Career

A Year in the Making: Defending the Globalization Theses

After a full ten months worth of researching, interviewing experts, gathering survey results, and holding focus groups, and writing- lots and lots of writing- it finally became time for the various M.S. in Global Commerce (MSGC) teams to defend their theses at ESADE in front of a Board of Examiners of professors from each participating university.

After a full ten months worth of researching, interviewing experts, gathering survey results, and holding focus groups, and writing- lots and lots of writing- it finally became time for the various M.S. in Global Commerce (MSGC) teams to defend their theses at ESADE in front of a Board of Examiners of professors from each participating university.

Since the writing and defense of a thesis is required by Spanish law in order to earn a master’s degree from a Spanish university, it was taken very seriously by students as they looked forward to graduation. All groups squeezed in final edits and revisions between multiple other final projects, presentations, and exams that were due in other classes. Once the final written paper was handed in, they shifted their attention to the oral thesis defense presentation.

Professors Lynn Hamilton and Kerrie Carfagno flew into Barcelona to serve as UVA representatives on the board. Daomi Lin, assistant professor at Lingnan, came to represent the Chinese university, while professors Rueff and Serlavos were present from ESADE.

Each team was allowed thirty minutes to present their thesis topic. The objective was to present their work and conclusions in a convincing way to the Board of Examiners, who followed up the presentation with ten minutes of question and answer time. Each team’s Thesis Tutor- the professor who was responsible for guiding the team’s work and helping with research efforts throughout the year- was also present at the presentation, although they did not make up part of the Board.

As could be expected with this impressive class, each team’s work was accepted by the Board of Examiners and all students passed the course, adding quality work to existing literature about a variety of globalization business topics. After the defenses, all that was left to do was to celebrate with team members and start to welcome family members who were flying into Barcelona for graduation!

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