More Than an MBA: My Experience at Bayes

I chose Bayes Business School for several reasons, but, in short, I felt it was the school that offered me the best value for money. When you start researching MBAs in the UK, you realise the investment can end up being excessively high, so it was important for me to find a programme with a strong academic standard that, at the same time, represented an investment I could justify.

Bayes also holds triple accreditation, known as the "triple crown", and has a very good reputation specifically in the MBA world. But beyond the rankings and accreditations, what ultimately convinced me was the connection I felt from the very first interviews with people at the school. From the start I felt a very close and genuine approach, and that made a big difference for me when it came to making the decision.

One of the things I enjoyed most about the programme was precisely the way it combines theory with practice. Yes, it's an MBA and there's a lot of theory, but you constantly get the chance to bring what you've learnt into real situations. At the end of each module, much of the knowledge was applied to real companies and to situations that were happening at that very moment. We also had an international week in which we worked directly with a company, and, finally, our dissertation project is also carried out in collaboration with a real company. I felt we were constantly moving from learning concepts in the classroom to thinking about how we would apply them in the working world.

I also loved the variety of the programme and the calibre of the lecturers. Each one has impressive experience and specialisation, and it was very enriching to be able to learn from people who are genuinely leaders in their field.

However, if I had to pick just one thing as the best part of my experience at Bayes, it would definitely be the people. I was enormously fortunate to be part of an incredibly diverse cohort, with people from different countries, cultures, industries and career paths. We were a very varied group, not only because of our backgrounds, but also because of our personalities and ways of thinking, and I believe that is precisely what made us learn so much from one another. More than classmates, I'm coming away with friends for life and a network of people I hope to stay in touch with for many years to come.

Bayes also gave me many opportunities to develop outside the strictly academic sphere. We constantly had networking events, workshops and activities focused on skills such as public speaking, giving better presentations, building confidence, working on our emotional intelligence and strengthening our resilience. We also had a leadership programme that pushed us a great deal to step outside our comfort zone. I particularly liked that the MBA didn't focus solely on preparing us professionally, but also on developing the personal skills you need to be a good leader.

Another thing I found amazing is that, by becoming part of Bayes, you truly become part of a community. I didn't expect to build such important relationships during the MBA, nor that the lecturers, alumni and classmates would become a network that could stay with you even after graduating. You even have the chance to take one elective module per year for life as part of the Bayes community, which I think is an extraordinary opportunity to keep on learning.

And that's precisely one of the most important things I'm taking away: understanding that the MBA isn't the end of your learning, but the start of a stage in which you have to keep studying, learning and developing. For me, the programme also gave me much greater professional versatility. It allowed me to get to know different areas, industries and ways of working, and to understand that my experience can be applied across many different fields.

In the end, I think that's what made my experience at Bayes so special: it wasn't just about earning another qualification. It was about learning from people completely different from me, facing situations that pushed me out of my comfort zone, developing new skills and becoming part of a community that I hope to keep carrying with me long after finishing the MBA.

- Rocío