The decision was made and before I came to Mannheim, everything important was taken care of requiring just a little cooperation from my end. If MBS Program Management Team is about something, it is quality and responsiveness. I have seldom experienced dealing with such an effective, diligent and friendly team.

• Financial aid: MBS gave me the option to get a loan from a financial institution in cooperation with the school. Of course there was some paperwork to do, but 99% is guaranteed and I did not have to worry in this sense. The conditions were fair.
• Residence Permit: As a European I didn't require a residence permit but this was something which MBS helped my colleagues with. It is always a hassle to go through bureaucracy, just like anywhere else.
• Apartment: I was provided in advance the guidelines for student apartments with pictures, prices and services. In one week I had the contract of my apartment, 390€ per month everything included: water, heat, electricity, high speed internet and cable TV access. Of course I am not going to say I was in a 5 star hotel but to me it was Mannhamas! It was really warm in the winter when snowing outside and fresh in the summer, perfectly isolated. Full of light, with a large window and a door window to a shared balcony facing the Rhine river 100m in front of me. Internet was totally reliable through the entire year. Videoconferencing via skype, Champions League via streaming... not an issue, perfect quality. Besides that, a little kitchen with simply everything, private complete bathroom, cable TV and 15 minutes walking to MBS.
• Food: Food in Germany, especially in Mannheim, is very cheap if you come from any other Western European country or North America. During the week I typically had lunch at the University dining hall (Mensa) for 2,50€ (soup, salad and main dish) but sometimes I got fancy :o) and ate a menu at a restaurant (German, Indian, Japanese, Thai, Italian.. you name it) for only a couple Euros more! Depending where I was, it took me 5 to 10 minutes walking to all these places. Supermarkets can be found everywhere as well. They are also considerably cheap and, for basic stuff, good quality!

I arrived at Mannheim a couple of days before the program started. Ideally I would have had at least a week to get familiarized but I had to work. I had spoken with several students (the MBS Program Management provided me with contact details of current MBA students and everyone was immediately available for me with answers about the program, living in Mannheim, etc.) and I knew I would be fine. I decided during those days to go for a run by the Rhine river, through a green park that seemed to me more like a forest; just beautiful to go running, picnic, biking and rollerblade skating. Before long I was sitting in the MBS Lecture Hall attending classes.

First week was introductory: access to iConn (interface platform among students, program management and professors), access to wireless internet across the entire University of Mannheim, issuing the student card to access MBS buildings and libraries, professional pictures for the profile book, kick-off dinner with the entire  class together, business case studies workshop,  MCTs composition (MCTs stands for Multi Competence Teams, a team to which you are assigned for the entire year for the Company and Social Project), fun ice-breakers and cross-cultural training with interesting personalities... just imagine... China, India, Russia, USA, Germany, Canada, Brazil, Argentina, Belgium, Great Britain, Turkey, Pakistan, Spain... enough for the week!

The intensity of the program varied each day and week. There were somehow unstrained days where you catch up (you must) with lectures and case studies during the week as well as long nights of little sleep studying, preparing a case study or a presentation. Average is 9.00AM to 6.00PM in class (lectures) plus several hours group work almost every day. Well, this was not bad at all... in the end, this was my investment and every minute I spent with a sharp mind and from another culture was like cashing in. Jokes, laughing, coffee breaks, pizza for dinner with your team mates, having fun... was part of the work as well!
With Decision Analysis, second week, classes officially started.

The first semester seemed, on paper, less intense than the rest. We needed however, first, to get adjusted to the system, the people and the dynamics and, second, to dedicate enough time to really dig into fundamental subjects such as: Financial Accounting, Marketing, Managerial Accounting, Corporate Finance, Macroeconomics. Particularly, I enjoyed these subjects very much with insightful and down-to-earth lectures that gave me a solid ground for the upcoming ones.
Company presentations and business forums already started in the first semester. Leading international ompanies visited us during the whole year, it was a great chance to start networking.

A big party in November after first exams, Glühwein to warm up in December, delicious chocolate crêpes to get some sugar after the demanding semester, dinner together with all colleagues to say good bye to 2010 and end of semester. Snow is falling, deserved Christmas break.

The good thing about the second semester was that the intensity did not vary anymore, it was intense the whole time! Lectures from 9.00AM to 6.00PM every single day plus daily group work (yeap!, case studies one after another including presentations every week until the end of June) because the subjects are running weekly, at full capacity. However, in this semester I had Strategy, Information Systems, Org. Behavior & Change Management, Ethics & CSR, Innovation Management, Company Valuation, Consumer Behavior... subjects that personally were easier for me to grasp. Lucky us, although each week was an intense one, we had a couple of weeks off if you had not taken certain elective subjects. Everything is thought through, because it gives you the opportunity to rest a bit, finish late assignments and prepare for next weeks.

The best of all starting lectures the second semester was the amount of guest speakers (business professionals - executives) that professors invited during lectures, giving excellent speeches and presentations of the topic during that week. I will never forget one evening during Consumer Behavior in March, still cold outside, listening to an executive from Saatchi & Saatchi speaking about their Lovemarks Model, of how products, services or organizations that build relationships with their consumers that cannot be explained rationally create loyalty beyond reason. The whole class was completely in silence and absorbed. We had many lectures like this one: a turn-around case in the toy industry in the midst of the financial crisis (Strategy); the dilemma of expatriates when sent abroad for several years (Change Management); how the executive board of a multinational made decisions during the crisis literally throwing business plans to the garbage to focus on their liquidity (cash position, or blood as it is said); the ethical dilemmas that a Top Manager faced when having tremendous power (Ethics & CSR)… did I enjoy the MBA!

Having decided on our Social Project, it was already  time to start working seriously in this direction. We were to help an NGO providing them with plans to be more efficient in reaching out people and help them execute on it.

Intensity was still at full capacity!, of course. The challenge now was managing everything together. On the one hand, we had subjects such as HR Management, Corporate Mergers & Restructuring, Global Information Management, International Marketing, Production Operations, Strategy Global Corporations, Taxation… with exams, presentations, case studies. Again, incredibly interesting topics and open discussions in class, in addition with guest speakers almost every week during lectures.

On the other hand, it was the time for all MCTs to bid for the Company Project and execute on the Social Project. Attending presentations and preparing well for the Company Project was important because, in the end, we would be working with them two months intensively.

By this time, if not before, many of us were preparing our CVs and work interviews, also attending MBA fairs, job fairs, attending company presentations (many and all year long), optional company visits to Porsche, BASF, Amazon, etc.

In this semester I started to see the finish line. Some job interviews indicated me that time was moving fast and soon this great year would be over. So before that, I had to celebrate it at the Biergarten welcoming the good weather drinking some beers with my class mates!

I thought I was going to slow down and be able to send applications consistently. Nein! nein! nein! I don't know how they do it at MBS but we were really challenged. After attending school for 10 to 12 hours a day and then switching to the Company Project and the Master Thesis, my MCT and I thought we would have all the time in the world. Yes indeed, we had all the time in the world working on the project and the thesis. It was tough and demanding.

The Company Project is actually a Consulting Project. For two months we worked hand in hand with a leading company (market leaders such as: Deutsche Bank, A.T. Kerney, TRUMPF, SAP, BASF, Hereaus, BOSCH, BMW, etc) developing a Lead Indicator Management System to anticipate market movements and therefore enable them to steer the company more effectively. The CEO came to the intermediate presentation (8000 employees worldwide) and also Board of Management was present at the final presentation. Management in UK took a flight to Germany for the presentation that day, you bet the project was taken seriously

Everything is within reach at Mannheim Business School. We attended classes in two different MBS buildings interchangeably.  One is the MBS Lecture Hall at the Mannheim Palace (Schloss Mannheim) and the other is at Dalbergplatz (Education Center Dalbergplatz), right at the heart of Mannheim downtown. In these two locations there are meeting rooms as well, copy machines, drinks (water, chocolate, coffee, tea), wireless internet access, restrooms, fridge and microwave, etc. With your ID card you have access to University libraries and multiple quiet places to study, but certainly you can use MBS facilities for the same purpose.

Whether you want to play soccer, go swimming, go to the gym (free for students), tennis, basketball, play cricket or go skiing…! There is time for everything when you get yourself organized. We did most of the sport and leisure activities in group. We managed to play indoor soccer almost every week and participated in a fun soccer tournament in Leipzig against other business schools and companies across Europe. Some colleagues trained several months, starting in spring time, for a rowing contest in Cologne taking place one day in July; they loaded a whole bus of MBA Mannheimers to cheer them up that day. Thirty of us, including program management, participated in the Mannheim marathon, which takes place at night every year and can be run in relay teams! (10km each). Going out for a beer with your best buddies did not require any planning nor training ahead :O)

... if you want to stay and work in Germany

Q: How difficult is to find a job in Germany without speaking German?

I distinguish between finding and working. Finding a job in Germany with absolutely no German skills is, of course, difficult. I would say as difficult as it is in any other country where you do not speak the language. The good news is  that finding a job in Germany with intermediate German skills is relatively easy if you meet the background and experience requirements (and of course you are genuinely motivated to continue improving). Once a German company offers you a job, the likelihood that you will stay in that company -if you want- is 99%. This is an important point and the reasons why it can be difficult to find a job in the first place with limited German skills, because when they take you on board, beside binding and restricting laws, their recruitment systems are definitely very well designed to do it right at once.

Working in Germany, however, is easier compared  to other countries, because German companies are very open, very international and they all pretty much speak English.

So German is a must. I took advantage of the German courses offered for free by MBS and attended two different levels for 9 months. This required some energy but…!, an MBA and German is to your pocket (double value added for you). Take it very seriously.                               

I just spoke about the challenge of the language, but let's talk about the benefits of the culture. This is something you take with you doing your MBA at MBS, it is a triple value added. Let me explain…

Have you ever wondered what makes Germany, among a few others, such a successful country? Is it the age of the country? No it is not; the oldest countries are today poorer. Canada, Australia, New Zealand were 150 years ago inexpressive and today they are developed and rich countries. Natural resources? Japan is small, 80% of its territory is volcanic, but it is the third largest economy worldwide. Switzerland does not produce Cacao but has the best chocolate in the world; they raise cows and cultivate the soil for only four months but has the best milk products. Is it the race or color? Absolutely not, on the contrary that creates synergies that hopefully you will experience during the MBA! So, what makes a country like Germany successful?

I call it the level of conscience; a collective conscience structured in values such as education (are Germans well prepared? Yes, and even better, their education is free), responsibility (nuclear plants down, what is this called?), profound mutual respect (to one another and their rights, their systems -laws, rules, nature, animals, etc.), hard AND effective work (funny, we "work" longer hours in Spain!, see it to believe it, just google "working hours by country OECD"), trust (why checking and controlling, just follow the golden rule) and punctuality (no comments).

If you think about it, the Mannheim MBA gives you this triple value added opportunity. The MBA itself, a new language and the exposure to a culture that, like it more or less, is based on timeless principles and sustainably successful. Results is the name of the game, just observe. The German brand is well deserved.

If you happen to be familiar with the language or culture already, get this: 23 different nationalities out of 52 bright students started the Mannheim MBA Program 2011-2012! There is abundance of diversity, culture, backgrounds and experience for everyone.

• Why do you do an MBA?
  "To learn" you may say. Good! To learn, not to be taught. In one year your expectations can be pretty high, the content in one subject may not be sufficient for you but too much for your mates, or vice versa. Although the lecture standards are pretty high, the diversity at MBS in terms of nationalities, backgrounds and experience is huge and needs to be balanced. My advice: you are in the driver sit and should assume the responsibility for your learning. The professor will teach you but the learning takes place with you... go the extra mile, deepen your knowledge, ask tons of questions, research for pure pleasure even if it is not part of the exam but interest you.
• Start sending CVs sooner than later (March-April). We have been there and it takes time; an MBA is not the Master of the Universe.
• Be disciplined learning German, this will be the differentiation  factor. Discipline weighs ounces, regret weighs tons. Be aware that Germans are very respectful and will switch to English for you in no time. This does not help you.