 Good morning, everybody, and thank you for joining the MIT Scale Global Network Admissions webinar. My name is Robert Cummings, and I work at MIT in the Center for Transportation and Logistics, supporting the SCM blended program here at MIT. Today's webinar will give you a chance to hear from representatives from all of our six Scale Global Network Centers. We'll start off with some brief introductions from everybody here, followed by questions related to the admissions process, and then focused on questions related to student life and the experience. Throughout the webinar, please submit your questions through the Google Hangouts, and we'll do our best to answer as many as possible. To start off, I would like to introduce the MIT Scale Global Network as a whole. The network includes six centers of excellence with over 10 educational programs represented here, over 60 researchers and faculty, and then 180 students who are currently on campus, and this leads to thousands of alumni worldwide. Now I'll pass the mic along to my first colleague, Chris. OK. Thank you, Robert. Well, I hope that you are enjoying yourselves, guys. Well, my name is Chris Mejia, Mexican, and I'm the director of the Graduate Certificate in Logistics and Supply Change Management, the GCLOC program. This program is offered here at MIT, and it's very flexible because you actually have four different models. The first model is actually an online model where we will set the fundamentals so that once you arrive to MIT in the second model, you will be able to enjoy all the experience and to keep the pace that is going to be very fast. The second model is actually the July seminar. You will have around, well, over 25 different lectures with people from MIT CTL who are going to be teaching you different topics regarding your van logistics, humanitarian logistics, retail operations, et cetera, et cetera. So afterwards, once you need to digest all these three-week periods, well, you will come back to your home countries, and then you will need to develop something that we call the capstone project in which you will put into practice what you learned here. Once you finish this project, well, you will come back to MIT in January in order to go, well, to stay here for three weeks, as well, and to enjoy what we call Scale Connect, or the IAP period, where you are going to be sharing classes, lectures, site visits with some people from other programs in the world from our scale's network as well. I think in general terms, that's it. I could supplement some information by saying that this is an important program. What we offer at the end is a certificate that is valid across the world. It has the quality of MIT, of course. And what should I add? Well, originally, this program was only for Latin Americans, because this was based on our center in Latin America that is located in Bogota. But currently, we are offering some seats for people from Africa as well in order to configure this global south hemisphere and to face the challenges that all these people have. And as a Mexican, I will tell you that I know that the logistic challenges are huge in these areas. So I'm sure that you would learn a lot from this program as well. So in short, this is for outstanding students in Latin America and some seats for Africans. So thank you very much, guys. So Melanie. Hi, guys. My name is Melanie Winter. I'm the program admin for the master's program in Logistics and Supply Chain Management at the LCL, which is the Luxembourg Center for Logistics. In this center that we usually call LCL, we offer a 10-month master's program in Logistics and Supply Chain Management, located in the capital of Europe. And so as my colleagues said, we belong to the scale network and offer the same quality as the MIT Interim of Educational Program. Students would start their year at Luxembourg with a four-month courses. Then we'll join Boston for the IAP that my colleague just mentioned and meets all the students from the scale center. And then come back to Luxembourg and write their thesis, mostly for the summer semester, a thesis that is written in collaboration with a local company or company from what we call the greater region that includes Belgium, France, Germany, and Luxembourg. I will pass the mic to my colleague just in there. Thanks, Melanie. My name is Justin Snow. I am the academic administrator for the Supply Chain Management residential program here at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It's an intensive 10-month roughly program where students will arrive here in August, participate in orientation program, and then continue on not only with their academics, but also an intensive period of recruiting and interviewing for jobs, pretty much from the get-go when you get here in August. We are in the midst of IAP, which is the winter portion of the program. And then once we reach spring, students are also very engaged in their thesis and capstone projects. We also have study track opportunities. So we have three week-long trips, including Panama and two that go to the West Coast of the United States. So we have lots to offer, and we definitely pack in a lot in one year. I will also be speaking to the other program that we have here, which is the Supply Chain Management Blended Program. And there are many similarities. They both lead to the same degree. However, the students entering the blended program do begin remotely by completing the MicroMasters certificate and then join the residential students, along with the scale network in January. So they just arrived a few weeks ago. We will be answering and elaborating more on the items I discussed. So I will pass that now to David. Thank you. Good morning. My name is David Baylis, Director of the Master's Program at the Malaysia Institute for Supply Chain Innovation, MISI. A little bit about MISI first. It was launched in 2011 as a joint venture between the Malaysian government and MIT. And as a result, we are based in Shah Alam, which is about 30 kilometers from the capital Kuala Lumpur. So Missy offers a nine-month program. We have an MIT faculty. We follow the MIT scale curriculum. We have one month, as all the centers do, here at MIT. And we have extensive interaction with industry, specifically in respect to job placement, as is a serious lack of supply chain talent in Asia. We offer scholarships to students with the right credentials. And from a budget perspective, we feel that our course program and the cost of living is slightly a little bit more affordable than some of the other centers. So come to MISI, experience a world-class education, and discover Asia as a progressive and dynamic world leader. Thank you. And I'm going to pass now to... So hello, everybody, and welcome to this webinar. My name is Marta Romero. I'm the Director of the International Master's Program in Zaragoza, in Spain. First of all, I would like to let you all know that the Zaragoza Center was the first scale center that was established back in 2003, and we're actually celebrating our 15th anniversary next month. I'm also here with the students. And this is our 15th generation of the CELOC program. The CELOC program is the full-time master's program, so 10 months, like the rest of the programs that you heard from my colleagues. You heard about the courses. The curriculum is the same as here at MIT. The only big difference, I would say, is the electives. When it comes to the electives, students here in the SEM program take more general electives, like they can take some electives at Sloan or Harvard. And our electives are still very much focused on supply chain. Students work on a thesis project. We work with multinationals. We created back in 2008 a program, which is the Zaragoza Academic Partners. So we had, until now, 34 companies that have been sponsoring projects up until now. And they also come and recruit our students. So big point is important for us, the recruitment part. At least 90% to 95% of our students will receive one job offer during the course, or within six months from graduation. And then we have two more projects, two more programs. Sorry. So one is the Blender program. So MISI and MIT have that as well. So some of the students are here with us as well. As I mentioned before, so this is the period when all the students convene. So from all the different centers, the difference. So after completing the micro master is that our students are required to work on a capstone project. So the students have the opportunity to decide on the topic to either have a company sponsor the project or come up with an entrepreneurship project themselves. That would be like the main difference. And also the fact that it's a bit strange for us to have our blended students join here in January and not in Zaragoza like we do with our residential students. And I'm sitting here with Wilson, whom you'll hear about later. He's my colleague from the NIMBO program. We have another program, which is called 3C program, which is in collaboration with them. So the students get the opportunity to spend the full term in NIMBO, then come to MIT in January and join us in Zaragoza for the spring term. And last but not least, we have 325 alumni from them. We're very proud of these people are great. And they are not only very successful at the moment, but they also helps us all the step. So they help us during the admission process. They help us securing thesis projects as well as recruiting opportunities. And we'll be happy to take any questions from you later on. Thanks, Matta. Hi, everyone. My name is Wilson. I come from NIMBO Supply Trade Innovation Institute, China. As you know, NIMBO Supply Trade Innovation Institute, China is the newest member of the scale network. On 2016, the government of NIMBO signed a strategic cooperation agreement with MIT and to jointly establish the NIMBO Supply Trade Innovation Institute, China, an education and research center in China focused on supply chain management and logistics. And we have two degree programs. One is as Matta said, we have a 3C program. And the one is MIT NIMBO Supply Trade Management Program. The NIMBO Supply Trade Innovation, the NIMBO Supply Trade Management Program delivers cutting-edge knowledge and express in program solving, changing management, and leaderships. And we look forward to you, enjoy the 2019 intake. And welcome to NIMBO. Thank you, everybody, for introducing your programs. And now we'll move to questions. The first focus is on admissions and general inquiries. So we got a few that came in while we are doing the introductions. Maybe we could briefly just mention the cost or financial support that each program can offer that students can expect. OK, yeah, if you would just want to jump in. OK, perfect. Yeah, the cost of the Giselo program in this case is $10,000. However, we have a network that is the scale Latin American network and the members of this network. They have a discount of $1,500. So in this case, they are going to be paying a bit less. And we also provide around like 17 different tuition waivers that go from 25% to 100%. We only have one scholarship of 100%. So the sooner you apply, the better. We have three rounds of applications. So you can check the rest of the information in the website. So, Melanie. Hi, so the cost for the program in Luxembourg is $24,000 for the 10 months. It includes the accommodation for the duration of the IEP in Boston. Then the students have to take care of their own daily expenses and accommodation while they're staying in Luxembourg, knowing that the university offer a wide range of possible accommodation for its students. Then we offer a scholarship program for applicants that is open to everyone, regardless of their nationalities, that can go from 25 to 100% just like Christopher's. So the current cost of the residential program specifically is $74,200. And then the blended is 60% of that. We do have various fellowship and scholarship opportunities. All applicants are automatically assessed for two programs, Women in Supply Chain and Scale Scholars. We also have an opportunity that was new this year, which funds a full tuition and two half tuition scholarships. And that is referred to as the Awesome Scholarship. And that's an acronym related to the organization that sponsors this scholarship in conjunction. And that is specifically for women. As part of the onboarding process, if you are admitted, we do help to connect you with various financial resources and other institutions that can assist you in financing the education here. So the cost of the program at MISI in Malaysian Ringgit is $85,000, which is just over $20,000 USD. Once again, similar to the other centers, we also offer scholarships. And as Justin said, regarding women in transport or supply chain, we also give special concessions to scholarships for women. So we have a number of different scholarships we offer within Malaysia that are sponsored by the Malaysian government and various different entities in Malaysia. It just depends on which category you fall into. So if you look at the MISI website, you will actually see the scholarships on offer. OK, so the tuition for the C-LOC program is 24,000 euros same as the program in Luxembourg. We do have a very good financial aid program that includes scholarships and a loan. Scholarships, we have different ones. And depending on your eligibility, you can apply for several scholarships. So we have a specific one for Spanish candidates, for European candidates, for African candidates, a special one for women and one which is more general, which is open to all nationalities. Regarding the bank loan, it's a guaranteed loan that will cover up to 80% of the tuition. It doesn't include living expenses. And the 3C program tuition is 28,000. And the blended program is 17,700 euros. I'm afraid that currently there is not financial aid available for these programs. Tuition for the 2019 class of MISI is almost $25,000 in total over two years. And our program is a two-year MBA program. And the tuition includes a round-trip ticket to MIT IAP program. And we provide different kinds of scholarships for more information. And you can log on our website to know more details. That's all. Yeah, great. Thank you for answering the questions and sort of giving an overview of our tuition structures. And now we have a few questions about the blended admissions process. So maybe I'll gear this one towards Marta first. And I can always jump in as well. What are the capstone or the project requirements in the application? What do people have to put together in order to apply? Well, in order to apply, you just need to come up with a research proposal of something that you're interested in, or something that you're maybe thinking of discussing with your current company. This doesn't mean that it would be necessarily the project that you will be working on when you join the program. Because, for instance, what we do is that we gather together the proposals that you guys are going to have in your applications. And we're going to also see with our faculty members, which are the topics which are more relevant and more interesting. And what we will do is we will pair you up and work together on the capstone project. So that may change during the course of the admission and the time that you arrive to the program. And in fact, that's what we've seen this year. I'll pass it on to Justin, because maybe for them it's a bit different. Robert, did you want to test to this? Yeah, just commenting on what Marta said as well for the blended program here at MIT. We do look at the research proposal sort of as an exercise in you putting together a topic of research. We do have the caveat that it doesn't have to be a fully fledged proposal in terms of getting sponsorship from a company at the application stage. We would do that over the summer after admission. So you don't have to worry about getting a solid commitment from a company that early on. And I guess I'll just add one comment to clarify that if you are interested in the residential program, this is not a part of the application. And you will have the opportunity to be provided with a capstone project. So that is something that is sorted out and decided right from the get go during orientation. That's one of the primary items of orientation in August. Yeah, and actually a question for Justin that came up just now is could you explain just a little bit of the background of how the MicroMasters courses fit into the admissions process for the residential program? Sure. So as I had previously mentioned, those who complete the entire MicroMasters are eligible to apply for the blended program. But what we found is that many applicants are now applying to the residential program and have either completed the entire certificate or have completed anywhere between one and four to five of the MicroMasters courses. So one item that I'll start off with highlighting is that if you do take three of the courses, specifically the first three, and you do well, and it is somewhat up to the discretion of the admissions committee, you can waive the GMAT and GRE requirement. So this is definitely an alternative avenue that many applicants are taking. I will note that many applicants submit with both. They will have the GMAT and GRE, and also a few of the SCX courses, which are the courses with the MicroMasters. So your performance on the MicroMasters courses definitely holds heavy weight with the admissions committee. And again, if you submit without the GMAT or GRE, your performance on these courses will be judged in lieu of one of those test scores. So definitely, if you are considering taking these courses with the intent on applying to residential, make sure you're taking it as a verified student as well. And that is when you would not only register for the course, but pay the $200 fee to become verified. And that's how you take the graded leveled course that's required and looked at highly as far as from the admissions standpoint for residential. And it looks like the questions are flowing in faster than I can get them. So just to point out, if we don't grab everyone's question, we still have a log, and we'll answer them after the webinar. But just some ones that have come up since. One question for Marta. Do students applying to the PhD program in Zaragoza need to first complete the masters in order to apply? No, that was a requirement before. But it's true that due to the Bologna regulations, you would need to be a holder of a master's degree. So that would be a requirement for you to enroll in the program. Roleing in the CELOC program will not grant you direct access to the PhD program. And a question for Melanie for the program in Luxembourg. Do students have to be proactive in finding companies themselves for your research projects? That would be provided by the center directly. We make a work of partnership with local and greater region companies. And then we have a matching system to find the best matching between the company and the students profile. Excellent. Thanks for explaining. Yeah, just some questions about test scores. If anybody just wants to chime in of what range of GRE or GMAT scores that you might consider for your programs, maybe if we start with David. So from MISI's point of view, we actually take the full package into consideration. So if somebody has a lower GMAT score, but they have a good GPA, they might have micro masses, they could have Lean Six Sigma, they could have all sorts of experience in supply chain, could have a number of years in supply chain. So generally speaking, if they score higher on these other areas, then it's possible that we can lower the grade slightly for the GMAT score. But average GMAT score at the moment is anywhere between, is around about 620 to 660 for MISI. But we do go slightly lower, depending on the full package that a candidate has to offer. So on the website, we have posted minimum percentiles for specific sections of both the GMAT and GRE. So for the verbal and quantitative sections, it's the 75th percentile. And then the analytical writing is the 50th percentile. Similar, piggybacking off of what David said, we do review every application that comes in. We do take a holistic approach to reviewing applicants. So, and I get this question a lot, if somebody is slightly below a percentage, they ask if they can still apply. And I encourage all interested applicants to apply, because again, you're not going to necessarily be disqualified. But again, just keep in mind that we are looking to see and evaluate whether you'll be able to excel academically here. And so that's a lot of the reason why we have and look for these test scores. But like I said, if we can find other areas of your application which attest to strong quantitative abilities, such as in your academic background, or like I had said with the MicroMasters courses, that could potentially make up for a weakness or something or a score that's slightly below one of these percentages. Hi, Martin. If I just may add, so same as for the SEM and the programming in Malaysia, we also take into account that if you guys come from an engineering background, you can send us your transcripts and then we can assess whether or not we can waive the GMAT or GRI requirement. Excellent. And that's actually a perfect transition to some more questions that we have related to work experience. Some students have asked if they don't have work experience in supply chain, is that still OK? What sort of experience would you be looking for? Can throw it to Melanie if you would like to ask. Hi, so as David said just earlier, we will also look at the general picture of your profile. And we already accepted in the past some students that didn't get any professional experience. But just for instance, a six month traineeship in supply chain management, that would depend. If you have excellent academic performances, that would compensate. And if you have excellent motivation, that could compensate as well for some work experience. That was for Luxembourg. And also I'd add that on their submission, if they have a passion for supply chain, this will also count quite highly because you have to have a passion for anything you want to do in life. So that's the big consideration as well. OK, well, in the case of the GCLO program, what we do is, yes, of course, the work experience is very important. But again, just to build upon what my colleagues mentioned, yes, we consider also the passion and things like that. I just would like to add something else. And it's for those professionals who were recently graduated from a master's or a certificate in their home countries, again, Latin America or Africa, you are also eligible. And what we consider there, sometimes we take into account if you have been recently updated with these courses from the MicroMasters, or if you have been involved in similar things, right? And to close the loop, again, talking regarding the experience, well, the most important part is not only the passion, I could say, but I could add also that that's the advantage of supply chain management, right? So you can have accountants that are developing an understanding better, the cash flow. And the same happens for the physical flow and the information flow. So we really believe in the Gislok program that you can have a very good fit here. I just wanted to add a little bit in general and kind of going off what Chris said, that I get questions a lot, sent resumes. Again, we definitely don't want to discourage you from applying if you don't feel that you necessarily have a supply chain background because we do get people from a broad spectrum of industries, engineering, operations, consulting, family businesses. So again, it's always great to receive resumes and you can certainly reach out to us and ask more specifically where the situation. But I did want to note that our program is designed for early to mid-career level professionals. So most successfully admitted applicants do fall in the three to eight years of work experience, not necessarily a supply chain experience, but just in general. And again, that's speaking for here at MIT. But again, we do have outliers. So we have people who are later in their careers and people with just two years of work experience. And on that same note, for the blended programs, we also consider applicants for more of a non-traditional background. So they may have significantly more work experience. So that shouldn't be a deterrent either part of you. So for our programs, it's true that we request for a couple of years of experience to join the ECLoc program. But as Melanie said, also if we see that there is a recent graduate where we see the potential, we would admit him. In fact, one of our current students is only 23. And as for the blended program, which the profile is, the people are a bit older in that sense and they have many more years of experience. We have someone who is 55. So for us, learning is, it's a lifelong learning experience. And we welcome either students who have with a little or not relevant experience in supply chain or people with more than 15, 20 years in supply chain. Diversity is very important, not only in the regarding the nationality, but also the work experience that the students bring into the classroom. Thank you. And as we think of more aspects of the application, it's worth pointing out that we have two dedicated application systems, one for the residential programs or actually three, one for the residential programs, one for the blended programs and then one for the certificate program, which is a GC log. And applicants can apply to both residential and blended applications in a given year. So you can apply to all the programs if you've taken the MicroMasters. I know that was an earlier question. One question that's moving on to other components of the application, TOEFL and English requirements, can you speak to some of the requirements that you have? Yeah, for Malaysia, we're obviously governed as many of the other centers are by the government regulations. And Malaysian regulations are such that if a candidate comes from a country where the first language is not English, then they'll be expected to have TOEFL or IELTS. So for example, if you came from Australia, which is an English speaking country, you wouldn't need any TOEFL or IELTS. Similarly, if your degree is not taught in English, then you would have to have TOEFL or IELTS. So we, as I'm sure the other centers, we don't have any discretion on government policy. So it just depends on what country you're from, who you are and what the government regulation is within each of the centers. At MIT, we do also require the TOEFL and IELTS for those individuals that English is not their native language. However, we have a little more flexibility if you did earn a degree from an institution where English is the primary language of instruction, whether that be for your undergraduate or masters, you can select, and it's really just a box on the application, request a waiver and we will assess whether that's granted and reach back out to you if we need further information after you submit your application. Our recommendation is same to the just instead and we provide the addition course in Chinese. So you come to the Newport Center, we will teach you Chinese and you know more and more people want to learn Chinese. So you can learn both supply chain measurement and Chinese in Newport Center. We also take into consideration whether the candidate is living in an English speaking country or has been working there for a while. If there is a doubt, we conduct a phone interview and we know that taking total is time consuming and it's also expensive. So for those people who have this experience abroad and are working with English speaking people then we can of course consider waiving the requirement. We also accept IELTS, Cambridge Certificate, all kinds of English certification. Just to clarify for those interested in the GCLOC program, the same that was mentioned by my colleague Marta applies here. That it sometimes these tests are expensive. So we wave that depending on the profile that you have. Thank you, Chris. And to wrap up our admissions questions, I know we have a lot still coming in but just one more component to mention is the video statement. Can anybody comment on a few key points that they take into consideration when reviewing applications? So, and before I begin, we do have a few pointers on our website. If you wanna check them out for the video statement. We of course wanna hear your answers to the prompts that we have. But at the end of the day, we also want to get a feel for who you are as a person, your personality. You don't need to feel like you have to produce this very impressive studio video. You can just set something up at home on your phone. We really are trying to just get a feel for who you are as a person and get to know you. So that's my best advice. Yes, and also do not read from the screen on your computer, we can tell. I think those are some great tips. So why don't we, I've collected a few questions related to student life and sort of the experience, the education aspects. So one question that came up is do any of your programs offer part-time opportunities? And can you speak to that if it's possible to work during your program? Part-time opportunities for the full-time master students? Yes. Well, at MISI, we actually do have a part-time program which operates at the weekend. So what we do with some of our full-time students, they attend some of the part-time courses and similarly some of the full-time students attend the part-time and the part-time attend the full-time. So in interact both sets of courses. We also have evening courses. So at MISI when we have visiting faculty from MIT, we always insist that they teach the courses in the evening. And this way then we have the full-time students and the part-time students attend. So at the moment we have about 140 part-time students and so they will interact with the, so we blend the whole lot together. We also have a part-time program but this one is mostly taught in Spanish. So 80% of the classes will be taught in Spanish. It's taught three times a week. So on Monday, Tuesdays and Thursdays. And that's so that it will allow time for the Spanish people to join the program after they're done with their work day. Yeah, and then Justin wants to just comment on what people can expect from us. So at the programmatic level, we officially don't allow students to work just because it is so intense as far as the academics and the recruiting and everything that we have as far as the program. However, we have 40 students from a broad spectrum of industries and they also have a broad spectrum of capabilities and situations. So we can assess on a case-by-case basis if that's something that needs to be done or is of interest. We can have discussions once we're at the point of admission and we're working on onboarding. Okay, maybe just to emphasize what I mentioned at the beginning. Well, the certificate is actually for part-timers, right? That's why it's in these four models starting on May. Then you will come here to MIT. As I mentioned, I'm not going to repeat, but then this is for part-timers and this is actually the most attractive part for the program, right? This flexibility. And our two-year program divided into two parts. The first year is cost-study and the second year, we will provide many opportunity to you. You can choose the industry partner in our institute. You can have a main time to be an intern and if your performance well, the company will give you an offer and you know China is a big marketing in many industries like economic and mobile phones. And you have many jobs in China, yeah. And also in our program, so you won't be able to work while you're studying. First, because of the workload and second, because you will be in the country on student-state, so that won't be a possibility for you to work and study at the same time. So as many people have pointed out here, since working is not an option, you'll be spending most of your time taking classes and working on your capstone projects. Could you just explain a few of the courses, the academic requirements that students might expect, the number of courses or hours that they could expect working? When in Luxembourg, the classes are usually following business hours, so let's say from nine to five. We try to keep one day free of classes for you guys to work on your business project. So that would be a small piece in the winter semester. So from September till December, mostly collecting data for the business, but the most part of the writing up would happen in the summer semester after you come back from Boston. So for the residential program in the fall at MIT, you're taking a lot of the core courses, supply chain database, supply chain finance related courses. You do start the full year length sequence for the capstone thesis. So you hit the ground running and you often will be visiting the sponsoring company for your capstone. So, and again, the fall, a lot of the focus is definitely on the recruiting piece and interviewing for jobs. As we move through into IEP, it's a little more non-traditional. There's lecture, style, opportunities, group project opportunities to collaborate with people from across all of the centers. Spring is more for electives. So we have electives ranging from machine learning, procurement, humanitarian logistics, environmental logistics. So the spring is definitely more of an opportunity for you to explore a little bit, some of maybe your more niche interests. I believe someone mentioned before, but students at MIT do have opportunities to take courses outside of this SCM department. So the Sloan MBA school is definitely an attractive option for students. So there are options to take elective courses with Sloan students as well. Well, at MISI, as I said, we have evening classes, weekend classes, and the residential during the week classes. Normally the weekend classes are electives, similar to yourself. But the days that the students are working at the weekend, they'll have one or two days off during the week. So they'll also be expected to work on their thesis projects. The thesis project is sponsored at MISI by various different companies, which also follows up in February with an internship or one week internship. So we put a matrix together for the students to follow, which gives them two or three days a week to be able to work on their thesis project, although they might be attending classes, full day classes, full one day classes at the weekend with the other students. Okay, so in Zaragoza during the full term, so students are going to be taking most of the core courses, same as the other programs. So the focus here is systems and methods, as they mentioned before. So now that we're all here together at MIT, the focus here would be leading global supply chains. And when we come back to Zaragoza in the spring term, the focus is more specialization. There will still be a couple of core courses, but that's the period when we offer our electives. And also we're not going to have so many courses in the spring so that the students can focus on their thesis project, as well as looking for job opportunities. Here the main course is the same to MIT, the same course. As I mentioned, our program is an MBA program, and our course also includes some MBA courses, like behavioral organization and marketing management. And well, in the case of the G-celog program, well, basically the first model is like 30 hours per week, even that you will be taking these online courses, then you become, let's say a kind of full timer during the visit to MIT on July and also in January. So you will have full day classes. And in the case of the Gapson project, you will need to invest around like 30 hours as well, right, during four months. Thank you, Chris. And now some other components of student life at your campuses. Where do students tend to live in on-campus housing and what sort of cost of living can they expect in the cities that your universities are located at? The first one to respond to this. So we have recently moved to the city center in Zaragoza, so that's gonna be way easier for the students to access with transportation available for everyone. And also living in Spain is not that expensive, so you should account for a budget of 600 euros per month that would include security and accommodation as well as utilities and food and transportation. I would say our costing is a little bit less than Zaragoza. All our students at MISI tend to stay in one big complex area. And they have the opportunity of sharing an apartment with somebody, having their own apartment, having three to an apartment. And it's actually near a shopping mall as well, which is quite handy for them. And then every single morning we have the MISI coach, which brings them from their complex to the MISI campus. At the same time, talking about other things that they get up to at MISI, we'll have cultural events that will take them to Malaysia cultural events, or even the orchestra in the Twin Towers. We take them to various different areas in Malaysia. And also they will visit whether it's one of the ports, Port Dixon will take them to Malacca, take them to various different places while they're here in Malaysia. So there's no getting around, it's quite expensive here in Massachusetts. I will say because of that, most students do live in on-campus housing. It is still relatively expensive, but many of the off-campus options can soar up even beyond that. There's an application process that begins around the end of March for admitted students. I believe about 98% of applicants get housing, but it's not 100% guaranteed. I get that question a lot. There are different options depending on if you want to live by yourself, if you're coming with a family, et cetera. So there's apartment style, single rows. Again, there's a whole website that you can check out related to the different options. As far as off-campus housing, some students do choose to live this. They might have a family member already living in the area, which is convenient. The immediate Cambridge area is quite expensive, but there are more affordable areas in the greater Boston area, but that would require some travel. So we do encourage students to live close to campus just because students that live further away find it cumbersome to go back and forth. And just to put a solid number on that, during the visa application process, the MIT recommends a budget around $1,600 per month in terms of housing, food, supplies, so just to put in perspective. Well, I'm pretty sure Luxembourg can compete on the prices of Cambridge in terms of accommodation. We recommend an overall budget of 1,000 per month, including housing and daily expenses. Most of our students tend to live in Luxembourg city. I don't know if you realize, but Luxembourg, the country is quite small overall. So even if you live in the countryside, the prices don't really go less in terms of prices for accommodation. It's also quite mainstream in Luxembourg city to share flats, not only for students, but also for young professionals. So this is an option that some of our students also picked. And as I said before, the university has a good offer in terms of accommodation from just dorms up to apartment for four or five people. Well, in the case of the Gisela program, given that you will be here during three weeks on July and three weeks on January, well, the arrangement is a bit different, right? We have agreements with certain hotels. I'm not going to mention the brands here, but in general, they are pretty close. This is pretty convenient for all the students. And in terms of the budget that you will need to add for your cost living expenses, you would need to add to the cost of the program around 6,000 more just to give you an idea that includes probably your tickets from your flight tickets, I mean, the accommodation or the lodging and also your expenses here in order to live to eat something and enjoy your life here. There are few options where you can stay only with your family by yourself in the hotel room or you can share with two or three other people, right? Our center will have a new teaching building this year. It's a very beautiful building and we will provide an apartment for every overseas students. And we have two students restaurants shared by Nimbo University. So don't worry about your living conditions only focused on your study. I just forgot to say that we have a person in the center that is dedicated to helping the students with several issues. So accommodation would be one of those. And we've been lucky in the past that means that we've been renting apartments from landlords and the state that the apartments that the students left them after they left means that they did a good job in keeping the apartments nicely. So we're renting those. So we have like a database of apartments and the idea is that maybe when you reach Saragotha you would need to stay for a couple of days in a hotel or in an Airbnb but that you guys can move into a permanent location pretty fast. Same goes for the other programs so you can either live on your own or share with classmates or even with other students from the university that's totally up to you. Yeah, at MISR we're virtually the same. We have a dedicated person that deals with housing for students and they can send the photographs and all the information. The only difference is we can coordinate it so students when they arrive in Malaysia they're taken directly to their accommodation. That's the only difference. Excellent. So now moving on to another topic sort of post-graduation is what can students expect in terms of recruiting opportunities or work authorization in your respective countries? Want to start with Justin? So as I mentioned specifically for the residential students there's a lot of on-campus recruiting and interview opportunities. Apple, Amazon, Flex, consulting firms, there's tons and tons of companies that come. They give presentations kind of just an overview of the company and then again opportunities for interviewing. As far as students here on AVISA this program is considered a STEM program. So you can apply for and qualify for one year of OPT optional practical training and then you can extend that for an additional two years through the STEM program. So this is definitely a great opportunity that our students take advantage of and that's something we assist you with along with the International Student Office. There's still lots of recruiting that happens right now during the January period as well as in the spring for both the residential and the blended students. We definitely have alumni hubs in the Bay Area around San Francisco and San Jose, California as well as Seattle out in Washington. So we try to connect alums with current students through those networks as well. MISI, it's very similar. We bring in our business partners and generally speaking they will give a one hour presentation first at the class and then this will normally be followed by either selective interviews or they've selected from the resume book or they will interview all the students. I'm glad to say that last year every student that was looking for a job was offered at least one, two or in some cases three different positions. So similar to Justin and the same with all the centers we take job placement extremely seriously and it's a big part of our program as well but we have to put emphasis on the fact that we help the students or that we help the candidates to find a job. Sometimes the candidates or the student feels that they might be entitled to a better package so they might turn the job down. But generally speaking, we have placed MISI every student last year. Okay, so in Paraguasa we also have a person who handles career opportunities and who's helping the students with the resumes, with mock interviews and so on. We start with the recruitment cycle in the spring, well not the spring but in February when we come back from MIT mainly because companies in Europe do not interview for a position and they keep the position open like usually happens here at MIT that the students start interviewing right at the beginning of the program and that's a cause of panic among our students when they come here and they hear that many of the students in the SEM program have got job offers. That being said, we tell the students from the beginning that looking for a job it's the responsibility of the students. However, we're going to try to bring as many companies as possible on campus. These companies can be the sponsor of the thesis project also alumni who are recruiting and as David mentioned, so we circulate our resume book and we have the companies come and present and that would be the idea. Just like to add to that and I'm sure it's the same with all centres. We actually train students on how to write a generic resume and how to write a cover letter and similar to what Marta has said we also give them tuition into the technique for the interview technique as well. So we do help the students at the initial stage. And just a question for Melanie about your recruitment process. Do students need to know French or German in order to get those positions in your area? Well, that's a tricky question because I actually looked some of you guys free official language, French, English and German and also Luxembourgish, which is more a dialect than a proper daily language used knowing that around 40% of people in Luxembourg expects. It's definitely an asset to have more than English, let's say. What's good is that the university through its language centre offer language courses for the students at a very reduced price. I believe it's like 20 euro per semester for language courses. Great, and there was one specific question just about support for blended programmes versus residential. I feel like I can speak to that. The blended programme at MIT gets the same level of support as our residential programme. The only thing we mention is that we cannot offer too much dedicated support prior to enrolment. So for the blended students, you do have to be a little bit more proactive in seeking out opportunities since you'll have a smaller window of opportunity just beginning in January. And if Marta, I believe, you have the same support for both cards. Excellent. So now we're starting to get close to the end of our time. We had a few more admissions related questions that I'll just follow up real quick on. So one is, when somebody applies, how long after their application can they sort of expect to turn around? So we do have three admission rounds. So at this moment for the remainder of this cycle, if you apply to multiple centres, although you can apply through the one system, we do have separate processes. And so you can expect to hear from us individually, although of course we're in communication and can coordinate if you have a specific situation or specific questions impacting multiple centres. But for the most part, you'll hear in a range between two to four weeks after any given admission deadline. If you have specific questions for any of the centres about admission timetables and maybe an exceptional situation or feel free to reach out to one of us because that's our role. We wanna help you and answer your questions that you have about the application and help you get that application in. So definitely reach out to one of us. I don't know if anyone else has something else to say. That was a good answer. Okay. Yes, and on that note, as a reminder, our second round application deadline, first round for blended, all begin in just two weeks, February 7th. So we're looking forward to getting a great group of applications. We'll be able to respond to questions via email after this. I see there's still a few questions, very specific from our audience. So thank you for tuning in or for tuning in and giving those questions. And we'd like to say thank you again. There's anything else that anybody would like to say? Yeah, just one comment. Well, in the case of the deadline of the second round for the GCLOC program is closing the first of February. Just that comment. Yeah, I don't know. Anybody else? Yeah, thank you. Yeah, thank you again. And remember you can email scale at mit.edu and this webinar will be available immediately after we're done today. Thanks again. Bye. Bye.