Mar
La Dolce Vita
Posted by Admissions Team in MBA Admissions blog
Dear RSM MBA followers,
Spring MBA fair season 2012 is at full speed and since my last blog dated from 4 January last, I think it is about high time to give you an update on whats going on at the RSM Admissions frontline. As the spring season is an important period of the year, during which MBA candidates do their research to the different MBA programmes on the market, we try to attend as many local events as possible in order to be able to individually discuss candidates personal MBA aspirations. At this stage in time, many of my colleagues already attended local MBA trade fairs and Connect 1-2-1s in different corners of the world or they are representing us as we speak
La Dolce Vita, called spring
Author recently went to Italy to represent our MBA Programme portfolio at QS – World MBA Tour events. As she still had the Dutch winter in mind and had not paid much attention to the weather forecasts for both Milan and Rome, she flew to the Mediterranean with only hard-core winter related garments in her suitcase. However, much to her pleasant surprise, spring had landed in Milan in the meantime and pretty soon she realized that she was going to choke while wearing this winter gear in these kind of temperatures…
Whilst inspecting her suitcase on any usable garments in her sweltering hot hotel room, all she could dig up were three old worn out T-shirts which actually had to serve as PJs -Author is Dutch you know, so wasting still wearable stuff is considered as a sin 
So far so good and author was very happy to walk around in her T-shirt and jeans, enjoying the sun during the spare hours when she was not on duty.
Milan was great by the way: great calibre candidates, who have a lot to bring to the table when it comes to sharing first-hand knowledge and best practises. They had all done their homework and they were all well informed not in the least because of the presence of one of our MBA11 alumni, who nowadays works as a consultant at Baines. One of the interviewees has even visited us on campus in the meantime! 
Clouds coming up
By using so far so good, one might suspect that trouble was on its way and so it were After having spent two sunny days in Milan, I moved to even sunnier Rome on day three in order to attend the local QS World MBA tour fair that same night. As I had a more convenient connection by plane and we participate in GreenSeats, I opted for this mean of transport for my relocation to Rome. Since the weather was so beautiful, I had put on one of the old T-shirts and a pair of jeans again, knowing that I would have ample time to change cloths at the hotel prior to the fair anyway.
Upon arrival in Roma, my odd size trade-fair-stand-tube had arrived but my suitcase strangely enough hadnt Although I have seen this happen to so many passengers over the years, I guess it was just my turn this time. I could have settled for my fate if I were not to represent RSM at the local QS fair in a few hours after my unfortunate discovery, yikes! Due to the loss of my suitcase and suitcase-loss related activities, I had already lost precious time. How to solve the problem of showing up under-dressed at a QS fair, all of a sudden turned into a major issue of concern :-S
Since I did not have much experience with this type of irregulations, I inquired with my colleagues at supreme headquarters whether they might have had any experiences with non-delivered luggage so far? None of them ever had but since my suitcase still had not arrived, they urgently advised me to go and compose a representative outfit, impressing upon me not to run straight to Prada! ;P Great, as I was not even near to Prada
Colosseum magnets
I was close to the Colosseum though. Since one could not solve this appearance problem with Colosseum refrigerator magnets nor these hideous miniature Colosseum sculptures, finding a reasonably priced cloth store in the Colosseum area, was quite a challenge. Never a dull moment while working for RSM )) Tip -with help from the hotel concierge-: If your suitcase ever got lost when arriving in Rome, go to OVS -pronounced as: Oviesse- department store. For sure you will be able to do some damage control in your spending over there and compose a representative outfit for less than 90 Euro
And if you would like to break another record: I challenge you to outperform me by shopping a complete outfit in less than 20 minutes! ;P
Alumni
Anyway, back to the Rome fair and 1-2-1s. The fair was well attended and I got to meet very interesting candidates. Over the years, I have known quite some local RSM alumni, so I could make some connections between candidates and local alumni with a similar background. Do not ever hesitate to ask for any of these type of contact data to our MBA Admissions representatives. Since the majority of my team has worked at RSM for many years, we will be happy to connect you with our local alumni who are often very open and willing to share their experiences. They went through the same MBA programme orientation phase like you did after all. Because of privacy reasons we will ask our alumni for permission of forwarding their contact data first but like said, since they went through the same process, they are always happy to assist.
And the suitcase?… it was waiting for me in the vaults of Rome airport, where I could pick it up the next day on my way back home to Amsterdam
Tinka Broeders, RSM MBA Admissions