Behind the success of every student’s experience in immersive project-based courses—from visas to travel advisories to detailed itineraries—is the Global Experience Office.
Kate Mitkevicius has just arrived in Mumbai after an 18-hour journey from Boston. It’s midnight, and in 10 hours she’ll head out to tour four companies’ headquarters before flying to Bangalore that evening. That’s where she and Professor Vikram Gandhi will visit two more organizations and fly to a more remote area in the afternoon, returning to Bangalore the next morning for more site visits. Four flights in as many days may be dizzying for anyone, but for Mitkevicius it’s all part of the job.
Mitkevicius is part of the Harvard Business School team that organizes and oversees field courses for MBA students: the MBA Program Global Experience Office, or GEO. Their 17 staff members support the travel logistics, program delivery, and communications for three field-based courses in the MBA Program: the FIELD Global Capstone in May of the first year Required Curriculum (RC), the second year Elective Curriculum (EC) Immersive Field Courses (IFCs) in the fall and January term, and the Extended Field Courses (without a travel component) offered in the fall and spring terms in the EC year.
While some aspects of higher education have a slower pace in the summer, planning for the upcoming academic year does not. At GEO, the communications team is managing feedback data and updates to various websites, the operations team is assessing potential locations and travel-related information across the organization, and the IFC team is heading out for domestic and international assessment visits to source the content for the courses.
IFCs are an elective opportunity for second year MBA students to put their classroom skills into practice. The highly popular courses are driven by faculty research and industry connections, with locations around the world. Classes meet several times on campus throughout the fall and culminate in a six- to 14-day immersion during January term. This year’s options are Silicon Valley, Ghana, Saudi Arabia, Japan, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Italy, and India.
"We are incredibly lucky to have dynamic faculty who are dedicated to bringing this level of access and deep learning to our students,” said Stephanie Galloway, senior director of GEO. “IFCs are special because they are proposed by the faculty and are in line with their expertise and regional interests, but also consequential for the local partners the students are engaging with. So, the result is quick, intensive learning that is often put to practice immediately while managing important relationships for the School and expanding upon their global leadership capabilities."
Mitkevicius and her colleague Kristen McCarthy are managing the second iteration of India; Development While Decarbonizing–India’s Path to Net Zero, with Professor Vikram Gandhi. In the fall, students attend four class sessions focused on different work streams such as energy generation, mobility, waste management, and hard to abate sectors, eventually choosing one for their focus and dividing into groups of four. In January, they’ll lead visits to 10-12 private companies and government entities in Mumbai and Bangalore, aiming to gain a deeper understanding of the opportunities and challenges of climate related industries and doing business in India.
Potential changes to last year’s immersion—several more days in Bangalore and a potential overnight outside the city—necessitate another in-person assessment.
McCarthy, who manages operational logistics, assesses details such as hotel and dining options, transportation, and logistics. She and her counterpart, Keith Luu, take four to five such trips a year, armed with their finely tuned checklists. Whenever there is a new IFC location, or if it’s been a few years since an assessment visit, they need to check and update details such as hotel Wi-Fi quality, access to smaller meeting rooms, restaurants that can accommodate a group of 50 with various dietary restrictions, the distance between beds and opacity of bathroom doors in new hotels (students share rooms), bus and van safety, and accessibility of hotels, restaurants, and cultural destinations.
Mitkevicius and her counterpart, Tasha Miller, manage details for course content, visiting companies and sites alongside the instructor to determine those that will create the best learning experience within the guidelines set by Harvard and GEO. Mitkevicius and Gandhi take the large pieces (timing, hotels, restaurants) from McCarthy and layer on what a daily schedule might look like, finalizing all the many details—from hotel breakfast times to dinner reservations to how many site visits they can realistically fit in each day. Throughout the fall, they work hand in hand to create an itinerary and daily schedule that will shape the January experience.
“This trip was mostly a typical combination of assessing hotels, restaurants, transportation options, and cultural activities. What was unique is that we're considering adding a visit to a more remote part of India,” said McCarthy. “I don’t often assess the drive, so I was noting the road conditions—is this a windy road where someone might get motion sickness? Do we need to tell the students to pack Dramamine? I was also noting the rest stops—how many stalls there are, whether they are Western-style toilets or squat toilets, if there’s toilet paper—so that we could tell students to bring tissues, hand sanitizer, etc. We stopped at four or five different rest stops just so I could check the bathrooms. It’s not glamorous, but it’s crucial.”
For Mitkevicius, the many flights and limited sleep were challenging, but the trip was exhilarating, educational, and informative. “Everyone we met—from founders and CEOs to guides, drivers, and restaurant staff—were engaging, kind, and generous with their time and expertise. Every part of this course will be a fantastic way for students to learn and engage firsthand,” she said.
“We saw and learned the traffic patterns influenced by cars, cows, and pedestrians alike. Going to and from site visits, we drove through small villages, getting a brief glimpse into the lives of those residing in India’s more rural communities. Every aspect of the trip served a purpose and built on the learning objectives. They were 12-13 hour workdays, but it was incredible to have access to such major players in India’s sustainability ecosystem—I now really understand the cultural context of the course and am very excited to build it further with Professor Gandhi. It’s going to be an amazing experience for the students.”
This article was originally published on the HBS Newsroom page.