When most MBA students take a break from school, they go on vacation. But Johnson School student Eunice Omole took a leave of absence to do something completely different: become internationally famous.

Omole beat out 16 other contestants to become a finalist in "The Apprentice Africa," making it all the way to the last episode, where she narrowly missed winning. The program, which aired throughout the African continent, is a spinoff of the popular American program in which talented 20- and 30-somethings compete in business-related challenges each week as they are "fired," one by one.

Just as "The Apprentice" in the United States has pitted men versus women and contestants with "book smarts" versus "street smarts," "The Apprentice Africa" created two teams comprising continental Africans from Nigeria, Ghana, Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya versus diaspora Africans from the United Kingdom and United States.

Omole, 29, a Washington, D.C., native, holds an economics degree from the University of Virginia and a master's degree in real estate from the College of Architecture, Art and Planning at Cornell (2007).

Now on leave from the Johnson School with plans to return in January 2009, she is working as the managing partner for an investment management firm in Alhambra, Calif., concentrating on raising funds to build residential housing and a bed-and-breakfast in China.

The reality-show journey swept Omole from Cornell to Lagos, Nigeria, for six months, where she was seen by millions of Africans from February through June.

On the show, Omole was chosen to be a project manager on a variety of tasks, including hotel redecoration, selling sporting goods on the street and Omole's favorite contest: creating new uniforms for boys and girls ages 3-10 years old at a Lagos private school.

"We wanted the outfits to be functional, marketable and stylish," Omole said. "The fun part was working with the kids and creating a fashion show where they could model the outfits. I was in my element." The episode can be seen at: http://www.theapprenticeafrica.com/multimedia.php?vid=17.

As project manager, Omole was brought before the CEO to face the firing line five times. She survived all the challenges except the last one.

"I learned that my strategy for isolating myself from others worked in the short term to get me to the finale," Omole said. "However, it cost me in the end. In the long term, people will only rally behind someone they feel they have a connection and relationship with. In the long term, it's the relationships that you have built that maintain your success."

In the finals, Omole and her challenger were charged with creating a walk-through interactive event for Bank PHB. The finalists were asked to defend their design for the event and address their worthiness as the first "Apprentice Africa" winner.

The winner received a lucrative one-year job at Bank PHB with a $200,000 salary and a luxury car. There was no cash prize for second place, but Omole learned much from her experience. "I now have an excellent platform to launch my special initiative focused on entrepreneurship and business in Africa," she said.

Omole is the second Cornell student to break the hearts of the Ithaca faithful. Lee H. Bienstock '05 came in second place in the American version of "The Apprentice" in Season 5.