I see London I see France I can see your

So somehow I got chosen to attend an assessment center for a major European bank's rotational program. Don't ask me how, but I managed to sweet talk my way through 1st round interviews and thus ended up heading to London for a full day of interviews, presentations and networking.

The super awesome thing about interviewing on-site is that they pay for all your accommodations and travel. I got to stay at the Hilton Docklands across the Thames from Canary Wharf. The above picture was taken from my hotel room, which has a view of Canary Wharf. This will probably be the very last time I stay at a hotel with any sort of decent view. I am poor and cheap so this automatically rules out ever staying at nice hotels. My justification is that the hotel room is just for sleeping anyways so why spend money on it. This is also similar to how I justified parking at a parking lot one block away from a restaurant to save 25 cents. Ask the SO about that. She loves telling that story.  

My morning started at 730. Got on a ferry to cross the Thames to said bank. The assessment day was freaking tough. The good thing was that 6 of my classmates were attending the AC as well. My schedule was as follows:

9:00-10:00 Technical Interview - 60 minutes with a business representative

"Interview designed to test your understanding and interest in financial services and more specifically Bank X."

10:00-11:00 Commercial Interview - 60 minutes with a business representative
"This interview is designed to test your commercial understanding and business acumen."

11:00-11:30 HR Interview - 25 minutes (15 minute presentation and 10 minute Q&A) with HR panel

"For this interview, you will be required to produce a 15 minute presentation."

12:00-1:00 Lunch

1:00-2:30 Case study and Group Assessment - 90 minutes assessed by two business representatives
"This is a group activity where you will have one hour to review a case and prepare a presentation followed by 20 minutes to deliver recommendations."

3:00-4:00 Bank X presentation from senior business leader

4:00-5:00 Question and Answer session with past MBA Programme participants

5:00-7:30 Networking Session

So after a full day of this we were tired and decided to grab dinner and let loose for a bit. If there's one thing B-School students do well is eat and drink.

The next day was my flight back so it was off to Heathrow.

Breakfast at Heathrow. Finally back to "normal" portions.

The fine print says "All our bagels are freshly made here today". I don't get the correlation though. So all that I expect from healthy food is that it's made fresh daily? Following that logic, if I eat a 12 doughnuts and those doughnuts are made fresh, I'm actually eating healthy. Crazy Brits. 

On the flight back I was reading the British Airways: Business Magazine and found this comic in there. Thought it was quite relevant especially for the ESADE 1st years. 

Fast forward to today. My parents are visiting and I'm acting as the tour guide. Because I've decided that my parents are more important than schoolwork and I'm inherently adverse to schoolwork, I'm joining them to Madrid and will be there till Saturday. Adios Barcelona. Yo voy a disfrutar mi viaje a Madrid.