by Leandro Costa*
I am Ing. Leandro Costa, from Argentina, 28 years old, and I am glad to share with you my experience in CUOA.
In July 2016, I attended the summer course “Creativity, Innovation & New Businesses” organized by CUOA Business School in collaboration with IBS Brasil.
The program was divided in modules focusing on entrepreneurship, business model design, innovation, and creativity.
The lectures always provided both theoretical competencies and real case examples. This methodological approach allowed me to fully understand and manage topics that are really useful for my career, and also to find different ways to solve daily struggles.
Another relevant point to keep in mind is the fact that all the lecturers have a lot of working experience. The faculty is made both by experts coming from the academic world and professionals from the business world; it means that at the end of the course you are able to know practical examples and to understand the present.
We also visited successful companies like Ducati, SilikonMart and Lago. This is quite interesting because you can see different industries, make questions to managers and, at the end, you own a complete view of the companies (functions, processes, structure) and you figure out which are the future goals of each company.
In my experience, I can say that Ducati has been the most impressive one, because it’s the brand that I love the most and we also have been able to walk in the plant and to see which is the process to develop different bike models and how the finished bikes are tested.
Furthermore, we traveled to Geneva to visit the WTO ( World Trade Organization) and the UN (United Nations) office. I would say that a dream came true, because only few people can have the opportunity to enter in the office where “The World” has global discussions, it was an amazing day.
In the beginning of the program, we were assigned a real project work by a company; the project I worked on was from a company which develops closures for wine. We worked on the project divided in small groups during the three weeks of program and on the last day we had the opportunity to present it to the manager of the brand. What we learned in the classes was really useful to develop the project work.
In addition, I have to say that CUOA and IBS staff went after us all the time, and everything was arranged with attention to all the details. I felt really comfortable with the hospitality all the time.
Thinking about the course, I really don’t know how we have been able to do all this in only 3 weeks time, and trust me I only made a brief summary.
To conclude, I think that the multicultural environment is one of the most important value, because you learn, enjoy and make friends from all over the world.
I am really grateful to all the collaborators, lecturers and my friends of the 2016
Edition of CUOA & IBS summer course.
This is my experience and I hope it will be useful to future CUOA students.
*International Short Program “Creativity, Innovation & New Businesses” past student
