 Hi there, everyone. My name is Arthur Grau. I'm the Senior Communications Officer for the MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics. And I'm very happy to host today the MIT Scaled Network informational webinar. We have people joining from five of our scale centers. So welcome. Sawathe, Wilkomen, Bienvenue, Bienvenido. We're very happy to have you here. We hope today will be super informational, and you will have a chance to ask any questions that you need to. So first, our presenters. Hey, good morning. My name is Chris Mejia. I work for MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics. And I'm the director of the Graduate Certificate in Logistics and Supply Chain Management. Well, long history, but this program was originally born in CLI, our center in Colombia. And now it's taught completely here at MIT CTL. Hi, everyone. I'm Sarah. I'm a postdoctoral research associate at the Luxembourg Center for Logistics and Supply Chain Management. So we are located in the country of Luxembourg, in the center of Europe, so in a very international environment. And what we offer is a 10-month residential program in logistics and supply chain management with a high emphasis on cooperation with industry. Hello, everybody. My name is Robert Cummings. I'm the academic administrator for the Supply Chain Management Program here at MIT in the Center for Transportation and Logistics. We offer two programs, our residential program, which is 10 months long, and our blended program, which is five months long, just started this January. Looking forward to any questions you guys have. Good morning. My name is David Baylis. I'm the director of the master's program at the Malaysia Institute for Supply Chain Innovation. Good morning, everyone. My name is Marta Romero. I'm the director of the International Master's Program in Zaragoza, in Spain. We are currently offering three programs. So as Robert mentioned, the residential and the blended program, and also together with the Center in Malaysia with David, we offer a brand new program, which is the Global Supply Chain Management Program. Happy to reply to any questions you may have. So thanks again for joining. I just wanted to give an overview of what we have planned for today. First, we'll talk about student life and the experience. We'll get a little bit into the application process. Is that correct? The MIT Global Scale Network, if you are not aware of it already, includes six centers of excellence with over 10 educational programs, 80 researchers, and over 180 students per year. And so that's sort of the overview of the scale network in general. And who's going to go first for specific program information? Admissions? Yeah, I can kick us off. Great, thank you. So all of our programs utilize the same application to review applications. Our program admission cycle for the residential program starts in September and goes through March for the blended program as well, the same time frame. We also offer the GC log program with their application cycle as well. Awesome. Yeah, when you're done. Yeah. So yeah. Sorry. Thanks so much. Thanks, guys, for the little bit of back and forth here. I just wanted to mention, please enter your questions into the chat. And I will surface them to the group. If you can include your name, it would be great, because I'd love to call you out and say where you're from and what you're asking about with your questions. So that would be excellent if you can. Next program. Hi. The Malaysia Institute for Supply Chain Innovation is a nine month program. We have MIT faculty. We follow the curriculum of MIT. One of the semesters is actually here at MIT, where we are today at the independent activities period. And on our program, we have extensive industry interaction. So it's a nine month program between August and May. And as Marta said earlier, we also have the GSEM program, which is a joint program with Zaragoza in Spain. So regarding our programs on the admissions process, it's true that we have what we call rolling admissions after the third round deadline. This is important for us mainly because we will have the admissions open for international students that need a visa to come to Spain, to the US, and also to Malaysia. So that will be May 15th. If it's for European students who do not need a visa to come to Spain, then we will have the admissions process open until July 15th. So this is important that we let you know because that's maybe the only difference regarding the MIT residential program here at MIT. So as mentioned before, so the 10 month program, it's our star program. This is the 16th generation that is here with me during these three weeks. And we also have the third generation of the blended program. All the programs have in common that the students need to work on a thesis project. And we work with multinationals on security and projects for the students. And the projects are real life supplies and problems that the companies are facing. So this is of course very interesting to our students. So in Luxembourg, as said, we have a 10 month residential program in logistics and supply chain management that is of the same quality or the same level as the one that is offered by the MIT. So our program starts off with four months of core courses in Luxembourg in which you will learn all the fundamentals of logistics and supply chain management. Then in January, you will join the MIT for a month here in Boston at the IEP conference where you get to meet people from all the other centers. And then in the spring semester, you will return to Luxembourg and you can follow a number of electives to really, let's say, explore your interests. So we have a very wide offering of different electives for you. And throughout the year, you will be working on your master thesis project. So each of our master thesis projects is in collaboration with an industrial partner. So that means that each student will cooperate with a company and solve a real company problem. You'll also visit the company and be in close contact with them. And with this, we really try to generate an interaction between our students and industrial life in Luxembourg and the neighboring countries throughout the whole year. Okay. Well, in the case of the GCLO program, this is different from the other programs. I need to emphasize that this is actually the only graduate certificate that is offered by the global scale network. Now, well, what we offer here is the flexibility. You're going to be part of an eight-month program that is actually composed of four big models. The first one is like an online model in order to build pure foundations about supply chain management. The second one is a residential experience of three weeks here at MIT where you're going to be receiving classes from MIT CTL faculty members. Then you're going to start in the third model, what we call the capstone project that is built by one of the MIT CTL faculty members too. And then you're going to come back to share with the other students from the other centers in the IAP period that we called. That's basically it. Well, in terms of the admission process, we have like three rounds of applications. We usually open the first one. It's already closed now, but we open every mid-November every year. And then we have a second round of applications, usually at the end of January or the beginning of February. And the last one that is at the beginning of April. Can I take this back for just one second? Go ahead if you have something to add. I just wanted to clarify the overall SCM program as well as my colleagues here have pointed out. So the SCM program begins in September and also follows courses here at MIT from September all the way through May. We have some exciting offerings in the spring. One of the big components of our program is that students get to visit companies and see real supply chain in action. We also have our capstone projects where students work on a company project. And in addition, the SCM program offers two degrees. One in applied science and one in engineering. So the engineering degree is for students really focused on the research aspect. So these are other components to keep going. Great. So what I'm hearing is that almost all of the programs have an industry component. So you're working closely with industry, global industry, often multinational companies, which is one of the reasons for being for the scale network is so that we could offer a program like this. All of the programs come together here in the winter for our scale annual connect conference spending time at MIT and meeting the global scale network. So I'm wondering if you could bring about the network effect that we're looking for by creating the global scale network. I wondered if each of you could just say one of the differentiators. What's one special thing about your location or your program? It could be student life. It could be part of the academics. Is there anyone that wants to bring up something interesting or special that we believe anyone bold enough to start? Yeah, sure. So one of the things that makes the center in Luxembourg a bit different is that we are connected to the university of Luxembourg. So we are part of a big university which brings a lot of nice benefits to it, I would say. Studies means for example that if you are a student in our center you're also a student of the university meaning you can make use of your library of sport facilities of life on a university campus which is really nice. And of course this also means that we have a lot of expertise in our group so we'll have a lot of faculty with broad experiences that can support you throughout the year. So I think that's a very nice thing that makes the Luxembourg center a bit unique. So the Malaysian center obviously the weather is a lot hotter than a lot of your other places and obviously it's a wonderful cultural experience coming to Asia which as we all know is one of the fastest growing economies in the world. And the cost of living is also cheaper in Malaysia so we believe we actually have an awful lot to offer if you come to MISI. Okay, so of course I'm going to bid them to it because we are in Spain so sunny Spain. Spain has a lot to offer. We have a long history. There's a lot of cultures that have been involved in the history of Spain. There's so much that you can visit and then you can travel easily to the rest of Europe that are on a student life also so you should account for a budget of 600 euros for living expenses. I mentioned already the strong ties with the industry which is very important to us and I just need to add because they are truly magnificent alumni network which help us through the year not only with admissions they also bring in thesis projects for the programs and they are also getting in touch with us in case they have any openings so that current students can join them in their current companies as well. I'd like to say that the one aspect of the SCM program here at MIT that is truly is our alumni network. We've just celebrated our 20-year anniversary so we have an extensive alumni network who we utilize throughout the duration of the program from recruiting with companies to having guest speakers arrive speakers throughout the RIAP session. Our treks that I mentioned we go visit companies on the west coast who are often hosted by our alumni so really that network is what the students find the most valuable takeaway from our program. Okay in the case of the GCLO program well this is going to be our 11th generation or class being graduated from here so we have already graded like 300 outstanding students and also practitioners from Latin America. What makes this program very unique I could say that is the focus in emerging markets. I think that's an important differentiator on the fact that as I mentioned before the flexibility if you are currently working and you don't want to leave like your current job you can actually combine this experience with what you are doing right now. So this is more than executive education program because it's not only four days it's actually eight months as I mentioned to you probably you can find more information regarding the models themselves but definitely I think that the focus that we provide to create these new leaders in supply chain management and logistics for emerging markets is actually very important and also that you get here. And then one last piece about IAP because I've been being able to participate in it for the last few years Inter what does IAP stand for? Independent activities Independent activities period at MIT MIT has designed the independent activities period to allow for people from the campus to associate across departments and across centers and we've capitalized with the scale network on bringing people to campus as we've mentioned. Some of the things that happen when people are on campus is they do simulations as teams. They do case competitions. The APICS is actually sort of entrepreneurship competition it's like a shark tank that they do they go on industry visits everyone in the group tomorrow is heading to a giant automated warehouse where I went last year it's totally amazing I felt like I was in the set of the matrix or something it was really really cool. So there's a it's a highly packed three weeks here on campus that people come and I think it as a centralizing force and as a unifying force it's a really great place to be. Next subject or do you want to start to take some questions? Yeah I think if we have any questions. Okay so we have an anonymous attendee so that's okay because that was the first question asked so thank you very much can you two provide more information about the career prospects of the newly launched GSCM or Global Supply Team Masters? Okay so I think that this is common to some of our programs we tell the students right from the beginning that we will help them as much as we can with recruitment but the responsibility of finding a job would be the students that being said if you're enrolled in the GSCM program both centers will help you with that process so we will help you at the beginning in Zaragoza with your resume with mock interviews and even if you're not around for the period of for the spring period when the recruitment process starts in Spain we will also consider you for interviews but also the center in Malaysia will arrange some interviews for you as well. Okay just to add to that as Marta said earlier you would spend the first five months in Zaragoza then come to MIT for a month and the final four months would be at MISI at MISI we will continue with the career placement that starts at Zaragoza in Malaysia itself it's a known fact that in Asia there's a great lack of supply chain talent so there are quite a number of opportunities we would also continue the practice that Marta mentioned where we would give you resume tutorials cover letter tutorials and we'd also give you some practical experience on interview techniques so as Marta also said we're here to help you find another position obviously we would like you to try and help yourself by trying to source a few of your own companies but certainly there will be a whole range of interviews for you to attend both at Zaragoza and at MISI Wonderful and of course as part of the global program they will also be here with us on campus networking with the other 180-odd students Mayank is an industrial engineer from Nagpur India and is asking about the GRE and for admission so each center is slightly different so I'm going to let everyone speak to that a little bit. Okay so from Malaysia we actually take the application package as a whole so yes GRE is important and there might be a slight difference in GREs from the various different centers but so for example we would take your degree having a good degree, your GMAT or GRE score your resume writing letters maybe you also have an MBA maybe you've taken the MicroMars programs 16 Sigma and also we take into consideration your passion for supply chain and obviously on top of that there's the IOTS as well so from MISI's point of view we take the whole package into consideration so you might have a slightly lower GRE or GMAT but you've got other specifications which compensate and save it we also take into account the whole application as a whole our requirements for GMAT are the minimum that we require is 640 as for GRE it could be so 75% percentiles on the quantitative part and 50% on the verbal and we also started accepting COEX the first of the online courses that is offered by MIT CTL and for that we would require 85% if your scores are lower then don't worry too much about it because we as David mentioned we take into account the rest of your application materials essentially MIT Reader Suat Marta said for GRE and GMAT our most competitive scores are usually and for our SC0X supply chain analytics micro masters course we recommend above an 85% to be competitive in that area as well if you are deficient in some of those obviously we'll take into consideration your GPA your work experience and other aspects of the application so in line with my colleagues from the other centers in Luxembourg we also look at the total application package of a student we highly value you coming from prior education with a mathematical or an analytical core but if this is not the case you can submit your GMAT or your GRE scores or maybe you follow the micro masters so all of these things we take into account also we look at your work experience we look at maybe internships that you have done we look at your motivation letter so really all of these things are taken into consideration when you file for application and as my colleagues already said I mean it's not because one of these things is maybe lacking or is less that you cannot compensate by for example a good academic record or a big passion for supply chain management so these things are also all very important well to avoid repeating likewise other centers right but I would say that particularly in the case of the GCLO program GRE and GMAT is not that and of course they are but in the case of the GCLO program and given also the audience that we are trying to attract we know that they have to pay an additional cost for this test so we give priority to other type of courses in order to analyze what is your quantitative background and analytical background I think that those are extremely important and as I mentioned by Robert I think that if you are taking some courses from the micro masters or at least at 85% that could be more than enough but yeah we will check case by case if you have more questions we can check that directly okay and I forgot to mention that if you have an engineering background then we can consider waiving the requirement so in order to be able to assess we would need to receive your transcripts great this is very comprehensive answers I really appreciate that I hope Aditya I hope that the question about global masters also answered your question I think it was the same answer of the question you asked I'm going to take the questions a little bit out of order that you're seeing on the chat I think it's more relevant to what we were just talking about I know that the SCM program here at MIT has a two year work requirement they require that an applicant has left the academic world and gone out to work for two years before they come to apply to our masters program at least two years often more can you all tell me about your program's work requirement if it's the same or different let me start this time so our profile of let's say incoming students is basically someone who is a graduate student currently in your home country in your home university most of the times preferably from Latin America or that you are developing some kind of research in Latin America or well if you are attracted by Latin America that's our main focus let me emphasize that okay if you recently graduated also from any of these graduate programs like masters, MBAs PhDs even other certificates etc. you are more than welcome to touch base with us in order to see if you are eligible or not usually the threshold that we use is that you graduated two years ago probably not more than that but we need to check case by case I think that's more or less the idea behind our incoming students so in Luxembourg typically people who apply for the program have a couple of years of work experience this can be two but we also have people with many more years so it can be seven or more and we have also in the past accepted people to our program without any professional experience at all so I think as we stress also before we accept people with very different backgrounds and we look at a total package so for example if you have no professional experience but you have an excellent academic record or you have done some internships this can also be taken into consideration at MISI we also like students ideally to have at least two years work experience but just to recap on what Cyril was saying earlier on we also very closely look at what quantitative skills students have and as Marta said or an engineering background which generally always has the quantitative skills attached to it but yes we would prefer them to have two to five years work experience in fact we find the average age of our students MISI somewhere between 28 and 35 years old I would say that was the average age band okay so our program is no different so ideally it could be a minimum of two years of experience it is true as my colleagues just said that in some cases we've seen some profiles of recent graduates which we've seen the talent and the potential so we've admitted these people to the program they've done extremely well that being said so we have people on both ends so recent graduates with little work experience as well as people with more than 10-15 years of work experience so we invite all the graduates to come to the program and I think that's a great decision regardless of age and experience it really is a place if you have a supply chain experience but if you come from other backgrounds your application is also welcome so we do have a specific question about being in a totally different or related industry so it's okay for people to apply but for those who come from a wide background we consider both general work experience and supply chain focus work experience so both are taking into consideration within the application and in terms of educational background we've seen applicants even from philosophy or the humanities apply and being able to gain admission here at MIT engineering and business and finance are usually the areas that applicants apply to most from but also just like to comment on the range of experience that we see amongst our programs so our residential program is usually geared towards incoming applicants with between two to seven years of work experience our blended program also offers opportunities for more senior people with more work experience so mid-level to higher level applicants as well maybe three to eight years of work experience all right so these programs are conducted all over the world and all of the programs to my knowledge are conducted in English do you have similar or differing English language requirements ITLS scores okay so in Malaysia we do have a government stipulation that all incoming international students have to have competency in English and so basically if they're students where English is not their first language they would have to have IELTS or where the medium that they're taught in is not English they would also have to have IELTS and an average IELTS score really would be around 6.5 or 7 that we would be looking for although the Malaysian government is actually less I think I can just speak a little bit more broadly for MIT we do accept waivers of the IELTS and TOEFL exam within the application often we'll consider your general education if you've got a degree from an English speaking university that can include anywhere in the UK Australia the US as well but we are a little bit more flexible with our requirements here so in Luxembourg we typically also require as in Malaysia IELTS or TOEFL test but as Robert already said first it's also the case that if you are a native English speaker or you had a prior education in English that it is possible to waive this requirement what I also want to note with that is that we for example also look at your motivation letter because you will there be writing this in English so we can also evaluate your level of English based on this letter so thank you Sarah so in short, yeah we don't ask again for this test it can be expensive right so what we do is also to analyze your English proficiency through your recommendation sorry through your motivation letter or the way in which you speak and you develop some kind of interviews I actually develop some kind of random interviews from time to time in order to double check your listening speaking and other skills I won't repeat what my colleagues just said because it's the same applies to our programs and also you have to have into consideration as a part of your application you will need to submit a video statement so my recommendation and I think everybody could be just try to be spontaneous we want to see your soft skills so try not to read from the screen because we can tell yes I'm not reading from the screen slightly but I hope you can tell so Aditya asked a related question about the placements for the global masters program are there specific placements available from Zaragoza well Aditya we work with a number of companies and we've been working over the years so the idea is that some of these companies are going to come and recruit so for this academic year from February onwards and that it will be the same case for the following year if you're enrolling the global supply and sale management program for academic year 2021 I think so yes there is prospects so if you aim to have placements in Europe some of the companies that's something that you also have to have in mind is that some companies may not sponsor work permits and I think that this is a case for most of the programs that being said if you target companies then we can work together so not only in Zaragoza but also in Malaysia to try to find the job that you're looking for so we will support you in that sense ok so just to add to that yes we have business partners in Malaysia just the same as they do in ZLC and the same business partners come every single year to interview our students for one very good reason and I'm sure the same at all the other centres is they're fully aware of the standard of student that the scale centre produces and that's why they come back every year obviously as we said earlier we help the students with their resume their cover letter, their interview techniques but ultimately it's down to the student when it comes to the interview to convince the employer that they're the right person for them I'm going to combine a couple questions from Jekin and then anonymous attendee that's a great name you have so what about the person who has entrepreneurship experience or wants to have entrepreneurship experience and the person who may have started their own business maybe 13 years in the field maybe a little bit older can you speak to how the program is good or maybe not so good for them at your centre so yeah in terms of work experience as I mentioned especially more senior executives or people who are further in the workforce often we would recommend trying to pursue the micro masters in supply chain management and pursuing our blended program given that it's only five months on campus it's more realistic that somebody can take the time out of their work schedule to pursue the micro masters while they're working and then come to MIT for just the five months entrepreneurship is a big initiative here at MIT so there are definitely groups that can help up and coming entrepreneurs create their business I actually just saw an advertisement yesterday and our students here are very engaged in that idea as well so there's definitely resources available supporting both ends a couple of students found out that during these independent activities programs there's lots of opportunities for students to do all the things besides the three-week study that they're undertaking here so one of the courses that is being offered at the moment is entrepreneurship so some of the students are currently attending the six sessions it's an intensive course but they can manage because it's right after the regular classes so there's lots of things that you can do besides what's planned for you during these three weeks although it's a heavy schedule but as you can see there's many things that you will be able to do if you're interested in entrepreneurship probably I will add a little bit here in the case of the Gislok program we have actually a week where we teach entrepreneurship in supply chain management and the idea is to help like the different profile of people that we bring to the program so we have people from 25 years old until actually 50 years old in order to take advantage of this type of course and actually develop something like that we call the micro logistic challenge and it's actually to create like a kind of a start-up out of this so I don't want I won't spoil this too much but that's more or less the idea and this helps you actually preparing and putting to practice what you will learn with the other guys that are coming from different backgrounds and different industries and actually this is quite an adventure so in Luxembourg part of our program is also about leadership and management so we have some courses that also focus on for example leadership skills and as Marta already mentioned indeed here at the IAP you also get the opportunity to take some extra entrepreneurship related courses so that gives you a great start there Thanks Sarah so I have some questions specifically for Luxembourg just one from Akbar is IELTS enough for your entrance so so for the language so we have either IELTS or TOEFL so either of the two is good to show your English capabilities Thank you and then this is very specific ECTS score is 120 is that sufficient to apply I think for that I would have to refer you to our compact person so I can give you an email address to check for these numbers After this webinar we'll be sending automatic emails to everyone who's attended and if you are watching this later after the webinar we will still be able to communicate with you with fine details, links and email addresses for all the people that you may need to speak with so Vikrant is asking about scholarship, asking about money can we talk about what is available from the various centers that will finance their education Actually specific to the global master's program I would like to hear about it from everyone but if you want to start with the global that would be great Okay so this is a matter that it's currently being discussed because for the time being there is no scholarships available but we're going to discuss about this next week we do have a very good financial aid program the residential program which includes a loan which is available and that can cover up to 70% of tuition and we have different scholarships available so supply chain promising professionals we have a scholarship which is specific for women and that can cover up to 50% we have master's degree competition for Spanish candidates that can be a full scholarship scholarships for Spanish students for European students we have a scholarship for African students so we know that in some cases financing may be difficult because tuition is high and you're also expected to live 10 months abroad so we try to help you as much as we can and also for the blended program there is no scholarship available so far Okay so really for all centers I think we would all say that try and complete your application with everything that you possibly got to give us everything show us how good and what skills you've actually got and that will really help give you the opportunity to put forward and ask us for scholarships but without all the information it's very difficult for us to actually answer this question Yeah, MIT has funds available for fellowships both for our blended and residential programs we offer fellowships for merit we also have scholarships for diversity including women and supply chain and we partner with the awesome organization to offer one full fellowship for advancing women in supply chain which we will be excited to announce later this month So we offer scholarships that can range between 25% and 100% of your admission fee and the important to note here is that for us the scholarship application is open to everyone so regardless of of your background so everyone can apply for these scholarships Well in my case actually the tuition waivers of the GCLO program go from 10% to actually 70% to be completely honest we have a very nice scholarship that is 100% but this is actually reserved for someone who lives in a vulnerable position and actually who can become changed island in their community so as you can imagine this is very specific and we have actually granted that type of a scholarship only two times in the whole history of the program so just to give you an idea Wonderful, thank you Chris triggered my memory MIT itself also offers fellowships for our for students to MIT for very specific ranges we have fellowships for Egyptian students if you've worked in the agricultural industry even fellowships here from the state of Texas so they're very specific I will consider those at the time that you apply There is a financial office at MIT that carries lists and lists of current fellowship and scholarship opportunities that are available based on various conditions that you might find yourself in for mutations Moises asks about the difference between or can folks comment on he's thinking about applying he or she is thinking about applying to the round 3 deadline this year or the round 1 deadline next year is there an advantage to either or to the deadlines or I'll lead off one thing to take into consideration is just your work experience so if you have met that level of work experience have at least 2 to 5 years then you really can take advantage and apply in round 3 this year to see what your options are if you're still looking to gain a little bit more experience and it might make sense to wait a little bit longer for our blended program you do need to take the full MicroMasters credential you might have to plan some extra time to finish those as well and it's just really determining if you can complete the GMAT requirement in time as well I think that this is more like a strategic power on your side and I agree with Robert to know what he mentioned but actually in the case at least of the GSLO program every time we receive a higher quality in the students and also the variety of profiles that we are receiving is very diverse so I don't know it could be that probably your chances or the opportunity that you get admitted in the third round probably are going to be higher but I mean it's something that is difficult to mention to be honest it's up to you and up to let's say how you feel about applying now or later alright thank you very much can folks apply to more than one center yep so talk about the application a little bit yep so we welcome applications to all of our centers we all sync on the same admission cycle with three rounds for our residential programs and two rounds for our blended programs one advantage if you if you only apply to our scale centers there is no application fee if you apply to MIT we do require the $75 application fee and if you're looking to if you've been qualified for both programs you only have to pay one fee so we're happy to consider your application for both styles of programs in terms of the application process and the other components I think we've reiterated a lot of the major pieces your video statement a written statement it's also worth mentioning that you would require two letters of recommendation usually one from an academic source and one from a professional source what are the other components your GRE and GMAT which we've discussed pretty extensively and then just the application as a whole yep I think that's a the largest overview possible great and that covers everyone yeah can you talk a little bit about the letters of recommendation as well that you'd like to have from folks who are applying the types of letters you'd like to get well I think Robert already commented on that it's true that we prefer to have one from academia and one from industry but it would really depend on your profile so if you've been working for 15 years it may be very difficult to get a professional recommendation from a professor that you had more than 20 years ago so then we would take two industry recommendations but ideally if you're like on average of age and of work experience we would like to have one of it could I just add we also look for if you can have a letter of recommendation from your immediate boss rather than somebody else it's also very beneficial as well just one comment for those who are eager to provide as many letters of recommendation as possible we do have to cap it at 5 so it is in your best interest to select the reviewers that can provide you the most competitive recommendation within that range I will just add so of course no family members, no friends submitting applications for you immediate boss in some cases we found it difficult because probably you haven't told your boss already that you want to enroll in a master's program but as someone whom you've been reporting to and close with that be great excellent any other comments there okay so there's still some curiosity about Luxembourg and the GRE requirement can you just talk a little bit more if it's required so we have indeed normally the requirement of a GMAT or GRE but if you have a prior education that is analytical or mathematical so we're thinking for example an engineering background this could also I mean wave your GMAT or your GRE because this shows that you have strong analytical capabilities although if you come from a center that is lesser known if you come from a smaller university or lesser known university then we do recommend to submit the GMAT or GRE just to really show us that you are a strong analytical thinker thank you again I appreciate that I think some people might be joining later so they're missing some of the earlier questions this webinar is recorded and it will be made available to everyone who's registered so if you felt like you've missed part of it you can go back and see the beginning part so student life a little bit about student life we're rounding in on being about an hour so I will probably start to wrap it up are students able to work while they're pursuing their degrees at your center so I'll come in from MIT our program is full time and you can expect to have classes from 8.30 all the way until 7pm on certain days you would independently craft your own schedule but definitely it wouldn't allow time for working for international students in particular we do not offer on-campus work experience as a part of the program so you would not get work authorization so it is full time will require more than 40 hours in devotion so and MISI is very very similar in fact we have other programs we have a master's part time program at MISI where a lot of the classes are at the weekend so some of the full time students would also join the part time students at the weekend and we also have evening classes so basically just to reaffirm what Robert was saying it's really a full on program there's no opportunity I'm afraid at MISI to work so the same as my colleague said also holds for Luxembourg so we have a full time program where you have classes usually between 9am and 5pm so really between regular business hours we do foresee one free day per week in the program but that is usually meant to work on your master thesis project so that wouldn't really leave room for you to do a full time job at the same time okay in Zaragoza unfortunately so you will be in the country on a student visa so you won't be able to work and of course as my colleagues were mentioning so your days are going to be very full so that wouldn't be an option either you will usually have class in the morning and then you're going to have to have group assignments individual assignments 40 or beyond so work is not a possibility but besides taking the courses and the masters there will also be time to have some fun in the case of the Gislo program as I mentioned before actually this will allow you to work but not here in the US so basically it means that you're going to be working in your home country and just let me emphasize a couple of things so you are going to be coming to MIT three weeks in July and three weeks in January the rest of the experience before the first residential experience is an online course that you are going to be taking so you will manage your time to do that but this is remotely so you will be connecting from your computer elsewhere in the world and you will go for it in the case of the third model that is the capstone project is a three person team project well you're going to be arranging or scheduling meetings with your advisor but you don't need to be on campus so just let me emphasize that so the flexibility comes from you working in your current work or in your current home country but not here actually I never recommend that even if you come here during July for the first seminar you should actually ask for vacation because it's very intensive so you're going to be receiving like 30 classes so forget about that actually in average I think that the people sleep like 3-4 hours per night so that's it it's very intensive so I'm just going to because I'm the communications officer you can do this you guys can't it's MIT people you're not going to have time to work I work here and I work all the time as well just to support the program so it's rigorous it's amazing there's always a lot to do there's always a lot to explore at all of the partner universities but also at MIT when you're on campus and then the network of people that you meet they've had work experience we've got three questions right now from Rajiv Bilaj and Jatin who are probably at the same phase in their career I'm at 12, 15, 17 years of experience we answered this question earlier but I I'm just going to bring it up again it seems like there are a lot of people who want to be in the supply chain field is there a room for folks who have a lot of experience just one comment would be good I'll throw out my earlier comment often we see applicants to the blended program with more experience so I would say that is one avenue to definitely take into consideration if you're looking for an academic experience with a full degree try to focus on the micromaster supply chain and consider the blended program we have blended programs in Zaragoza and at MIT and MISI as well I am going to make a quick plug we have about eight minutes left make a quick plug for the micromasters if you're located anywhere that's not close to one of our centers and you'd like to get a taste of what kind of material that we will be working with in the programs I would suggest going to edX.org checking out the micromasters and supply chain management courses they're 10 per year it's a great way to get your feet wet you can see the content for free you only have to pay if you wish to have an assessment and go on the track so a little plug for those to get an idea of course the scale website has a lot of information but for the last few minutes here what's the fun stuff what do people get to do what they're doing to get their degree completed so I'll jump in for MIT you get to network with your 80 cohort students so we have 40 for the residential program and 40 for the blended and really it's that alumni engagement that they bring they become a network that they use throughout their life that we hear time and time again outside of the classroom they are organizing events they just went on a ski trip last weekend we'll have our study track and spring break coming up so there's a lot of social interactions throughout the year that I think really define the program because when you reflect on your time at school probably maybe half of your time you'll think about the classes but you'll also think about the people you've met and the experiences you shared so I think that is a lot of 40 students for each program it really supports supports you and supports everybody else okay so at Malaysia we have a lot of cultural events similar to Robert we also take our students to various different visits to company visits it could be to one of the ports in Malaysia because as we know the Malaysia Straits is one of the biggest seafaring ports in the world so we take them to the Malaysia Straits there are lots and lots of cultural events Malaysia is a multi-cultural society so this week we have Chinese New Year which is a week off we have Harry Ryer which is the Muslim week that we have we have Diwali which is the Indian week and then obviously we have Christmas as well so we have lots of holidays so there's lots of stuff to do down there okay so yes it's a great place to be four years now so okay so if you decide to come to Saragota so then you'll leave the Spanish experience to the maximum so not only the culture that I mentioned at the beginning but also the food is fabulous we know how to party like all the places will be open all night long so as I mentioned the program is very intensive but there is time to have fun and then of course you can travel all around the country we have beautiful islands and we're also just to fly away from the major European cities so you might know that Luxembourg is a pretty small country but it's really located in the heart of Europe so that means well one we are an international and multi-lingual environment which is really nice to be if you're an international student also of course if you're a local student you must know that 40% of the people in Luxembourg are actually expats so it makes it really nice to interact with a lot of people and come from all over the world of course Luxembourg itself is a really nice both city and country to live in but it's also a good starting point to explore the rest of Europe because you can really get anywhere in a really short amount of time so next to the program you can also do that and you must know that Luxembourg is also an industrial and financial heart really in Europe where there are a lot of big companies present and as my colleagues already mentioned if you really try to also get you to interact with those companies also throughout the program I mean we have Amazon we have Microsoft, we have Vodafone so we really have some multi-nationals present in Luxembourg and we really try to also get you in touch with those people get to visit companies to really enrich the whole experience okay thank you well I will try to divide like the funny part of the Giselo program right in three parts so the first one what we prepare here on campus right when the people are here we also have like certain parties we have barbecues etc so that's the funny part right of course from time to time we hand out with each other so that's the good part of the program and we also prepare like the formal part that's the second part that I want to talk about we have like site bc it's another type of very interesting site scene activities and the third one probably is the most interesting one is once you get graduated of course it's like an international community so you will have the opportunity to be visiting different countries and this happens actually right now because remember that the third model you are abroad not here at MIT so some colleagues or students are actually traveling to other countries visiting their current classmates right so it's funny so yeah I would say that's the funny part excellent so thank you all for taking an hour today out of the IAP schedule we have seven to seven every day so I really appreciate you all being here for an hour it's great we have about two minutes left I would like to use because we do have two questions well there's actually three questions about work sorry my bad is a local language necessary in Luxembourg in order to work there that's a very good question so the answer is no because Luxembourg is such an international environment everybody speaks English in Luxembourg so you can perfectly come there live there study and find a job in English so it is highly appreciated if you speak French or German but it is not required and the Letzberg so the other official language is not a requirement for sure to get a job there what is also nice to know is that our university offers courses in French and in German to get familiar with one of the local languages then this is also an option but English is for sure enough to get around in Luxembourg great thank you for that thank you again definitely apply definitely reach out we'll be following up with a lot more information and hopefully this has been helpful for you in understanding a little bit more about our programs so thank you very much