As part of the MBA program at UCD we had the opportunity to travel to Lisbon, Portugal for a 3 day crash course in consulting. The intent behind this trip was twofold. First, it offered us exposure to a culture that most of us were not familiar with, and second we had the opportunity to work closely with our Capstone team. This trip took place right after our finals, so needless to say we were all excited for the opportunity to have some hands-on learning exposure in a country with sun and pastel de natas!
We arrived on Sunday, and our project kicked off on Monday. This was a great way to settle in and bond with classmates before the real work began. It was sunny and hot, and we went on a tour of the city, had a great Portuguese meal, and just explored. Lisbon is a beautiful place, and I feel fortunate that we had the opportunity to see it from both a tourists’ eye, and from a business perspective.
On Monday we met our assigned companies. We worked in our Capstone groups with local start ups who had real business problems that they were looking for support on. While it was a school project for us, for them it was something that they were working on for years, and they expected true value from our time. It offered us an opportunity to work closely with a Portuguese company and put our MBA learnings to use. They were generous with their time and attention, and even took us out to some lovely lunches throughout the week. We spent 3 full days at the company speaking to employees while simultaneously researching and developing our proposed solution.
In the end we presented our solution to their leadership team, and they were grateful for our insights. It seemed to go very well for both sides. For them it was an opportunity to have a fresh set of eyes on a long-term problem, and for us we were able to get real world consulting experience on an issue that we could likely face in our future careers. It was a genuinely good feeling to get recognition from a company who was so enthusiastic about the work they were doing.
Once our ideas had been pitched we were able to fully relax. The program was set up so that we could book end our consulting project with some exploring and cohort bonding, and we definitely took advantage of that. We had a group dinner, a night on the town, and explored the top sites. All in all it was both a challenging and fun experience!
Alex Brown, FT MBA 2018-2019