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I have to say I was totally surprised and blown away by the experience in Luxembourg. In all honesty, I had kept my expectations very low before leaving Frankfurt, as had many of my classmates. Some of us were thinking: What is it that a Finance student needs to know about leadership? We don’t need to waste our times in such a ”fluffy” concept. Well, as usual, just as in the song “The Rise and Fall” by One Hundred Paces, „we were young and strong and beautifully wrong“. In the following text, my goal is to give you a brief overview of what happened in Luxembourg, as well as what my personal experience was like.
We were over 115 students leaving in 3 buses from the front entrance of Frankfurt School at 9am on March 3rdDespite a little hiccup, we were all able to arrive at the hostel on schedule.
The hostel was located in the heart of the old part of Luxembourg, in a quiet and beautiful valley. The hostel itself was very clean and organized. It was honestly better than a few hotels I have stayed in in the past. We were separated into rooms with 4 and 6 beds. It was nice to be able to pick who we wanted to stay with, although I would have probably chosen different roommates, had I know in advance how much they snore (you know who you are)! But hey, that’s all part of the fun!
A great experience despite the cold
It had not been our first rodeo with the folks at Faszinatour (the company that puts together our outdoor activities). We had spent 2 days with them at the beginning of our program in the fall of 2014. We were excited to see them again, as they proved to be a fun and exciting bunch. I thought it would be a bit challenging to spend so much time outdoors though, given the temperatures were much lower than they were in the fall. However, our days were organized in such a way that we did not have to spend more than 2 hours outdoors in a row at any given time.
The activities were all focused on leadership. First, we would elect a leader for the task. Then, the coordinator from Faszinatour would brief the leader on the goals of the assignment. The leader would then have to come up with a way to effectively explain it to the members of the group, set challenging goals in order to keep members engaged and motivated, divide up the task in smaller bits, communicate effectively, exercise authority when needed, and so on. At the end of each activity, we all gathered in circles and discussed what happened, gave constructive feedback to the leader and talked about some of the things we would have done differently.
Given the sub optimal weather conditions outside, it was always nice to come back inside, grab a warm cup of coffee, and listen to Dr. Barthel talk about the theoretical aspects of leadership. Given his extensive experience as an HR director before he turned into academia, he was able to draw upon his own experience to give us concrete examples of some of the challenges faced by corporate leaders these days.
We were released from the daily activities at around 6pm, which meant we had the evenings for ourselves. Some people chose to go for drinks at some of the pubs in the city of Luxembourg, some others explored the nightlife of the city, while others decided to stay at the hostel and play some billiard. We even had an arm wrestling competition, which was effortlessly won by Philip.
One of our classmates, Julien Coley, volunteered to give us all a city tour, which we were all extremely thankful for. We gathered in a very large group and walked around the city, while he showed us the most important landmarks and monuments of the city. Despite his great performance as a tour guide, my lack of orientation proved to be a greater challenge, as I managed to get lost for almost 2 hours on my way back to the hostel.
Right after the city tour, we had an Alumni event to which 15 Masters of Finance students were able to attend. I was lucky to be one of those were fast enough to respond to the invitation. The event was organized at Star`s Bar, a few minutes’ walk from our hostel. We had a chance to network with some of those who were in our shoes a few years ago, and get an idea of how their careers had evolved after their studies at Frankfurt School. I had a chance to meet Clement Maigret from France, who completed the Masters of Finance program in 2012, and immediately was offered a position as a corporate loan officer at Commerzbank in Luxembourg. It is comforting to know that our degree is very well regarded in the financial services industry, not only in Frankfurt, but across Europe.
As you have by now noticed, my skepticism turned into great surprise by the end of the event. I had a chance to get to know many of the students joining our program in the second semester. While at first I thought Luxembourg is just a tiny place with many office buildings, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the city, with its medieval looking bridges and quiet valleys, has a lot to offer to visitors of all ages. Overall, it was a fun way to get a head start into the second semester of classes.
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