Business School Lausanne enrolls students and program participants of varying backgrounds, whether they have extensive business experience or are just beginning their business journey. For Teodora Duta, who enrolled in the MIB program at BSL, finance was the new direction that she wanted to pursue after her undergraduate degree in hospitality.
A key feature of BSL programs is the ability to personalize your education and make your experience your own. Our leading faculty members and administration help students identify their passions, plan a course of study, and help foster professional relationships to boost their career prospects. Continue reading to learn more about Teodora’s journey, her experience at BSL, and how it has helped her get to where she is now in her new career.
Shaping Career Direction with an MIB Degree at BSL
BSL students focus on improving their employability alongside their academics. For Teodora, this started out as finding direction for her future career and eventually led to her current employment role at Explora Journeys. “This program had a huge impact on shaping my career path because I was offered a more personalized experience, and I always had constant support from my professors,” she told us. “So, in this way, my interests were always taken into consideration, and I felt that during the courses at BSL, I had a lot of freedom to express myself, and that there was a lot of support coming from both professors and colleagues at the same time.”
“Another reason I felt so supported was because our classes are constructed with a small number of students, so that was definitely a huge advantage. I knew that I could always count on everybody’s advice, and I knew that anyone would be willing to help me out during my studies. With this approach during the Masters program, it was easier for me to actually identify in which direction I want to take my career, and I was also very much impressed with how much I could learn in the program.”
Not only did Teodora excel in the classroom with these program advantages, but her experience, combined with the skills and knowledge acquired at BSL, helped her earn a spot as an intern and, eventually, an employee of an impressive hospitality company. “As my capstone project, I chose to do my internship with a hospitality company due to the combination I had of experience in both hospitality and finance. I did my internship with luxury ocean travel brand. This company is in the startup phase, which allowed me to really discover my passion in my role there. My internship was with the HR department, and now that I’ve been hired on, I have decided that I want to transition to Business Analytics due to my passion for numbers and finance.”
Shifting from an Undergraduate in Hospitality to Career-Specific MIB Studies at BSL
Coming from a background and undergraduate degree in hospitality, Teodora may be seen as an interesting candidate for the MIB program at BSL. Once she realized that she wanted to advance her skills and knowledge in finance, Teodora enrolled with BSL. “There were many reasons why I started with a hospitality degree. I can start from the fact that I believe that on the basis of innovative ideas, I would have the chance to make a difference in the industry and have some global opportunities. I had this idea in my mind, but I just wasn’t sure how I would do it.”
At BSL, students are encouraged in every program to apply their academics to professional roles that suit their passions. Whether students are creating their own startups, identifying and addressing gaps in an industry, or shifting their focus to a new career path, they can find the support they need on campus. This way, upon graduation, students have a clear vision of their future careers and can make actionable decisions and steps to get there. “Over time, I started to realize that not many people believed that there is a strong link between finance and hospitality. But taking the BSL program was probably one of the best decisions I made because it was really the moment when I understood that I am actually an analytical person, in love with both numbers and people.”
Today, Teodora reflects on an important parallel that she has found between finance and hospitality during her MIB degree. “I would say that dealing even with the smallest data and numbers can impact a business significantly. At the same time, any gesture (right or wrong) towards one customer will impact your business significantly.”
How Teodora is Utilizing Her MIB Skills in Her New Career
We asked Teodora to touch on any skills that she learned at BSL that helped her the most as she worked through her internship role. “So, I’ll break my answer down into 2 parts. First of all, related to hard skills, in particular from the course program, I’d like to mention professor Stefano Battaglia, as his courses had a strong impact on my skill set development. I had major support in learning how an individual can strengthen or destroy a company. I also want to mention that I’m extremely thankful to professor Julien de Grandbois, who introduced me to the entrepreneurial world and had a major impact on my motivation. This proved to be very useful because today, I work for a startup. Lastly, as I mentioned, I’m moving to business analytics in my role at Explora Journeys; professor Madina Kukenova and professor Elena Sernova helped me develop my analytical skills through my financial courses and flourish my passion for numbers, which is huge for my new role.”
“For the second part, aside from all of the knowledge accumulating and hard skill development during these courses, I definitely would say that the content is always real-life focused, and we always work on business cases. From the moment you get to your internship, you already have an idea on how to act in real life, and you know a couple of situations that may or may not happen at work.”
“Moreover, an aspect of BSL that I was really excited about was the extracurricular activities. I would say I became a better designer, writer, and numbers person because I was running as the Student Council president, and I was also organizing the Business Innovation week. I was always pulling the team together and coordinating the event. There was a lot of work around and a lot of people involved from different nationalities, which is what presented as a crucial advantage. I was always trying to adapt to everyone’s needs to please everybody, whether they were in marketing or finance and so on. Now that I work at a very well-diversified company, thanks to this exposure at BSL, it was easy for me to adapt to so many different cultures and easy to integrate.”
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