STUDENT GUIDE YOUR INVOLVEMENT: Key to get excellent results on your digital learning path WELCOME TO THE EMIB PROGRAMME Flexible schedule and active learning environment. You can learn wherever you are and whenever you want. By studying the EMIB by ESCP Business School, you choose your own learning environment that works best for your needs and all the contents are designed to face real business challenges. José Ramón Cobo, Ph.D, PMP® EMIB Academic Director ESCP Madrid It is true that studying online requires more self-motivation and time-management skills, because you will spend a lot of time on your own without someone physically close to keep you focused on deadlines, but don’t forget that it will help you become more self-motivated, a trait that will make you stand out in the workplace and beyond. The EMIB Programme by ESCP Business School offers stackable learning, that enables learners to close specific competency gaps or add specific skills to meet immediate career goals. ACQUIRE THE “VIRTUAL MINDSET” Allow us to give you some advice on how to follow a part time programme successfully, integrating all the academic activities with your work and other obligations. Understand online learning practices and expectations The first thing you need to realize is that online courses are not an easier way to learn, but rather a more convenient one. To successfully learn online, you need to dedicate a significant amount of your time, consistently attend the program, be concentrated while studying, and fully commit to your learning process, just as you would do for a regular course. You should also have in mind that when you take an online course, you may be expected to: Fully commit yourself and participate in the virtual classroom as required. Work with others effectively. Complete your learning assignments on time. Be self-disciplined. Have a dedicated study space Whether you decide to study in your office or in your living room, ensure that this place is quiet, organized, distraction-free, and available for use at any time. Your study environment should be one of your main concerns when you are an online learner, so make sure that it enables your study routine. Identify your learning objectives and goals To stay on track with your online course, make sure that you always keep in mind what you hope to accomplish by the end of it. The learning objectives and goals of the course can be an excellent road map during online learning; read carefully your online course requirements, create notes that are closely related to your objectives, and make sure that you review them thoroughly every time you start an assignment, so that you stay focused on your goals. Ask for help when you need it While it may be constructive to look for answers to your online course-related questions independently, hesitating to contact your online instructor when you are stuck may be problematic. If you don’t ask for help when necessary, you may end up falling behind, which may lower your self-esteem, as you may not be able to keep up with the digital course. Participate in online discussions & network Online learning doesn’t necessarily mean learning in isolation. Connecting with your virtual classmates or your online course’s forum will enhance tremendously your learning experience. In EMIB there are people from all around the world, from various industries and of various ages and perspectives—use that fact to broaden your horizons, to learn, to discuss and to make new contacts. Join us in our closed EMIB group on Linkedin by clicking here and requesting Access, and on our Slack channel by clicking here —there we will share the news, events, connect and discuss! ¡ONLY FOR THE EMIB DEGREE (60 ECTS)! DESIGN A REALISTIC LEARNING PLAN Study time & workload The first thing you should think about is how much time you wish to take in order to finish EMIB. As you already know, the Programme is flexible in a way that you can finish all courses in a year, or spread it over 1-2 years for Advanced Certificate in International Business, and 1-3 years for the Executive Master in International Business. Remember that each course requires some 2-3 hours of dedication per week, depending on your previous expertise in a specific subject. These are the estimated hours for 3 most common scenarios in EMIB: 1 year 15 hours of workload per week 1.5 year 11.5 hours of workload per week 2.5 years 6 hours of workload per week Each course is taught once in an academic year in its term so you should take into account that you will need to wait for the next academic year for that course to be available again. There are 3 terms per academic year, and in each there are both core and elective courses, taught in parallel: EMIB-Executive Master in International Business: 60 ECTS = 14 courses ( 9 core + 5 elective courses) + Master Thesis In the following pages we will show you a few scenarios of good planning for the EMIB degree. The same goes for other qualifications, with the difference that those will have less courses to choose. You can check the structure of all qualifications in Programme Structure document in Welcome to the EMIB space. You want to finish all the courses in one year, and you have the availability to do so. Regarding electives, you want to focus on the finance subjects: In Term 1 you decided to take all 4 core courses and Managerial Economics as elective. In Term 2 you again took all 3 core courses offered in this term, and Cost Accounting as an elective. In Term 3 you took last 2 core courses, and you need 3 more electives—you took Financial Management, Big Data and one elective to strenghten your soft skills—Leadership. Congratulations, you’ve finished all the courses in one year! This scenario is the most common one among EMIB participants. You’ve decided to dedícate some 12 hours per week and finish the degree in 1.5 years, which are in average 3 courses per term. FIRST YEAR In Term 1 you take 3 core courses, leaving the 4th for the next year: In Term 2 you take 3 core courses again: In Term 3 you take 2 core courses and Organisational Behaviour as an elective: *At this point you can start working on your Master Thesis with your tutor. SECOND YEAR SECOND YEAR In Term 1 of the second year you took the remaining core course and 2 electives: In Term 2 of the second year you decided to take Digital Transformation and Operations Management as electives: Congratulations, you’ve finished all the courses in 1.5 years! You will finish the degree in 2.5 years, as your work doesn’t permit you to dedícate more than 6 hours per week to studies. For that, you will take 2 courses per term in average. FIRST YEAR You took 2 core courses in each term: TERM 1 TERM 2 SECOND YEAR You took the remaining core courses, and electives where you could: TERM 1 TERM 2 TERM 3 TERM 3 THIRD YEAR You took the last 2 elective courses, one per term, and started with the Master Thesis: TERM 1 TERM 2 MASTER THESIS You can start with the Master Thesis process once you have more than 50% of the courses passed (8+ courses) and write it in parallel with the last courses you’re taking, or you can wait to finish with the courses and then dedícate to Master Thesis. Please note that you can only defend your thesis if you passed all 14 courses. Congratulations, you’ve finished all the courses in 2.5 years! Courses, assignments & studying at your own pace As you already know, the EMIB philosophy is learning-by-doing, and for that reason every course will have a certain number of assignments or tasks for you to submit during the 12 weeks of the course. The final grade consists of task average grade (50 %) and the final exam (50%) In every course you will find a dashboard with an introduction video from the professor, course introduction and objectives, calendar with task deadlines, and a to-do with tasks you have pending: Types of assignments During your studies you will encounter different types of assignments: individual or groupal, essays, case studies, quizzes, etc., and each one of them will require a different type of approach. If the task you are doing at the moment is INDIVIDUAL, then you are more than welcome to study at your own pace and submit your task individually by the deadline indicated in the calendar and the unit. There are different types of individual tasks from which the most common one is a simple file submission, usually in Word or PDF. Simple submission tasks are usually the ones with open questions where it will be required from you to elaborate your answers. In general, if you are late with the assignement, you will still have a chance to submit it late, with penalization. These are the rules for penalization according to EMIB House Rules: If the individual task is a quiz , then please take note that the quiz will close on the day and the hour of the deadline, and you won’t be able to take the quiz after it, with or without the penalization. The GROUP tasks will require more communication from your side. In almost every course you will find at least one groupal task, and the professors can decide about the group criteria—you can end up in a group with people of the same age as you, or completely different, in the same or different time zone than you, same or different industry, etc. You will be asked to work together, and submit a task together, as a group. Like in every day life, you might find this part of work more challenging, as it is not always easy to coordinate with the team that is far from you, or have different opinions. Take it as a challenge: enjoy exchanging experiences remotely with people from different time zones, with different cultural backgrounds and think of it as being the beauty of working in international business! In case that one of the people in the group doesn’t do their work, then make sure you sign the documents you are submitting with the names of the people who worked, so the grade can be adjusted accordingly. Also, keep in mind that there will be a group of people who will depend on your dedication too—respect their time and work together in a coordinated way. If you have any unexpected event that doesn’t allow you to work in groups properly, please inform your colleagues on time to find a suitable solution. Final Exam Final examination sessions take place after every term, and depending on how many courses you took, you will have that number of exams to take. Check the dates of final examination sessions, and mark them in your calendar, as they are fixed and cannot be changed or streched. Those dates are the only dates when you should find some time to be in a synchronous video session, as you will be supervised while taking your exams. As each exam lasts for an hour, it will depend on the number of exams you need to take how many hours you’ll need to be free for the sesión. We will give you flexibility to do it over weekend, in the time of your choosing, but make sure you do not forget you have this obligation those days. The final exam will be 50% of your final grade, and the task average other 50%. EMIB grades are out of 20. This table which you can find in House Rules can help you to interpret the grades: Resit Resit task and exam sessions are available for those who do not manage to have 10 or above in both task average or final exam. So, in general and for every course, you will have 2 chances to pass both exam and tasks. If you don’t manage to pass, then you will officially fail a course and will need to wait for the next academic year in order to have the same course available again. You will also need to pay the repetition fee. The resit sessions for Term 1 and 2 are usually scheduled in July, and for Term 3 in September, before the start of the new academic year. The table from EMIB House rules shows all posible scenarios: Test for technical issues In a week before the start date of your first term, we suggest you to make a complete test of your equipment. Enter in the EMIB virtual campus before the start date, and familiarize yourself with it, set up your profile, and read the documents in Welcome to the EMIB space. Make sure you have: Good internet connection A camera for the examination sessions and webinars Audio and michrophone for the webinars Good access to the EMIB platform, change and save your password Good access to your ESCP email and ESCP Intranet IMPORTANT: In case of technical issues or need for guidance, please contact your Programme Manager. Make sure that in the email you give as much details as possible: what page are you talking about, what have you clicked, what happened, and the most important—always try to send screenshots so we can detect the issue faster and better. WELCOME TO YOUR FIRST EMIB TERM!
