Since arriving in France, my courses have allowed me to strengthen a range of skills, both hard and soft. Before coming to NEOMA, I was “warned” that the courses here heavily valued groupwork. Despite the precaution, I still underestimated how much groupwork my courses would entail. Nearly every course I have has required me to present in a group at least once, and many require more than one group presentation. In requiring groupwork, I have been able to work on a variety of soft skills including people management (assigning work/topics), time management, and collaboration (in research and slide deck creation), as well as cross-cultural interaction by managing expectations of people from different cultures regarding deadlines and presentation styles.
Outside of classwork, I recently joined the university’s champagne association after an interview process conducted in French. In addition to building new interview skills, part of our work includes outreach to local champagne houses to coordinate events, something I have never done in French before. I have also been able to hone skills in planning (such as when planning an itinerary in a city I am visiting) as well as adaptability in new and unfamiliar environments. Overall, the soft skills I have developed both in and out of the classroom will serve me well for the rest of my time at Pitt Business as these are the exact skills Pitt professors aim to instill in their students, and they are not easily acquired through coursework alone. Further, these skills will prove useful in my career as collaboration, people management, and time management are useful in any role at any level and allow employees to excel in their field. In addition, should I find myself in a role working with clients outside of the United States, being able to collaborate with people of other cultures and adapt to unfamiliar customs or habits will prove useful, especially given the global and connected nature of the modern economy.
In terms of hard skills, the most obvious area of improvement for me has been my ability to speak French. I was already fluent in French before leaving the US, but there is a difference between knowing classroom French and being able to speak it daily with locals. Just over 2 months in, I have started to make close friendships with local French students with whom I only speak French. I have noticed that my comprehension of daily, nonacademic French has significantly improved, and when speaking, I don’t need to pause to think as much about what I am saying, allowing for a more natural pace of conversation. In my coursework, I have also increased my knowledge about geopolitics/global economics from my course Globalization and Innovation, as well as topics in managerial accounting from my course Management Accounting and Control. With all these skills strengthened in just the first 8 weeks of the school year, I am sure I will be noticeably stronger in these areas and more by the end of the school year after returning to the US!
