Fátima Rodrigues’s International Exchange Experience as a Porto Business School International MBA Student
When I was completing my bachelor’s and master’s degrees, I chose not to study abroad. Years later, I started to regret that decision. In both my personal and professional life, I kept hearing people talk about how studying abroad had shaped them, broadened their perspectives, and led to friendships with people from all over the world.
So when I decided to pursue the International MBA at Porto Business School, there was one thing I knew I wanted to do differently: this time, I was going to study abroad.
During our first term, Sandra Fernandes and Inês Nunes introduced us to the international opportunities available through Porto Business School and its partner institutions. We could go anywhere from Thailand to Brazil, with different cities, schools, and cultures to choose from. It was about more than choosing a destination. We were also deciding what kind of experience we wanted and how it could add to what we were already building at PBS.
At first, I was torn between three destinations. I looked into what each one could offer and spoke with classmates who had taken part in the same programs the year before. Hearing about their experiences helped me think beyond the destination itself and consider the bigger picture: the school, the courses, the people, the culture, and the chance to truly step outside my comfort zone.
In the end, I chose Paris.
More Than a Destination
I wanted to experience life in a major European capital, study in an international environment, and see what it would be like to build a routine in a city where I did not know anyone.
I arrived with two suitcases, plenty of expectations, and, naturally, some nerves. Being on my own meant learning quickly how to get around, create new routines, and, most importantly, become comfortable with my own company. Between metro rides, endless walks, and trying to make the most of every day, Paris gradually stopped feeling like a city I had once visited and started to feel, at least for a few weeks, like home.
I was not completely on my own, though. Bamidele and Olawale, two of my MBA classmates, had chosen the same exchange program. Having familiar faces from PBS with me made an entirely new environment feel a little more familiar. It also gave us the opportunity to get to know one another outside the classroom and create a completely different set of memories together.
A New Classroom
At KEDGE, I took courses in luxury, artificial intelligence, and sustainability, including Luxury Export Strategy, Artificial Intelligence, and Sustainability Marketing.
What made the experience particularly interesting was that the learning did not stop when class ended. Many of the ideas we discussed were visible throughout Paris. From luxury brands and retail spaces to hotels, restaurants, and the city itself, Paris often felt like an extension of the classroom.
The international environment also made classroom discussions much more interesting. When students from different countries and professional and cultural backgrounds look at the same challenge, they rarely see it in exactly the same way. Hearing those different perspectives pushed me to question some of my own assumptions, consider ideas I might not have thought of otherwise, and adapt the way I communicated and worked with others.
It reminded me that learning is not only about what happens in class. A lot of it comes from the people you meet along the way.
Paris Beyond the Classroom
During that month, I wanted to experience more than the Paris everyone already knows. I explored the city through its food, culture, events, and people. Some days were packed with classes and assignments. Others were spent at cafés, museums, restaurants, or simply walking around and seeing where the city would take me.
One of the moments that stayed with me most came from an unexpected conversation with a Canadian woman I met in Paris. We were both far from home and ended up talking about traveling alone: the initial discomfort, the freedom to set your own pace, and how much more open you become to meeting people you might otherwise never have crossed paths with.
It was a simple conversation, but it made me realize that being alone in a city does not have to mean feeling lonely. Sometimes, being open to the unknown is exactly what leads to the most memorable encounters.
Over the course of the month, I also met a group of people who quickly became part of my everyday life in Paris. It is strange how people you have only known for a few weeks can become so important so quickly. We shared conversations, experiences, and countless moments that made an unfamiliar city feel much more like home. By the time I had to leave, saying goodbye was harder than I expected. Just a month earlier, these were people I had never even met.
But living in a new city also brought an unexpected challenge.
Paris has an almost endless number of things to do, but during my first few days there, I realized I had no easy way of finding them. There was always something happening, but information was scattered across different websites, platforms, and social media accounts. Even in one of the most dynamic cities in the world, finding the right event at the right time was not always easy.
I started to realize that the problem was not a lack of options. It was almost the opposite: there were so many options, but no simple way to find the ones that actually matched my interests.
Traveling and discovering new places were already at the heart of my personal project, My Tasty Country. Living in Paris, however, made me look at that interest differently. I was no longer visiting a city for a few days and deciding which landmarks to see or restaurants to try. I was trying to understand what it was actually like to live there: how people found interesting things to do and how they built connections when they arrived without an existing network.
That challenge made me want to do something about it.
The MBA had already encouraged me to think more entrepreneurially, so instead of simply accepting the problem as part of living somewhere new, I started thinking about how I could solve it. That idea eventually became My Tasty Club, a website designed to bring events and experiences together in one place and make it easier for people to discover what is happening around them.
The idea came directly from a problem I had experienced myself. But when I started talking to people who had been living in Paris for years, I realized I was far from the only one experiencing it.
Building My Tasty Club during my exchange also gave me the chance to put something I had been learning throughout the MBA into practice: start with a real problem, understand the people facing it, and then begin testing a solution.
Paris became more than the place where I spent a month studying abroad. It became the place where a small frustration turned into a real idea.
What I Brought Home
Before I left, I assumed the most valuable part of the experience would be what I learned at KEDGE. And while the academic side was certainly important, it ended up being only one part of what I took away from that month.
I came home more independent and more confident in my ability to adapt when things are unfamiliar. I came back with new friendships, new perspectives, and an even stronger desire to build a life and career that are international in scope.
More than learning how to find my way around a new city, I learned to trust myself in unfamiliar situations, create opportunities, and turn discomfort into curiosity and action.
For years, I thought I had missed my chance to study abroad because I had not done it during my bachelor’s or master’s degree.
Now, I think it happened at exactly the right time, when I was ready for the experience to mean something more.
