Audencia Nantes ONLINE Summer School 2021 Study Exchange Report / Tetsuya Hirakawa

Audencia Business School Study Abroad Report

Motivation to Study Abroad

I had originally graduated from a high school, a university, and a local school overseas, so when I entered NUCB Business School, I was already thinking of taking advantage of the program to study abroad at some point. However, as soon as I entered the university in April 2020, COVID-19 became widespread, and at first I gave up, thinking that I would not have the chance to study abroad at an overseas graduate school by the time I graduated. However, at that point I learned that many of NUCB Business School's affiliated partner school could offer me the opportunity to take classes from Japan, by setting up online classes, so I could expand my network while remaining in Japan. So I decided to study abroad, online.

Program Overview

This time, I applied for the Audencia Business School's Summer Program. This program comprised 8 x 5 day classes over the course of 8 weeks, held during weekdays. Students may join their preferred classes on the preferred weeks, so within a reasonable scope they may fit classes around their own personal work or school schedules. I took the following 4 classes over the first 4 weeks:

・Cross Cultural Management
・Corporate Governance
・Digital Transformation
・Intercultural Leadership

As you can see, many students from many countries apply for the program every year because of the wide variety of classes in different fields that are offered. In addition, the instructors who teach classes are all active at the forefront of various academic fields in each country, so it seems that one of the characteristics is that many people wish to study from such practitioners.

Study Abroad Experience

Of course, over the 4 classes we were able to deeply study various themes, but what was most valuable was being able to meet people from several countries. When I first applied for the program, I anticipated that I would only be have superficial interactions during online lessons and it would be difficult to develop lasting relationships afterwards. However, once the class commenced, there was a great deal of emphasis on mutual interaction between students and I had many opportunities to talk with students from other countries. Not only that, some students even contacted me individually after class, and some were also interested in internships at the company I work for.

For me, initially thinking there may be little to gain from not being able to take classes in person on campus due to the pandemic, what I learned through this "online" study abroad was beyond my imagination. In addition to this, in each class, various current affairs issues progressing in real time, including the COVID situation, were included as themes in each class, building a high quality program. I would like to make use of the experience I gained in the short but intense time of four weeks in my future career. 4 weeks may be a short time, but in this intensive period I gained much experience which I hope to utilise in my career going forward.