Intercambio de Estudiante – The Mexican Experience

Anirban Dutta*

When I first told people around me that I would be going to Mexico for my International Exchange Program, the most common responses I received were either related to drug-trade, drug-wars, drug-lords or something to do with the word “drugs” and the occasional Tequila. And as I landed in India on the 30^th of March, I returned convinced that Mexico was much more than just substances and intoxicants.

Barely a three-hour drive from the US border, Monterrey is surrounded by mountains on all sides. The third largest city and the most important industrial hub of Mexico, Monterrey is not only home to Monterrey Steel Foundry Company, which is one of the oldest steel plants of North America, but also new age biggies like CEMEX, Mercedes Benz Mexico, Ericsson, Grundfoss , OXXO and many more. The city is one of the most developed in the country and as Mexicans would term it – Americanized and more importantly, it would be my home for the next three months.

College started on the 7^th of January and Social and Political Environment I was my first session in this new country. It didn’t take me long to realize that a totally different pedagogy was being followed here. Every Friday, the schedule and the cases for the following week would be kept in our respective lockers. Since the university followed a pure case-based method, we were required to read up on at-least three 20-page cases everyday. A typical day would start with a mandatory 90 minute team-work session where all team members would be required to share their own analysis of the cases. The cases gave a good exposure to real life industry problems. Quite unlike ours, the MBA curriculum is designed on the lines of a general management course rather than any specialization like marketing or finance. The core courses for all the terms have equal distribution of subjects from Marketing, Finance, Operations, Strategy, HR and Economics. Every student must undergo a student exchange program during the fourth trimester to start off their second year. In the second year students get to choose two electives along with five core courses and two mandatory workshops. The course curriculum is well aligned with the aspirations of the students as most of them want to start off their own ventures or expand their family business. Very few of them actually wanted to work in big and established firms. The faculty members were also quite friendly and they would frequently invite us to have lunch with them. They were always open to student feedback and over lunch we would discuss everything under the sun from politics to sports to movies. This was again something new for me as it usually doesn’t happen in India. But then, considering the number of students in Indian B-Schools, something like this is not quite feasible.

As a part of the college curriculum, I got the unique opportunity to attend what was called the ‘Doing Business in Emerging Markets’ week. This was a conference which played host to over 250 students from reputed B-schools from across the world including Kellog Business School, Emory Business School, Darden, Warwick Business School, IESE Spain, UNSW Australia, HKUST China and so on. During this week, we had industrial visits to companies like Interjet, Kidzania and DHL Mexico to understand their operations apart from guest lectures by eminent faculty and experts from the industry.

During my three-month stint in Mexico, I did get the opportunity to travel to a few parts of the country. A lot of the Spanish influence can be seen in the architecture of the buildings, churches and the local downtowns known as Zocalos.  However, Mexico clearly wasn’t very different from India at least in one respect. There were rich and developed areas as well as poorer areas and small towns – something like India and ‘Bharat’. The nation is not without poverty as one also comes across a lot of beggars and street performers. Places like Puerto Vallarta on the West Coast, Los Cabos in the North West and Cancun on the South are completely driven by tourism. The month of February is the whale-watching season in Puerto Vallarta and Los Cabos and this activity drives good business in these cities. The small town of Tequila is home to some of the oldest Tequila factories of the world which make the finest Tequila. Tequila is made from agave fruit which looks just like an oversized pineapple. Real Mexican Tequila tastes much smoother than the ones we get in India. The city of Guadalajara is the second largest city in Mexico. Also known as the Silicon Valley of Mexico many Indian companies such as TCS, HCL, Amdocs etc. have set-up offices there along with other multinationals like IBM, HP, Oracle, Hitachi, etc. Guadalajara also has very vibrant colonial tourist attractions, a lot of which can be covered walking around, good places to eat lot of traditional dishes and beautiful night-life spots. Puebla, a small city close to Mexico City is the home of Volkswagen Mexico. It serves the North American market and has been the manufacturing base of the Volkswagen Beetle since the 1960s. The city of Puebla is also home to a large number of cathedrals and an active volcano called Popocateptl. My favourite part about Puebla though was the cheap and delicious Mexican food and the sheer number of cafes that lined up the downtown. Mexico City, the capital is one of the most highly populated cities in the world with over 20 million people and is an important cultural and financial centre of Latin America. A look at the roads and the buildings that line up the city and it reminded me of Calcutta. The city is home to a number of art and culture centres, the famous National Anthropological Museum and the Latin American head-offices of many multinationals like Deloitte, Microsoft, DHL, etc. Most of the areas and localities are named after other Mexican or Latin American or even International cities. And not to forget the Mahatma Gandhi Road. I was lucky enough to find a Pakistani restaurant which also served Indian food and that was my first proper Indian meal after two months! My travels ended with a trip to Cancun and Playa-del-Carmen which form the Caribbean part of Mexico. Located on the coast of the Caribbean sea, these cities have some of the most beautiful beaches I have ever seen. Tourism is such a prominent industry here that even US dollars are accepted in transactions. Cancun is well connected to all major American and European cities through direct flights and hence American and European tourists visit these places throughout the year for relaxing and partying as Cancun is also known as one of the beach-party hubs of North America. While staying here, I got the opportunity to visit the Mayan Ruins of Chichen Itza which is one of the seven-wonders of the world. Located quite close to the Equator, these regions are full of tropical forests, immense greenery and dangerous looking iguanas as well. An ideal week’s trip to these places would consist of four days of historical and natural sight-seeing and three days of swimming and sun-bathing in the morning and partying at night.

A really interesting aspect of the country which caught my attention was the network of convenience stores and super markets. The most famous chains include OXXO, 7-11, Soriana, Superama, HEB and Walmart Mexico. The OXXOs and 7-11s are smaller stores but spread over all major localities and petrol- pumps. There are over 10,000 OXXOs in the entire country and over 1600 7-11s. OXXO has an extensive network with stores in all the major cities as well as the small towns and highway petrol pumps spread across the country.  Soriana, HEB and Walmarts are the hypermarkets and have their presence mainly in the cities.

Overall Mexico is a really interesting country. Mexicans are very warm-hearted and friendly people, who love to eat a lot of cheese and beef. Sunday is almost like a family day as all the family members get together for weekend barbecues. The family culture is quite strong as people still live with their parents even while they are well past their 20s and only move out once they get married.

It’s not the best country for vegetarians though quite like India, each state has its own cuisine and each dish is made up of variety of spices and herbs. One must keep in mind that even though Mexicans do use different spices in their dishes, yet in terms of taste the Mexican spicy is not as strong as the Indian spicy. Tacos and quesadillas form the most basic food similar to our roti-sabzi in India. Tacos are small rolls of roti filled with different preparations of beef, pork and chicken. Quesadillas are tacos with a layer of cheese as well. My favourite Mexican dish was Assado de Puerco or roasted pork with chillies served with frijoles refritos or refried beans.  One thing I would like to point out is that the food in Mexico was very different and much better than Mexican dishes made in restaurants like Chili’s, Taco Bell or any other so-called Mexican restaurants in India. According to the locals, the Mexican dishes prepared in restaurants in India are mainly Tex-Mex, which is basically American ingredients mixed with Mexican cuisines. Apart from Mexican, I also got the chance to try out different cuisines from all over Latin America including Brazil, Argentina, Cuba, Colombia and Venezuela of which I really loved the Venezuelan Arepas (cakes made of corn and filled with meat and cheese) and the Argentine pizzas.  

I can keep going on and on about the country. But in a nutshell, Mexico was an amazing experience – academically as well as fun-wise. Although hectic, but high quality first class education are the words which appropriately describe the academic experience there. I would highly recommend Mexico for the student exchange program for the future batches of IMT. As I write this I do keep getting a little emotional. Since this was my first trip abroad, it was quite a special one and I can’t thank IMT Ghaziabad enough for giving me this wonderful opportunity. Over the three months I stayed there, I made a lot of good friends not just from Mexico but also from Italy, Germany, Canada, and the United States, who now occupy a very special place in my life and I do hope I will meet them again sooner rather than later. I will conclude by saying that no matter where I end up living in the future, Mexico and the city of Monterrey will always hold a very special place in my heart. I am sure I will cross paths with Mexico again but until then it’s Adios Mexico! It was a pleasure.

*Views are personal.