Open yourself to the world by training yourself at home: the EDHEC Online experience

EDHEC Business School is a pioneer in the field of online degree training and through EDHEC Online offers high-quality customised distance learning programmes that combine EDHEC’s academic excellence with cutting-edge technological know-how. This nomadic learning experience - accessible anywhere and at any time – enables people in jobs to acquire new skills and evolve in an international framework, by enhancing their adaptability and opening them out to other cultures. This new vision of online education, delivered locally and focused on learning by doing, is in no way synonymous with immobility and is designed to open up horizons and offer international experiences of a new type.

Immerse yourself in an international context

Ana works as a freelancer for international clients in the art field from Bucharest. She’s studying for EDHEC Online’s Master of Science (MSc) in International Business Management in order to inject fresh impetus into her career. The programme meets her need for flexibility and allows her to organise her time as she wishes, by alternating classes taught by EDHEC Business School professors and company experts, with group work undertaken in the company of students from around the world: “Several evenings a week, I meet online with my cohort to study and work on our projects. Despite the geographic distance between us, we’ve forged solid bonds and this has allowed me to put more into the course and feel well accompanied.”

The programme’s international environment has brought Ana into contact with other cultures and ways of thinking, particularly through the numerous group work assignments, such as the consulting project, which are central to EDHEC Online’s teaching approach: “Working together with participants of different nationalities is a good way of familiarising yourself with other ways of thinking. It’s stimulating to take part in group work, such as a marketing campaign, and to see how interpretations differ according to each individual’s culture. A beneficial exercise which encourages dialogue between us for the purposes of defining solutions.”

Fostering an active approach by the learner

Fan has always had an international way of life. She studied in China and now works in France where, like Ana, she is studying on EDHEC’s online international business programme, an 18-month course that leads to a degree equivalent to five years of higher-education study. Fan was looking for “an outstanding and enriching programme, in synch with current issues, as a means to develop my career”. An objective delivered by EDHEC’s online programmes which offer her the chance to reap the benefit of French higher education, right from her home. 

EDHEC Online’s programmes stand out for their focus on a “learning by doing” approach, particularly during “live” classes that bring together the full cohort of students, this being one of EDHEC Online’s specific characteristics. As Cyrille Comole-Theveniaud, Professor of Marketing and Transformation, Digital explains: “My aim is to capture the attention and interest of my students in a sustained manner from their homes. The theoretical points I cover throughout the sessions are systematically accompanied with practical tasks – multiple choice questionnaires, drag and drop, essay writing – in order to facilitate the learning process for students”. These occasions bring together students from all corners of the globe and prompt Cyrille to enrich his classes with numerous examples reflecting the many nationalities represented on the programme: “I notably refer to real business cases concerning companies from around the world, such as from the USA, South America, Europe or Asia-Pacific, and of all sizes and with these cases as often as possible related to the cohort’s centres of interest or experiences. All these references really enrich my classes”.

Learning through the experience of others

EDHEC Online’s programmes are accessible to students all over the world and offer an experience where mobility is central to learning, as Fan explains to us: “I can access all the teaching material wherever I can connect, which I do when I’ve got a free moment after work or when on transport for example, by learning directly on my tablet or iPad”. This cutting edge technology was developed by the FOME international alliance, a collection of 11 schools, including EDHEC as a founder member, that is working to transform online education, particularly through the creation of innovative digital resources which EDHEC benefits from, such as digital resources for “mobile first” learning. In this way, the FOME alliance offers an innovative learning experience based on a high level of academic and technological excellence that is devoted to training students in a fast-changing world.

For Fan, the MSc Online in International Business Management also offers the chance to interact with students from different countries and more specifically to learn from their professional experiences, while continuing with her day-to-day life in Paris: “It’s fascinating for me to be in contact with students from other cultures and who have a variety of professional backgrounds. Hearing them relate their experiences opens my mind a lot and helps me understand the reality of different industries which I didn’t know about before these exchanges”.

Through these new learning models - particularly social learning which affords a central role to human interaction - EDHEC ensures the human experience remains central to its programmes, while also making its students from around the world more open to new ideas.