When I applied to the CEMS Master in International Management, I had a very precise picture in my head, an English-speaking country, ideally the United States. It felt familiar, almost comfortable. Then I caught myself. I had a scholarship at my home university, Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez in Chile, so I let myself dream a little bigger. And I asked a different question. How far can I actually go? Not just geographically. Personally. The answer was Asia. Keio University in Tokyo became my destination. I arrived in Japan without speaking the language, in a culture that works by codes I had to learn one by one. People ask me what CEMS is like, and I always give the same answer: exposure therapy.
You are placed, again and again, in situations you cannot fully prepare for. Finding your way in a city you don't know yet, managing a budget on your own, working with people who see things differently and learning how to make it work. None of this is in the syllabus, and all of it is part of the curriculum.
"CEMS is way more about discovering things within you than learning new things."
The academic side surprised me in its own way. One of the courses I took at Keio is called Otaku Culture. On paper, it sounds surprisingly unconventional. The professor arrives dressed as a different character every week, and my classmates kept wondering whether we were really studying. It's among the most intellectually engaging classes I've taken. Behind the playfulness, the course examines how Japanese creative industries travel across the world, and why branding that succeeds in one country can completely miss in another. It taught me to allow myself to be amused and suspend my first judgment, habits I now apply everywhere. What looks light can be rigorous. What looks obvious in your own culture can be a misreading somewhere else. That way of yielding to amusement is among the most valuable things I will take from this exchange.
Resilience, shaped by real-world experience
Resilience, for me, is a very practical skill, and Japan gave me a level of independence I had never experienced before. I learned to organize my own path, to introduce myself in new ways, and to keep my energy intact when things take longer than planned. Being an artist and a content creator helps; creatives know how to come back to the table with a fresh idea, again and again. CEMS turned that personal trait into a professional strength. I built a portfolio that shows who I am far better than a standard CV, and my master's thesis grew directly out of this experience, exploring what industries can learn from artists and from the way they present their work to the world.
I was not alone in any of this. At Universidad Adolfo Ibañez, our programme manager, Maite Sánchez, guided us through the early stages of the exchange. As a former CEMSie herself, she had answers to the practical questions of life as an international student. Every CEMS school has someone in that role, and it changes everything. You are pushed out of your comfort zone, but somebody is watching the rope.
CEMS is where you get to know yourself
Here is what I understood along the way. I expected this year to be about learning new things. In reality, it was mostly about discovering things that were already in me. At master's level, you have accumulated knowledge and experience; CEMS is the moment you are invited to translate all of it into who you actually are. Moving across the world without the language, adapting to a culture far from mine, holding my ground through uncertainty.
Each of these experiences told me something about myself that no classroom could. That is what becoming a reflective and resilient leader has meant for me. Not toughness for its own sake, but self-awareness built under real conditions. If I had chosen the familiar option, I would have had a good year. By choosing the far one, I learned how I work, how I recover, and how I lead myself first. I would make the same choice every time.
