The Tech Program That Takes Globetrotting Students To 3 Top B-Schools On 3 Continents

Dorine Ré is originally from the Lyon region in central France, where she pursued her studies until the end of high school. Seeking to work in the tourism industry, but hoping to keep her options open at the same time, she looked to join a top business school by entering an economic and scientific classe prépa, which is two or three years of intensive study to prepare for competitive B-school exams. This led Ré to EDHEC, where she studied as an undergrad for one year, later joining the GETT program for her master’s specialization.

When Ré joined the GETT program in 2018, it was still quite new, “so the acceptance rate was quite unclear and a third of the 50 or so spots available were held for non-EDHEC students,” she tells P&Q. “During my years in ‘prépa’, I looked a lot and in depth at all the different programs offered by the top business schools, and the GETT program was obviously extremely appealing.”

For one thing, GETT was focused on new technologies, “which was a big interest of mine since I took several years of engineering classes in high school,” Ré says. In GETT, “you have the opportunity to discover three big innovation hubs as well as their environments and cultures: Paris, Seoul and the Bay Area, which were all places that looked amazing to live in. The international experience as a student is a huge chance and having everything planned out within the program helps a lot enjoying it even more.”

Finally, even as GETT students take classes in different schools, they are not considered “exchange” students, Ré says. “It is a real partnership,” she says.

“The idea that I had for my career when entering EDHEC was to continue learning as much general knowledge as possible, to one day be able to join my three big passions: the environment, technology, and tourism,” Ré says. “And I was sure that the GETT program would help me figure that out, since it also carries a significant sustainability perspective, and the one-year professional experience gap would have helped me gain more experience on the tourism industry.”

‘I HAVE LEARNED TO NOT BE AFRAID OF NOT KNOWING SOMETHING’

From the first classes in Paris, which were much more more focused on technology, than those she had taken as an undergrad on EDHEC’s Lille campus, to the moment she landed with her classmates in South Korea and discovered a new studying culture, Ré knew she had made the right choice. Even after Covid struck and shortened her class’s time in Asia, “we all kept thinking these last three years was that we were all extremely lucky and proud of our position as EDHEC students and specifically GETT students. I feel grateful for everything and everyone that helped me experience and enjoy it so much!”

Her main takeaway: She now feels much more confident about tackling new challenges.

“I think the program, because of its diversity of topics, high expectations, and really concrete exercises, really pushes us to try things and to be curious,” Ré says. “Thanks to that, I have learned to not be afraid of not knowing something. Overall, it has helped me feel a lot less pressure and more confident in my work and in my personal life.

“I learned so many things that I wouldn’t have had the curiosity to on my own. As future active workers, we should always continue to look for new learnings, and I definitely will!”

GETT APPLICANTS: BE OPEN-MINDED & ADVENTUROUS

Applications for the next GETT cohort are open through June 2022. The class will once again be about 50 seats, says Ludovic Cailluet, though interest has grown every year and EDHEC could easily expand its size.

The ideal applicant, he says, is someone who is not afraid of taking on challenges. “Because being in three countries in three years with three different learning traditions is a bit of a challenge,” he says. “So I want people who are open-minded, a little bit adventurous, and who like to discover things.”

They also need to have academic bona fides. “I need people who are good students in an academic sense because the institutions they will be learning at are demanding institutions,” Cailluet says. “The level is quite demanding. It’s accessible, but you need to work.”

Typically about a quarter of GETT students got into finance, he says, not unusual for a European graduate program. Another quarter go to tech companies: Google, PayPal, Amazon, as well as startups. A third batch finds work in consulting, particularly technology and cybersecurity strategy consulting.

“And the last quarter is your typical jobs of business school graduates: project managers, marketing people in charge of a product or segment or range of product, jobs that a generalist would get out of a business degree,” Cailluet says. “Quite a large minority have landed jobs in the U.S. because they wanted to stay there, and others have found jobs elsewhere in other countries, not only in France or in Europe.”

A GREAT MIX

The wide range of outcomes is a reflection of the diverse backgrounds and interests coming into the program, he says.

“That’s a great thing with the program because I would say 60% of them will come from an economics, marketing, finance background, and then the rest come from political science, engineering, or other type of STEM or science based background. So they don’t learn the same way. If you come from an engineering school and if you come from a business school, you don’t look at problems the same way, and that creates an incredible conversation in a classroom.

“They have a lot of teamwork and it really creates something that is very interesting because the cabling is not done the same way in their brains, but they very quickly adapt and they are very complementary in their work. I believe that’s very, very useful for future jobs.”

Learn more about EDHEC’s Global Economic Transformation and Technology program here.

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