I was initially set on attending law school to study international law after graduating with a Bachelor of Arts at Western University. Already familiar with the Ivey name, though not with the MSc degree itself, I learned about this program at Western’s graduate fair and was struck by how welcoming the program was to a wide breadth of undergraduate backgrounds, and by the opportunity to align my arts background directly with practical, international business education and experience all within 16 months.
As you’d expect from a master’s program, the first semester of the Ivey MSc in International Business was demanding, built around foundational Ivey Essentials courses that got someone like me, without formal business training, up to speed. It was an encouraging challenge to take in such a wide range of business skills and the international business courses specific to my stream.
Between my first and second semesters, I spent time abroad in Peru as part of the Ivey Global Lab, a valuable stretch of my MSc experience that left me feeling far more equipped and confident heading into my back-to-back European exchange semesters.
The simplest way I can describe the CEMS MIM Program is as a coalition of 33 superb business schools spanning the globe. What makes it unique is that all member schools join in on shaping this program’s experience at the master’s level of education, specifically for international business. While every school incorporates the CEMS curriculum in its own way, at Ivey you attend your first semester at home, then choose to spend the following fall and/or winter terms abroad at these host schools. CEMS MIM also comes with the requirement to graduate with proficiency in three languages. Having Spanish as a second language, I felt encouraged to take on this additional challenge and was supported by Ivey and my host schools in meeting this requirement through language classes taught specifically for CEMS students.
Fall Semester: The CEMS Experience in the Netherlands
My first term abroad began at Rotterdam School of Management at Erasmus University in the Netherlands, which was also my first time in Europe. These two semesters abroad in the CEMS program were structured to provide both the level of study expected of a master’s degree and the practical, experiential learning method of the CEMS MIM Program.
This began with the CEMS Block Seminar, a welcoming week into the program and cohort for the next four months. Each CEMS school runs its own program, making every CEMS student’s experience one of a kind. For me, this was a collaboration with the European Space Agency in the Netherlands, partnering with its venture capital business incubation centre to provide material support to startups navigating growth, and in my team’s case, volatile markets. Over the course of a week, we fully dedicated our time to learning how to build our business case from professors, industry experts, and alumni. Each day, our team continued to meet with our client and work on our analysis, solutions, and overall report. This culminated in final presentations for our client, faculty of Rotterdam School of Management, and Dutch industry professionals on the harbourfront in Rotterdam.
Coming out of this exhilarating but demanding week, I jumped right into full-time studies for the fall semester, which included exclusive CEMS courses for our cohort as well as open electives from my host school. Every CEMS school teaches a variation of the course Global Strategy, and at RSM, this included experiential learning through a consulting engagement with a co-living startup looking to expand abroad. Drawing on the knowledge I had gained over only the last nine months, I was once again offered an opportunity to apply myself and work with a real business at the C-Suite level. I was also fortunate to have my team’s recommendations selected for further consideration, taking our work beyond the classroom to a conversation about our strategy directly with the CEO.
A Career Forum Pitstop in Barcelona
Being a CEMS student also comes with access to a global network of corporate partners. Each year, a member school hosts a career forum, and in November 2025, it was held at Esade Business School in Barcelona, Spain. This was a well-timed shift toward career conversations after an intensive stretch of study at RSM. This event had opportunities to connect with CEMS corporate partners to learn and ask questions about internships and full-time roles. What I really appreciated about this recruiting opportunity was the welcoming environment and openness to curiosity, with there being dozens of firms to engage with.
This annual forum also hosts corporate-sponsored skill seminars, practical, one-day learning sprints that pair teaching with hands-on application across a wide range of subjects. At Esade, I attended a Maersk seminar focused on the decarbonization of supply chains, particularly in ocean freight. This skill seminar really spoke to me, as I got to see how European sustainability strategy compares to what we have here in Canada, and to apply Maersk’s in-house strategy practices to a simulated business problem aimed at rethinking conventional approaches to ocean freight emissions. Of course, though, simply being in Barcelona was an experience in itself, from exploring the city to enjoying some well-earned heat in mid-autumn.
Winter in Milan: Travelling, Global Citizenship, and a Capstone Business Project
By the new year, I had moved on to Bocconi University in Milan, Italy, for my final term. I had known I would be travelling to Italy since accepting my admission offer, so I was extremely excited for this final semester to be a combination of studies, personal travel, and experiential learning. It was quite a balancing act to incorporate all the things I wanted to do across Europe while staying committed to my academic responsibilities and Business Project, but I honestly found it enjoyable making it all slot together to truly maximize the five months I had in the country.
A standout part of the CEMS program I participated in at Bocconi was the Global Citizenship Seminar, which varies from school to school each academic year. In Italy, this was a two-day seminar. The lecture-based first day examined the concept of global citizenship through a philosophical lens, set against the backdrop of the Winter Olympics being hosted in Milan. The more practical second day was where I put those ideas to work through a sprint project researching an Olympic sponsor and the potential conflicts that arise at the intersection of Olympic values and corporate priorities.
What first drew me to CEMS specifically was the Business Project. At Ivey, this runs through one’s final semester (whether home or abroad), pairing students with corporate sponsors to solve a real business problem or opportunity. I was paired with the pharmaceutical firm Sanofi on a live strategic project focused on bloodwork infrastructure for preventative screening of an autoimmune disease, all in the context of newly restructured healthcare facilities in Italy. Our responsibility within this much larger project was to assess several regions where the company might first look to expand, mapping capabilities down to each facility through secondary research and case studies built on interviews with facility staff. We compiled this into a report with our data, recommendations, and timeline for a data-backed outreach plan.
The project brought together everything I had learned throughout my MSc and CEMS MIM experience and gave me the chance to work directly with project leads alongside teammates from various countries and backgrounds. Our final presentation was delivered to the project’s managers, our HR recruiting liaison, members of the marketing team, and, to our surprise, members of executive management. We had the opportunity to network with these members at Sanofi, not only gaining additional feedback and career advice, but also a unique perspective on the pharmaceutical sector and the direction of corporate strategy in a highly regulated space.
Looking Ahead
Reflecting on my growth over the course of this program, I truly believe that my time at Ivey and the CEMS MIM experience greatly shaped not only my aptitude for international business, but also my confidence in stepping into the unknown with the mindset of learning something new. Working internationally, meeting so many different people from around the world, travelling when already so far from home, and truly exposing myself to foreign cultures through these exchanges have all helped me grow as a person. I have this MSc to thank for opening that door.
Looking ahead, while I aim to begin building my career in Canada, I feel much more equipped and motivated to pursue international projects and to treat the international playing field as my default lens for weighing implications and opportunities, rather than a distant goal. For my interest in the energy sector in particular, this experience let me observe firsthand how things differ abroad and understand, through my own path, how international collaboration in the sector takes shape. As trade in global markets evolves, particularly in a Canadian context, I find this perspective towards international collaboration and a continuous curiosity to learn, try new things, and explore the unknown to be an invaluable asset I take away from my MSc journey at Ivey.