Growing up in a rural town in Georgia, USA, Ethan Brown always knew that for his business career to take off he would have to expand his horizons.
During his undergraduate degree in Business Administration he took the leap, studying abroad in Beijing and Shanghai and taking a dual degree at a business school in Poitiers, France.
“I stayed there for one year with a lot of other international students,” he recalls. “It was a really amazing exciting experience I decided that’s what I wanted to keep doing—I didn’t want to just stay at my small regional university in the US.”
Following his return from France, Ethan’s mentor, a leader of a large Fortune 500 company, gave him one piece of advice that changed everything for him—that he had to move to succeed in business.
“I realized that if I wanted to be like my mentor, I needed to get international exposure and a MBA or Master’s degree," Ethan says.
Ethan turned to EDHEC Business School—in fact, it was one the first schools he contacted. EDHEC’s Master in Management is ranked in the top 20 worldwide by the Financial Times and EDHEC is among just 1% of business schools globally to have triple accreditation from EQUIS, AMBA, and AACSB.
Ethan on the EDHEC lawn on his first day
MiM + MSc | Choosing a dual master’s degree
As well as its flagship Master in Management program, EDHEC offers a range of specialized masters—from Masters of Sciences in Financial Markets Corporate Finance & Banking, to MScs in Strategy, Marketing, and more.
For Ethan, choosing a double master’s degree was a no-brainer. It offered the chance to pursue the top-ranked MiM, combined with a second specialist MSc in Strategy Consulting and Digital Transformation.
During his studies, Ethan had the chance to follow two separate internships, improving his French skills and gaining hands-on experience. One of those companies, “a small firm where everything was done in French,” Ethan says, gave him the chance to explore the consulting culture in the country.
“My goal was still to be in the top management of a company one day, and the MSc in Strategy Consulting and Digital Transformation had an intensive track to group people together that wanted to go into strategy consulting, with specialized coaching,” Ethan explains.
Ethan’s specialization in Strategy Consulting allowed him to take part in practice strategy job interviews and intensive case-cracking, while the broader MiM gave him the management foundations that are crucial for any role.
Read: 6 Amazing Jobs For Master In Management Students
But it wasn’t just the core academic curriculum that drew Ethan to EDHEC. After leaving the US, he was looking for somewhere to call home. “EDHEC does a really great job at making American students feel a sense of belonging,” he says.
At EDHEC, Ethan gained access to a network of like-minded students and successful alums. “What the EDHEC experience provided me that I didn’t have in my studies in the US would definitely be the group work—you have to learn to be good at it or you're not going to make it through EDHEC!” he smiles.
