Olin students get to know Barcelona with scavenger hunt

An exciting new location. A historic old city. What better way to introduce full-time MBA students to Barcelona than a scavenger hunt with 20-something challenges?

On their first day of the Barcelona leg of Olin’s global immersion, nearly 100 students found themselves roaming Barcelona barrios, getting to know the city—and their classmates.

The excursion, planned by ESADE, Olin’s university partner in Spain, required teams of students to locate famous landmarks, historic monuments and popular attractions around the city.

Teams of five to 10 students received a preprogrammed iPad loaded with the challenges. As proof of each conquest, teams were required to take a group selfie at each location, worth 10 points, or shoot a brief video for 20 points.

For more complex challenges—say, pretending to make music in front on the Palau de la Música Catalana music hall or pantomiming selling food at the Mercado de La Boqueria food market—teams could earn up to 30 points.

After two hours of scouring Barcelona neighborhoods such as the Gothic Quarter and El Ravel to tackle as many challenges as possible, members of Team 11 were declared the winners.

The main agenda is to have fun while we learn. We learn as a team, and we definitely have each other’s backs. 

Nidhi Kandari, MBA 2021

Pictured at top: Barcelona scavenger hunt winning team: (from left) Nidhi Kandari, Sarah Sugarbaker (teaching assistant), Hannah Levin, Marguerite Whitelaw and Derek Leiter (not pictured Guanhua Yang).