My HEC Paris Journey, Part IX: The Diploma and Final Thoughts

This is the summary of my 2 years doing the master’s program. I received my paper diploma last week. I was awarded Master of Science with honors (only 10% of students get this high recognition). A few weeks ago, we had a virtual graduation ceremony. I hope to visit the campus next year to reunite in person with my classmates.

While waiting for the diploma, I had a previlige to host a webinar with one of our professors, Prof. Etienne KRIEGER — MSIE Webinar : How to Overcome Conflicts Between Associates. I shared my tips on forming a team and working out conflicts between startup founders.

To conclude, the program gave me

Refresher on the knowledge I already new but haven’t used extensively. This probably constituted 70% of the material.
New knowledge in a well structured format.
Confidence to apply the knowledge due to the peer review and feedback from the university team.
Inspiring examples of other alumnis and my peers from diverse industries and places.
Prestigious brand (HEC Paris) to quantify my experience and knowledge and to add to the social proof of my professional personal brand.

What is next? With this degree, the doors are more open for me to teach at a university or pursue a PhD. And of course, open another venture be it a startup or just a business. But first, I’ll take a short break to catch up on my reading and reclaim my Sundays which are now free from exams and team project meetings. :-)

As this is the last post in this series, here are all of the posts about my HEC Paris learning journey (from the most recent to the earliest):