excitement of the trip, was the fact that Formula 1 is on the cusp of change and it was clear to see the excitement this has brought to its employees as they enthusiastically spoke about Silverstone’s future.

The main benefit of the trip was to be able to talk to people who are truly passionate about Formula 1 and their involvement in it. This passion was obvious from everyone we spoke to, and it was hard to not get swept up in all the excitement and history Silverstone offers. I am not going to lie, it wasn’t all business, and the highlights were definitely being able to stand on the winners podium, see the track control room and see the amazing catalogue of cars Silverstone has to offer – any petrol heads dream." 

James Moody

"As part of the Full-time MBA programme we are fortunate enough to take part in Industry Sector ‘Treks’ which are arranged by the Corporate Relations Team. The purpose of these treks is to give us a greater insight into specific industry sectors through visiting some of the key companies who operate within them.

In March of this year, approximately 40 people from the Full-time cohort ventured on a three-day trip to Dublin for a Technology Sector Trek.  Dublin, nowadays, is somewhat of a ‘tech-hub’ and is home to some of the world’s largest technology companies’ European head offices.  As part of the trip we visited the offices of Google, Microsoft and Accenture where we were given tours, presentations and memorabilia.  The visits provided a fantastic insight to the unique working environment and cultures of each of these companies and was a great opportunity to network with Warwick alumni and to find out more about career opportunities post-MBA. The speakers at each of the visits were very open and talked about the industry as a whole as well as what their company is doing to shape the tech sector in the future.Since we were in Ireland during the week of St. Patrick’s Day it would have been rude not to have visited the world-famous Guinness Storehouse in the heart of Dublin – so that’s exactly what we did! As part of the trip, a self-guided tour of the infamous brewery was arranged for us which takes you through the history and the brewing process of the notorious stout. The evening culminated with food, drinks and networking at one of the bars at the top of the Storehouse which provided splendid views over the city. Overall, a fantastic trip and one which I would recommend to anyone, particularly those interested in the technology sector.