INSEAD, LBS, Bocconi & 8 More Top Business Schools On The Impact Of COVID-19
Find out how studying top European business masters programs might be different amid the coronavirus pandemic | INSEAD FB
How has COVID-19 changed the b-school experience for business masters students? We speak to admissions directors from Europe’s top business schools to find out
As Europe adapts to the impact of COVID-19, some business master’s courses have moved online, while others have adopted hybrid models combining online and socially-distanced face-to-face learning.
When researching the best business master’s for you, you’ll want to know what the pandemic means for the programs you’ve got your eye on. How are students currently studying and how has coronavirus impacted the business school experience?
To find out, BusinessBecause caught up with admissions directors from 11 top European schools:
INSEAD
Virginie Fougea, Global Director of Admissions and Financial Aid and Scholarship.
While we have the tools and the experience to make a seamless shift to online instruction, we understand learning as a social process, and our students have told us their preference is being on-campus.
So, we’ve worked with our Student Council to resume in-person education wherever and whenever possible.
Students are now on campus in Singapore, but in France we’re back online due to their second lockdown.
We’ll staying online until we can ensure the safety of our students and are looking into hybrid model for the future.
London Business School
Stephanie Thrane, Recruitment & Admissions Director
A big change is to recruitment and admissions, with our normal face to face interviews going online, which has been an advantage for international students. Going remote has also made us utilise our alumni network much better and broaden our global reach, and we’ve been able to host speakers online who would never have been able to fly into London normally.
Course-wise we’ve gone hybrid, for the flexibility. It’s been a huge shift, but as a small school, and with lots of effort and investment in advanced technology, it’s been really successful so far.
Bocconi University
Veronica Sullo, International Recruitment Coordinator
72% of our international students decided to come to Milan for their master’s programs this fall, and we believe the on-campus experience is the most enriching way to learn.
We successfully ran blended model in place, with on-campus students working in small groups and rotating between online and in-class teaching, and students outside of Milan joining online.
From late October we felt it was safest to go online fully, but with our careful planning and access to regular testing we’re reassured we can return to our blended model soon. Until then we’re making the remote experience as interactive as possible, with careers events, mock interviews and networking opportunities all going online.
Imperial College Business School
Amy Duckworth, Director of Admissions
At Imperial we’ve introduced a ‘multi-mode’ teaching model, so students have the flexibility to move between on-campus and remote learning.
Study spaces have been redesigned so students can participate in class debates and discussion, whether joining remotely or in person.
In 2005 Imperial launched an Edtech lab to explore how to increase the use of techonology in the classroom, and this has been instrumental to ensuring our proactive, safe, and flexible approach.
ESCP Business School
Leon Laulusa, Executive Vice-President, Dean for Academic Affairs and International Relations
ESCP is running a hybrid model for all teaching and support services.
We’re now offering asynchronous lectures, live broadcasting, and tutoring sessions for application alongside some in person learning where possible.
Our students have adapted remarkably to moving online, participating in class discussions, and group projects, even taking online exams. A big plus is being able to re-watch all their courses when revising.
BI Norwegian Business School
Shani Pearson, International Recruitment
The biggest change to student experience at BI is that classes must be followed online. We’re hoping to start teaching on campus in the spring semester 2021, but we’re preparing for a hybrid or fully online alternative just in case.
Students still have access to the campus, including the library, but realistically there are fewer in person social and professional development activities as a result of COVID-19.
WHU
Hannah Page, Marketing & Admissions Manager
WHU initially adopted a hybrid approach, but later went fully online due to the German lockdown.
Luckily we formed a center of digitization a few years ago, so it wasn’t all new, and our professors have adapted quickly to this new style of teaching with online lectures. We also moved careers fairs and information sessions online, to recreate the feeling of our cancelled in-person events.
Long-term, we don’t want stay a fully-online program, as the highlight of our MSC is the on-campus experience, with all the connections and networking that it brings.
Rotterdam School of Management
Amy Janssen-Brennan, assistant director Recruitment & Admissions
RSM has decided that all of our MSc programmes for the 2020-2021 academic year will be offered 100% online, to ensure the safety of both our staff and students, especially international students.
We’ve managed to switch quickly from in-person to online and got a lot of positive feedback from our students so far.
IESE Business School
Tomofumi Nishida, Associate Director, MBA/MiM Admissions and MBA Career Development Center
IESE one of the few schools in the world still implementing in-person classes for vast majority of Master’s students, on our Madrid campus.
We’re offering a hybrid model for flexibility, but we know with face to face is best due to our focus on interactive discussion.
To ensure safety, we have a number of measures inplace, including testing and social distancing.
Other parts of the master’s experience, such as Spanish classes, and networking events, have been much better suited to going online than the teaching, so we’ve focussed on that too.
ESMT Berlin
Boban Sulic, Senior Admissions Manager
Since the restrictions in the fall, most of our events have been entirely online, but this has not negatively affected us.
We not only welcomed the largest master’s class at ESMT amidst pandemic, but we also just launched our new part-time blended MBA to great success.
In 2021, we hope to offer as much in-classroom teaching as possible, but will adjust according to the developing situation.
ESSEC Business School
Anne-Flore Maman Larraufie, Academic Director Advanced Masters in Strategy & Management of International Business
At ESSEC, we see online teaching as an opportunity to reinvent the learning experience. Teaching has become more interactive, with fewer case studies and more online projects based on discussion and collaboration. Another plus is there is no limit to our class numbers now, so students have the chance to attend more courses.
The main downside not being able to travel to other campuses or go on business trips, we’ve had to think hard about how to recreate the international experience from home.
