Last Thursday, several classes who follow the Supply-Chain-Management courses, received a guest lecture from a German professor named Harald Gleißner. The Professor, who came all the way down from the Berlin School of Economics and Law, gave us more insight in the basics of Logistics. It began with a brief presentation about the essential factors dealt with related to the supply chain. Once that was finished, the students went to the North-Serre and started their case study. The case was made in groups, and spread trough the whole Serre, everyone was working very eager on their assignments. Once they were finished they had to write a particular assignment on a whiteboard. All the groups came up with a different answer to the same question, which was exactly Mr. Gleißners idea. All the groups drew their vision of a supply chain from the company belonging to the case. The students started to discuss each others assignments, and they soon saw and understood the essential message which mister Gleißner wanted to give us. In logistics, not every answer that deviates from the basic answer is wrong. With the right idea behind it, it’s never wrong. Of course they already had a solid background due to the lessons in SCM we had from Mr. Draijer. Nevertheless the lecture from the Professor showed the students new perspectives in Logistics and the visit was definitely worth it!

Popularity: 2% [?]

The best way to get an internship!
Would you like to know the best way to get a good internship? Yeah me too but it is not that simple. Took me a few months of searching to get one. Well as I already said, I cannot tell you the best way to search for an internship but I can tell you how I did it and perhaps give you some helpful tips and perhaps some other students can comment some additional tips below….. In this first part I will give you some basic tips and one of my personal experiences during my search for an internship.

Before you apply
For a start I would say you should think of all the companies which catch your interest. So just think of all the cool brands or industries you like. You should also think of the type of jobs you are looking for, what you want do learn and in which country or region you want to do it. Big companies might sound good on your CV but the smaller ones could perhaps give you a better insight into the firm and make your tasks more important. Furthermore, I would say try to see this as a  real job instead of just a school assignment because you never know if they will be asking you to work for them after you finished your HES studies.

My first steps
Personally, my priorities was to find an Asian company so one of the first things I did was was making a list of interesting companies in Asia. I also started working on updating my  CV and Cover letter. This was more work than I expected, so get that stuff sorted out on time! When I finished my CV and basic set up for my Cover letter I thought it was pretty good. But after some time it turned out that it could be improved on quite a few points. So my advice is to ask as many people with some more experience for their opinion but still try to put your own style in it. (yeah I know I am not a professional in this area this was my first real CV, normally I get asked for jobs or create them myself hehe).

Mailing Mailing Mailing
Than it all started I was sending my CV and Cover letter to lots of companies but most of them are pretty fucked up and never replied to my emails. This brings me to my first advise, do not wait for a reply but just keep on sending your applications to more and more and more firms. The ones who are interested will most of the time reply within one or two days. Other than that, there are more ways to contact companies other than by email or online forms. For example, I couldn’t find the right email address for some companies and decided to sent them a letter by old fashion post. Here as well from all the 15 companies I mailed only one mailed back that they where impressed by my CV and would look for opportunities in their Hong Kong office. A month later they still did not find an opportunity… Yeah at some points finding an internship really SUCKS!

Good experience
I was already in Asia so after a while I thought instead of mailing them that I could visit their office tomorrow why not just visit them today. So I did I went to a marketing firm in Shanghai and explained that I was looking for an internship. At first the woman I talked to was saying they already had some interns from Singapore and there would probably not be enough work to hire another intern. However, we did a kind of interview and said she would directly discuss it with the other directors. She returned with the same news she had given me at the start and thanked me for coming. OK THAT SUCKS, but at least I got a direct and clear answer and they took me serious. Well, apparently she did like me because an hour later I received an email with contact info of three other Chinese marketing companies (not just the HR department but real people). I emailed them they all responded in a few hours which alone was awesome already! However, after a few emails it turned out they couldn’t hire me either. But again they did have a close look to my files so I would definitely recommend you just to go to the company of your interest and ask them for the job! Make sure you are prepared, proper clothing, knowledge about the company and have your CV and cover letter ready.

This was just the beginning of my experience and advice on finding an internship. Part 2 will follow. I finally got an internship so there is a happy ending to this story and the best is yet to come! So keep on checking out iStudyatHES.com

Popularity: 3% [?]

Intercultural Sales Negotiation

This subject is compulsory for the entrepreneur minor and optional for the international marketing minor and exchange students.

Boringness: Lot’s of fun during class

Difficulty: Don’t worry you will pass as long as you are not afraid to speak up.

Workload: You need to write a few pages over the year and read a chapter from the syllabus each week.

Popularity: 3 full classes

One way or the other, we all find ourselves in a position where we have to negotiate about prizes, salaries and other terms. Therefore we find this course with weekly practise sessions to negotiate terms in different situations. These sessions are fun but other than only playing to be a company you may also have to read chapters of the course syllabus. And make sure you do so because there might be an unexpected pop-quiz popping up at the beginning of the next class.

The course is not that difficult it doesn’t have a written exam but instead you have to do a case study, write a few preparations for negotiations and negotiate against another team as part of your final exam. Lots of people don’t really take it serious and the quality of the course is depending on the assigned teacher. Personally, I thought it was interesting to see the intercultural aspects of doing business.

Popularity: 13% [?]

Stock Valuation (STV) is a third year subject which is for exchange students optional and for students doing the Financial Minor is compulsory.

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Teacher Frank Mettes (MES): He… he… hmmm… knows a lot but… you can win any discussion agaisnt him…

Difficulty: Difficult, you gotta read that bloody book no matter what…

Boringness: It starts pretty good, exiting, you feel like learning but after a while you hate it.

Popularity: Crowded, lots of resiters.

This subject is divided in 2 parts. The exam and the group report, both count for 50% of the final grade. You gotta read a book called ” A random walk down Wall Street” of Malkiel. (I hate Malkiel now).

You learn how the stock market works, the influence of the macroeconomic indicators on bonds and shares prices. You learn how read those tables with millions of weird numbers in the newspapers and how to calculate the ratios, price earnings, profits per share, etc, etc. Furthermore, you learn how to make a portfolio and reduce its risk. In the meanwhile, you have to read the book which tells the experience of a guy (Malkiel) who knows everything about investing and being successful in the long term.

The thing is with subject is that besides all technical and economical factors that influence a stock price there are also human factors like behaviour, depression, exitement, etc, and even weather. Therefore the teacher and the book tells you that even a monkey can make a portfolio and make some profit. So, WTF are we spending time with this? Everything you learn is just general knowledge and it’s faaaaar to be applied in something concrete.

The exam is like 20 open questions. Around 10 that you have to make calculations and the rest theory about the book. Some questions are really tricky, they refer to small concepts hidden in the pages. For the other 50% of the grade you have to hand in a report. This report consist of analyzing the financial structure of a company listed in the stock market. You gotta come up with the ratios, share numbers, share value, etc and give an advice of whether the share is attractive to buy or sell. Check out the exams and report in the Exam section.

Popularity: 12% [?]

Corporate Finance 2 (CO2) is of course the continuation of CO1 that you have in 2nd year. For exchange students it is optional and for students doing the Financial Minor is compulsory.

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Teachers: Blum (no pic – German) and Fonkert (picture – Dutch): Alright, not bad, tell bad jokes

Level of difficulty: Doable

Boringness: It could be more dynamic, you might suffer embolism sometimes.

Popularity: Classes mostly crowded

CO2 seems to be easy at the beginning but it’s not that easy neither difficult. You learn to calculate the value of bonds, stocks, mortgage payments, calculation of inflation, interest changes/rates, APR, EAR, standard deviation, and stuff. There are thousand of formulas that look the same but they are all different. The exercises are almost pure logic stuff more than difficult calculations.

You get homework every class but never is particularly asked (if you didn’t do it, shup up and sit in the back). No projects, no groups, no nothing. Just do your thing and show up at the exam.

The exam is mostly divided in 2 parts. 20 MC questions and 2/3 open problems. For MC you may need to calculate stuff but there is also theory. Some of the open question might be related so if you err one thing, you fuck up the whole problem. Anyways, I know people that never went to any classes and still pass with a 7 or 8. But again you have those that went to all classes, done all homework and failed the exam with a 4. Check out the exams at the Exam section.

Literature: The same book that you use for CO1, Corporate Finance Fundamentals – ISBN 10-0-07-111802-0

Popularity: 12% [?]

Under the category “Subjects” you are gonna find the reviews of a lot of subjects that will be written shortly. In these posts you will find information about how is the subject, how difficult is, some advices and warnings.

Since there are millions of subjects you are invited to write a review as well. Just pick a subject and write what you think of it but try to be objective too. Don’t just write your amazing/frustrated experience but point out the pros and cons.

Ok fellas, see ya around

Popularity: 8% [?]

When you are in the second year of IBMS, you are asked to write reports on these important issues: Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and Exports (EXP) to another continent. Both projects are the most important of the year since together sum 13 ECT credits.

FDI

The whole point of the report is to give an advise to a well-known company whether to invest or not into a specific country. You have to research the internal market, external, competitors, legal matters and of course the financial scenarios. Divided in three sections, Law 30%, Finance 40% and Marketing 30% (of the grade) and you have to come up with a report of about 25 pages.

The workload is not as much as with EXP, since you have weekly seminars and you don’t actually have to hand in anything (anything for a real grade, just a few drafts) till the end of the project, so if you are smart enough, you can write the whole thing 2 weeks before the deadline and still pass.

Export

The whole concept is about you working for a global company and you have to research a South american country and decide whether is feasible to export your services to that country. It consists of weekly seminars where you have to hand in chapters of the report. Every chapter graded individually, so you better write them nicely. Also divided but in 4 sections.

The difficulty of these projects depends also on the teachers you get for each part. However I’ll discuss that in other post, so far, that was what you can expect from these projects.

Under the page “projects” you can get old versions of these projects. Have a look but don’t copy paste info, you might get caught, instead> try to get inspired… or in the worse of the cases: REWRITE!!!

So the question that arises is: Which one sucks the most??

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Popularity: 11% [?]