Maria Eduarda Lemgruber Ramos

INSEAD

Home City and Country: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Nationalities: Brazil, Portugal

Most Recent Employer and Job Title: Boston Consulting Group, Consultant

How has studying business in France enriched your learning experience? Studying in France at INSEAD has been really enriching, especially because of the people I’m surrounded by every day. Before coming here, I had never been in an environment where almost everyone had such international life experiences. One of my classmates, Sarah Beth Rupp, for instance, was previously a Navy pilot and spent the past two years in France on an exchange tour flying helicopters with the French Navy. Experiences like that are pretty representative of the classroom environment at INSEAD. You’re constantly hearing perspectives shaped by completely different cultures, industries, and personal paths, which makes discussions feel much more real and dynamic. Being exposed to how others approach similar problems from such different starting points has pushed me to think differently about my own decision-making.

What has been the toughest transition to living in France so far? What have you done to overcome this difficulty? The hardest part of living in France was honestly just figuring out the basics of daily life in a place I wasn’t familiar with. In the U.S., even when you move cities, there’s a general sense of where to start—you know that for groceries you might go to Target, Whole Foods, or Walmart. For a phone plan, you’ll probably look at AT&T or Verizon. When I first got to France and Fontainebleau, I had no clue where to go, how to get around, or what the equivalents even were. The main way I got through that was by asking people around me for help. INSEADers are always happy to help, and that made a huge difference. It helped me get oriented faster, and it also became an easy, natural way to meet people and start building friendships. Before long, I knew to go to Franprix or Picard for groceries and how to take the train from Fontainebleau to Paris using the Île-de-France app—and everything started to fall into place.

What school service has been the most helpful in transitioning to living in France? How has it helped you adapt? The most helpful support in transitioning to living in France has been INSEAD’s student-led community and the way the school structures early support for international students. In the first week of the program, INSEAD organizes reciprocity rings, where small groups of students come together and each person shares a goal or something they’re trying to accomplish—which included for a lot of people how to transition to living life in France (e.g., where to buy a bike). Classmates then offer advice, resources, or connections. It was a great way to get oriented quickly and feel less lost in a new country. In addition, INSEAD’s affiliation groups and student networks have been extremely helpful – shoutout to the Brazilian Student Association and the INSEAD Student Council!

What has been the most interesting cultural nuance of people living in France? Why has this struck you? One thing that really stood out to me is how intentional people in France are about enjoying life outside of work. There’s a real focus on slowing down and making time for things like traveling, enjoying good food, and actually being present with the people you’re with, rather than constantly being in work mode. That really resonated with me. Having grown up living in multiple countries, meeting people from a wide range of backgrounds and cultures is something I genuinely enjoy and that’s shaped who I am. Living in France – and being so close to so many other countries – made it much easier to lean into that part of myself. Being here has reminded me how important those experiences are to me; it has pushed me to think more intentionally about balance and what I want my life to look like long term—not just in terms of my career, but how everything fits together.

Are you seeking a Visa to work in France after graduation? If so, what obstacles have you faced and how did you overcome them? I am not seeking a visa to work in France after graduation.

What have you done to make it easier to make friends with people from outside your home country at business school? Travel has probably been the biggest factor in helping me make friends with people from outside my home country. Early in the program, our first group trip to San Sebastián ended up being especially meaningful. San Sebastián is a small town on the northwest of Spain. Spending an entire week there together—away from campus and in a smaller city—made the experience feel much more intentional. When the trip started, I didn’t actually know many people that well, and many of us came from completely different countries and backgrounds. By the end of the week, a lot of those same people had become my closest friends. We spent our days walking around the city, going on hikes, and hopping from place-to-place trying different pintxos. Even now, we still talk daily in our trip WhatsApp group.

What piece of advice would you give to an international student looking to study in a French graduate business program? I’d say the biggest piece of advice is to be comfortable with the uncomfortable. It’s very easy to put pressure on yourself to immediately find your group or feel completely at home, and I remember worrying about that early on. What I realized pretty quickly, though, is that that happens naturally once you start putting yourself in the right situations. Taking trips where you don’t know many people, sitting next to someone new in class, or saying yes to plans even when they feel slightly uncomfortable at first ended up being the moments that mattered most for me. Those experiences pushed me out of my comfort zone in a good way. Over time, those small choices really shaped my experience and helped me build meaningful connections.

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