Global MBA Integration Week in Chablis, France: From team building activities to biking to wine tasting.. they did it all..

What an integration! The first week, our MBA program spent an incredible week in the beautiful wine region of Chablis! It was a fantastic way to bond with classmates before the official start of courses - said Jennifer Garbowski, who shared her Chablis experience with us, keep reading for more. 


The first day started off with a bang when we were put into groups and challenged to write a song about the program that we performed at the end of the week. After a first night of collaboration and Kir tasting, the next day we went to the Abbaye de Reigny (former residence of Coco Chanel) where our week’s activities would be held. To determine what each team’s activities would be, we had an auction! As the bidding wars commenced, enthusiasm for the week grew as we were enticed by what awaited us - strategy games, barrel making, French stories and more! 


After the auction and a delicious croissant-filled breakfast, we headed off to Domaine Jean-Marc Brocard, a wine estate with an expertise of the Chablis terroir. We were able to discover the wine process and have a tasting overlooking this magical vineyard on a beautiful day! 

After lunch (and just after the right amount of wine), the teams were off on a treasure hunt through the region. We biked, we saw, and we conquered... 35 kilometers of land - go us! That night, our competitive spirit continued with a game of Pétanque. While some team members were mastering the art of this French game, others were just posing in front of a cute pink car (see below). Pétanque or pictures, we all had fun! 



The next two days would be jam packed with activities that would test our ability to collaborate, communicate, lead, and learn from one another. It was an amazing experience to get to know my classmates in such a dynamic and immersive way! We shared stories about what brought us to ESSEC, what we were looking forward to most in the year, and what our plans would be post-graduation. 


In this video: our participants sharing their first week experience


Through this experience, we got to learn so much about each other, the most important takeaway being that we all want each other to succeed both personally and professionally! I’ll forever cherish the memories made during integration week and am looking forward to making many more with the GMBA 2022 cohort. 

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