A personal look back on the IMM Program

by IMM student Hellmut Ringena

Looking back on the last two years of the IMM program I can still remember quite vividly the speech of a former IMM Student at our first week of the orientation. He was talking about what we have to expect from the next two years. He said: it is work, work, work and then showed us some funny pictures.

And he was right! This is probably the best summary of the program I can think of. On the one hand, with all of the readings, homeworks, papers, presentations, midterms and finals that we had to do, the program was definitely a lot of work. But on the other hand, the opportunity to be a student again was a lot of fun.

First of all: get together
Orientation was already a great start to the program. Everyone was excited about the beginning of the program and curious as to who and how the other students would be. In total our class was a group of 60 students. In the IMM program every student is also assigned to a study group consisting of 5 or 6 people. The composition of these study groups is made to have a mix of students from different educational and working backgrounds, cultures and nationalities in each group. They are designed to provide a “first level support” for all questions concerning the program. These groups, from the very beginning, gave everyone the feeling of comfort and direction within the class as a whole, and also provided students with close connections to one another. They were the origins of the personal network we built during the program.

Being a student – again
The second design feature of the IMM program schedule I liked very much was the two residency periods in each of the three modules. These two-week meetings were not only great possibilities to spend time together, but they were also a chance to take a step out of the normal business life and step back into the university life. These weeks with their lectures, assignments and presentations had always been really intense and hard work. However, in general the residencies were even less stressful than the remainder parts of the modules, because back home everyone had to fulfill several roles at the same time. He or she has a job, is a student and – last but not least – has friends and family.

Time management from day one
Having said this, maybe the main recommendation I would give to potential Executive MBA students is not to underestimate the time you will have to put into the program work. It is true that these 22 months are interesting, challenging and filled with a lot of new experiences, but, they are definitely not a piece of cake, and are quite time consuming. After all, if it was easier, it would not be worth doing it! . Therefore, in addition to all of the MBA-Program aspects you will think about in advance, like quality of staff, composition of students, price, return of investment etc., you should not forget that taking part in such a program takes a lot of time – that is leisure time. The support and understanding of the family is very important.

My personal goal: a holistic overview
For me personally, the reasons to attend the MBA program were that I have a university degree with a technical background, but had reached a stage in my career, where profound business knowledge and good management skills become more and more important. I studied mathematics and became an ERP software developer and consultant with an international consultancy company. Having had some years of experience with several implementation projects, I had already gained the detailed business know-how in some special areas. But this was not enough – I was still lacking a holistic view of the business contexts.

The classes were very valuable to me. Through many case studies, a very experienced international teaching staff and lively class-room discussions with the other students, the teaching contents were made much more practical and applicable to me than any text-book could have ever done. These gave me a deeper and more profound understanding of the interaction and interrelation of the different areas of business.

Now I am quite optimistic that this newly gained knowledge will help me gain a position with a portfolio where the more advanced subjects of the IMM program like strategy and international management will be more important parts of my job.

For me the personal contacts I made during the program are at least as important as the pure knowledge I gained from it. Due to the truly international class composition, every student in the class has an almost “world wide network” to people with different business expertise.