Month: March 2019

The one year program is too short to do a full semester studying abroad, but that hasn’t stopped me from traveling every semester to a new country.  Over the summer break, I went to Croatia with other one year Tech and Fashion MBAs. I spent part of winter break in Mustique and Italy, and just finished my spring break in Israel.  Some of my trips were student organized, Stern offers both “Doing Business In” and “Trek” options for organized travel. DBi’s are more business focused and usually involved class time and a professor.  Treks are organized by different student organizations and meant to allow people to explore a different culture. For my spring break, I chose to go on the Jewish Student Association’s Trek to Israel.

Day 1 – Jerusalem

This first day we did a walking tour of Jerusalem including visiting the Western Wall and the Stations of the Cross. Watching thousands of years of history and worship overlap in a city and holy sites was moving beyond belief.

Day 4 – Masada & Camel Rides

One day we woke before sunrise and hiked to the top of Masada to watch the sunrise, we played the Circle of Life as the sun broke over the mountains.  After the hike, we did a short camel ride in the desert before our next stop. I did not know I was both terrified and allergic to camels until I was on the camel we named Monte Carlo.  

Day 5 – Sea of Galiee

For many Christians, Capernaum is the holiest site, where Jesus’ preaching was first received and he completed miracles.  We got to dip our toes into this holy water after touring the area. It was hard not to feel a deep connection to the water in such a peaceful setting.

Day 8 – Tel-Aviv

After spending the week traveling all around the country from South to North we ended the trip in Tel-Aviv.  We spent time exploring the city, sitting on the beach, and partying for Purim.

The new semester is already in full swing but before we came back to NYC we got to spend a week in Milan learning about Italian Luxury.  The DBI in Milan was a two-week excursion with the first week on NYU’s campus learning about the basis of Luxury from Thomai Serdari. For the second week, we flew to Milan to learn from a mix of site visits to companies like Montero and Lamborghini and classroom time at Bocconi.  We spent a ton of time learning and the rest of the time exploring and celebrating how far our class has come.

 

Even though I am in the Fashion and Luxury program, most of my attention had always been in fashion or beauty retail.  I had never really appreciated or understood luxury until learning from Thomai during those two weeks. We started by covering what exactly luxury is; the perfect intersection of philosophy, science, engineering, and design. Followed by how the luxury industry has evolved from open-air markets to our current market.  There is no one who can make the luxury retail space sound more like an enchanting, mystical and beautiful than Thomai. After her lectures, I could fully see the beauty of luxury goods for the first time.

 

The following week in Italy made these lectures on craftsmanship come to life.  We watched silk printing happen in real time at Montero and took a tour of the Lamborghini factory that made me interested in cars for the first time.  These visits truly encapsulated what craftsmanship means in the modern day.

For me, the visit to Milan was especially meaningful since the first night was my 26th birthday. The FLUX class is small at 27 but large enough that getting a dinner reservation for all of us seemed difficult.  Luckily, our class is full of people with different skills who are willing to help out. A classmate took the lead for me and planned a birthday dinner, found the restaurant, took care of gathering information on who would or wouldn’t make it, found a place to go dancing after, and kept a google calendar invite in check for me. Thanks to her my birthday was perfect, almost all 27 people gathered for dinner and then went dancing with me to American top 40s (which was my one goal for my birthday celebration). I am so grateful that I got to spend my birthday in Milan celebrating with classmates. They even sang Happy Birthday to me in Italian at a site visit earlier that day!