Spark, Australia, group projects and volleyball…

There’s not a sign of snow in Exeter anymore, the weather is getting warmer, but I’d like to go back to last November and December to tell you about the best event that I have experienced during my studies here. The event is called the Spark, and its slogan goes “Inspiring Today’s Students to Be Tomorrow’s Entrepreneurs.”

The best part of the program was the final conference, which featured several successful businesspeople, including both former and current students of our university. Beyond my expectations, I was surprised by the level of all speakers, since every project sounded great and all presentations were top notch. Dan Noz, CTO and co-founder of Fantasy Shopper, a project that won several prestigious global awards as the best new business of the year (Fantasy Shopper gathered an investment of $3.3 million and declined an offer for purchase for $ 20 million), delivered what was probably the most emotional address.

Each of the two lecture modules was followed by a break with refreshments where you could have a glass of wine and talk to and exchange contacts with a guest who caught your attention – to the sound of live jazz music. After all, finding inspiration and building a good network of contacts were some of the chief goals of the project.

This brings up thoughts of December and another “event” that I’d like to mention in my post. In the second year of your studies, you should start thinking about the possibilities available once you are finished. My primary goal was to have a summer internship. I took it as a sort of springboard. But then I talked to many students who took their “year abroad”, and I started asking myself how come I was missing such a unique opportunity – the deadline for this program is at the end of the first year of the study. I talked about it with my girlfriend, who was also highly interested. We imagined what it would be like spending the third year somewhere far from Europe, getting to know a different culture and expanding our horizons. We couldn’t get it out of our heads for an entire week, until we finally gave in and went to the office of the person responsible for the program, who told us that there still was a chance for admission. Following a motivation letter and a few interviews, the university informed us that we were both nominated for a one-year stay at the University of Adelaide, one of Australia’s “Group of Eight”.

My thoughts may be full of expectations for the third year, but this won’t spare me the ton of work still ahead in my second year. Aside from constant essay writing, there are two major group projects that my colleagues and I have to complete by the end of March. The first project deals with the Virgin Group and its strategy. The other focuses on the ever popular “Fair Trade” branding and its meaning and vision. For now, it looks like we’re going to shoot a TV panel discussion, so we’re sure to have a lot of fun, but it will also take a lot of time.

Talking about time, let me add that, unfortunately, it hasn’t slowed down. Conversely, as more work is added, it appears to accelerate. As a result, I left sports behind somewhat, but at least I’ve kept volleyball. Our team is third in the standings, so hopefully we will still climb. And even if not, every match is great in that it clears your head perfectly – and you can really have a rest for a few hours afterwards.