MBA Student Profile: Ion Lupu, Vlerick Leuven Gent

Romanian student Ion Lupu speaks with TopMBA.com about life as an MBA student at Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School. Lopu feels young but he’s now wishing there were more than 24 hours in a day.

For Lupu, choosing to do an MBA was all about change: change of career, change of markets, changing the place he lives in, making new friends, learning new business skills and facing new challenges. 

The Romanian born Moldova resident started the ball rolling towards his MBA in 2001 after graduating from university. “I had the idea of getting a PhD or another graduate degree from a foreign country. I made some money, improved my English and got enough experience to start an MBA course.”

He initially wanted to study in the UK but after attending the QS World MBA Tour in St Petersburg his ideas changed. “I was heading for British Schools only (Cambridge, Oxford, Aston) because of two main reasons: I lived in the UK for two years and wanted to come back; and these schools have a good reputation. At the QS World MBA World Tour in St. Petersburg I met the representatives of the local campus of Vlerick who convinced me that their school was no worse than a UK one. I’ve been studying for two months at Vlerick and I can tell you that this school is the one I was searching for.”

Some of the world’s top business schools will be attending the fair including those that Lupu applied for. “I applied to three schools: Vlerick (Belgium campus), a French school and a British one. The representatives of the Vlerick campus in St. Petersburg told me after my admission test that they were impressed by the results I got. After a few weeks I received my letter of acceptance and decided to go for it for many reasons: class size, friendly studying environment, return on investment (ROI), high-quality faculty, and the high-class school staff.”

In preparation for the world of business school Lupu took two months off work to prepare for the GMAT. Vlerick doesn’t require their students to sit the GMAT as the school has it’s own admissions test which Lupu said is “even harder”.

“You have to answer 32 questions in 30 minutes for the Vlerick admissions test but I think that the GMAT preparation helped me a lot to pass.”

Lupu is financing his MBA studies with “his own sweet money” but recommends other students apply for scholarships or sponsorship to fund their MBA studies.

“Try as hard as possible to get a scholarship,” he says. “You have nothing to lose. If that doesn’t work, aim for sponsorship by your company or pay with your own money. Make your final option a loan – I would recommend starting to search for a job from the very first day you start your MBA.”

Lupu believes that with an MBA degree he’ll get a well-paid job at one of the multinational companies in Moldova or Romania, but for now he’s just enjoying the best and the worst of business school.

“You make new friends and meet interesting people, you learn a lot from your courses and colleagues and as a student you feel younger again. But you have to work hard, maybe harder than you think now and you want to have more than 24 hours in a day. I also wish I’d known more foreign languages and more about investment banking, private equity and consulting before I started.”

So how does he balance the demands of study and personal life?

“Sometimes it is very hard do manage both. We need to cut a bit of our sleeping hours in order to manage everything well but we work hard and we play hard.”