When you are in the third or fourth year of your course, you have to do a minor. There are quite a few minors taught entirely in English at HES Amsterdam. You need to fulfil  certain requirements to have access to these minors:

• Only students who have been admitted to the 3rd academic year of the core phase from September 2008 may register for a minor.
• Have achieved the propedeuse phase.
• Minimun of 40 ECTs of the second year.

Thursday the 12th of March there will be a MINORSFAIR in the Cantine of Leeuwenburg 16:00 to 18:00!

To get orientated check out the following info below! and last years comments!

Enrollment period for next semester is from March 30th untill April 11th

Even though there is a wide option of minors, it doesn’t really mean that you will do the minor you enrol since there has to be a minimun of students that want to do the same thing.

There a few of them that look pretty good like Business Process Integration which is about the internal activities within the business organization, you learn to use advance SAP, trasury and controlling activities, etc… (it’s a pity that the explanation it’s in Dutch, thanks HES for your concern for international students)

Another minor quite interesting is the one about Building Partnerships in China where you have to build a relationship between a Dutch company and a chinese one. You have to go to Shanghai, China for 4 weeks and complete the assignment. It is asked to have €1750 to afford the tickets and lodging, but the idea is that you have to get a sponsor who partly pays for you!

You can find an overview of all the minors offered at HES-HvA here.

The most chosen minors are the followings:

International Finance (MINFI) (HES info)

Subjects like Stock Valuation and Financial Risk Management are taught. You learn how to understand the behaviour of stocks and markets and how to make an “educated guesses” about what’s going to happen (buy or sell stuff). You have Corporate Finance 2, Financial Accounting and Management Accouting. If you were good in those subjects in the previews years, this minor won’t be difficult for you. Almost no projects and not serious homework. The schedule could be easily arranged in three days a week which leaves you with a lot of free time to have a part-time job. The end of the semester is very stressful.

International Marketing (MINTM) (HES Info)

Read the full story

Popularity: 13% [?]

The financial minor is an option you have to choose when you are in the third year. You can either do it in the first half of the year and then go on exchange or first exchange and then the minor.

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Teachers: Hmm.. not cool

Difficulty: Not easy but not extremely difficult, you gotta study and read stuff

Boringness: By moments exiting but sometimes disappointing, embolism present

Popularity: very crowded, in some classes you don’t get a seat.

When you look at the description of the minor in the minor’s website you find a amazing description of the minor, something more or less like “in this world full of globalization you will become a financial professional that will understand the stock markets, the financial risk, sophisticated bla bla bla and you will become the next Warren Buffett (richest man in the world)”. That is technically true but practically NOT TRUE.

I did the financial minor and it isn’t that great (neither that bad). The financial knowledge you get is too general. You get to learn how futures, swaps, hedging, etc work and how you can calculate them, etc. You have a closer look to the stock markets and learn how the macroeconomic indicators affect bonds and stocks. The content of the minor is good but if you are thinking to go and buy shares and start trading… hmm no, this minor doesn’t go that deeper.

Subjects such as Stock Valuation (STV) and Financial Risk Management (FRM) sound really sophisticated but they are not. Then you have Financial (FA2)and Management Accouting (MAT), Corporate Finance 2 (CO2) and English (EC5). You kinda get tired of reading books all about the same financial stuff, you might miss marketing or that sort of things.

You can manage to arrange your schedule to 3 days in the week which is pretty good if you have job. If you are one of those persons that need to go to the school to feel that they are doing something, keep it to 4 days.  If you are extremely smart, check out the first weeks just to have a glimpse of the subjects and then study by yourself and go to the exams, big chance that you will pass.

Popularity: 14% [?]