Practicing for the Careers We Want

Leadership is a word you often hear in business, but it can mean different things to different people and different organizations. We all are leaders in one way or another, whether leaders of our families, our jobs, our peers, or ourselves and our trajectories. One of the many reasons to attend an MBA program is because you want to become a leader in your career or certainly to learn more about being a leader. The benefit of an MBA at POLIMI GSoM is getting to put those learnings into practice, rather than just reading and discussing the subject. Defining leadership is the easy part, while being a leader takes practice.

POLIMI GSoM Career Center

Along the entire journey at POLIMI GSoM, the Career Center has been there as a guide for our future careers. One of the first tasks we completed was to perform a self-assessment to determine areas of strength, and those that could use improvement. This helps us focus on where to grow so we can achieve our desired leadership roles post-MBA. From these assessments we can also leverage our strengths on CVs and when speaking with companies we are interested in working for.

Group Projects/Competitions

We had many occasions to work in groups with our peers on assignments, but also voluntary competitions internally and externally to POLIMI GSoM. During the assignments we were able to collaborate and learn from each other’s strengths. This allowed all of us to be leaders in our own subject matters and be led by our classmates with different competencies. I was able to support my colleagues with organizational and marketing subjects, while I was happy to learn more about supply chain and finance from the experts in our cohort.

Company Presentations

Throughout the courses we have had the opportunity to meet with a multitude of companies from many different industries. Every sector from startups to global corporations have come to speak with us, both in person and virtually. The virtual aspect has not only given us the opportunity to meet with leaders at long distances, but it has highlighted how to be a successful leader in a hybrid/digital environment. As the world moves toward a more hybrid mode of working, this is incredibly pertinent as we may be working on or leading virtual teams soon.

Business Cases and Practice

While we got to hear from many businesses, we were also offered the opportunity to present to businesses based on current opportunities they foresaw. For example, the phygital and metaverse experience came up very often, as this is an emerging topic. We were able to speak with companies and use the knowledge we gained to offer solutions for how companies can capitalize on this theme. Companies let us act as leaders, hypothesize what we would do in their situations, and offered invaluable feedback on our approaches.

My classmates and I were able to practice our leadership skills from the beginning and improve as we continued in our studies. Even now, we are interning or creating business plans, taking everything we have accumulated and applying it to real businesses. As Anton Chekhov said, “Knowledge is of no value unless you put it into practice.”