Time flies when you´re busy!!

I know, my last blog was posted some time ago, but I got an excuse for the delay. The period after our Christmas holidays has been rather hectic will all the schoolwork due in January. First, we had to hand in our country reports on selected Sub-Saharan Countries (Madagascar & Zambia in my case) for the course Institutions, Growth & Development, with an analysis of their economic development over the last 50 years. All in all it has been a very interesting project and to give you a very brief conclusion; the prospects for the near future look bright for either country. Although, economic development from 1950 till roughly 2000 was characterized by periods of rapid growth, followed by periods of similar decline, the growth performance from about 2002 onwards has been very spectacular. The biggest challenge this time is to achieve sustainable long run growth. In an interactive session we presented our results in a more detailed way, as did our fellow students. It was really interesting to see that each case needs a different approach but overall the prospects look positive. In the meantime, I was supposed to prepare a discussion session with my project group on the economic impact of the introduction of the potato in Europe. This all seems rather trivial, but some researchers have shown that the potato did actually have a very positive impact on urbanisation and total population growth. Without going in too much detail one of the main underlying reasons is the high nutritional value of the potato, which coincided with an  increase in demand for nutritious food at the start of the Industrial Revolution. The potato allowed (more) people to live in cities and work in the big factories, which eventually sparked economic growth in Western Europe (and the world).

After all, these very interesting project assignments were obviously concluded by an exam for either course, we wrote them last week’s Wednesday & Friday. After our last exam, it was finally time to relax a bit. We gathered with most students in our Master’s programme to enjoy the afternoon.

At the end of the day I realized that we are already half way our Master’s, time flies. I have two more courses to follow, Multinational Firms and Empirics of Globalisation, before I conclude my studies with my Master’s thesis. 

December 21st 2012...

We are only with a few students in the Globalisation & Development track. This is nice, as you get to know all your fellow students way easier than in larger tracks. We attend the classes with the same small group all the time, so you start to chat with one another more easily outside class. There seems to be quite some connection amongst each other as outside Uni activities are organized all the time. This week there was a gathering together at one student’s place with food and wine. Another good example of the nice atmosphere between the Masters students is the snow fight we had after (and between) class a few weeks ago. The first snowflakes had fallen and everything outside looked nice and white, a good opportunity for some fun in the snow. Almost all students in the track joined and it took half an hour before we finally finished our battle. All in all these things really add something to the experience of being a student at Utrecht University.

And then to question that has been puzzling a lot of people in meantime: Is the end of the world really approaching? If the Maya people were right with their calendar, which would denote the end of the world on the 21th of December in 2012, the apocalypse of the world would come today and this would effectively be my last blog for the Utrecht University School of Economics. However, according to Maya Nobel laureate Rigoberta Menchú the whole ‘End of the World’ story is all non-sense, which is only being made up by sensationalist merchant people. Good news for us, as we are on the brink of enjoying our well-deserved Christmas break.

This break will not only mean that I will gather together with friends and family to enjoy nice food and drinks and open the presents underneath the Christmas tree. I will have to do some catching up with reading some articles for the courses I’m currently following and today we will receive our feedback on the Draft version of our paper we submitted for the course Institutions, Growth & Development. Hopefully, this will not be the end of the world. Probably not!

For now, I want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a happy 2013!!

It's the most wonderful time of the year!

When writing my previous blog, I was just preparing for the exams of Period 1. These were my first exams for the Masters program International Economics & Business and I did not really know what to expect from them. It had been a pretty hectic period altogether, with lots of deadlines and project group work. To be honest I couldn’t wait for it all to be finished.

After two weeks of waiting, we finally received our final grades, and I am glad to say that I have passed them both. In the meantime the next period has already kicked off, with some new exciting courses. I am currently following the course Urban Development, digging into the theory and challenges behind development in urban areas. The course Institutions, Growth & Development explores the differences in economic growth patterns across countries and their underlying reasons.

The main assignment consists of writing a report on two Sub-Saharan African countries, Zambia and Madagascar in my case, to find out whether their economic development is in line with the literature.

Apart from the actual studying we got something else exciting going on, namely the fact that our department of the Masters Program has a certain fund available to organize study-related activities. One can think of a intriguing guest lecture, a movie night, meet and great with an institute in the field or even a conference. We are currently determining what activity would be the most popular among the students.

Apart from all these exciting study related topics this period is going to be an extremely hectic one. First of all, we have to start thinking about what to do after we finish our studies. In relation to this labour market orientation process I am attending ECU ‘92’s Economic Career Event, on the 29^th of November. Secondly, it is time to determine what courses to follow in the third period, which is the last term in which I will effectively be following courses before I write my final thesis. Thirdly, the deadline for handing in a thesis proposal is rapidly approaching. This is the option to come up with an own thesis proposal or to write the thesis at a company.

As December is quickly approaching, it is almost time to shave off my contribution to the Movember movement. In all honesty, there isn’t much to shave off, but hey, at least I tried. We are slowly moving towards the most wonderful time of the year. The days are getting shorter, nights are getting longer, the temperature is getting colder and the cocoa is getting warmer. Despite all of this, it is still my favourite part of the year, as the Christmas holidays are upon us. At the beginning of December I will celebrate Sinterklaas with my family and some really close friends, so I should start waking up my creative side and come up with a nice poem and ‘Surprise’. At the end of the month, my family will come together to celebrate Christmas and I am looking forward to spending some long awaited family time. Also, I can’t wait to see my mother’s completely decorated Christmas tree with real candles, bright red balls and an astounding star at the pinnacle of it all. Finally, we head towards the end of the year accompanied by the musical prowess of Radio 2’s Top 2000, and obviously the grand finale: New Year’s Eve.

Help...!! It is time for the Exams

For the first time this academic year the period of stress has arrived as next week’s exams are rapidly approaching. This requires formidable time management and numerous hours of studying in the library. We are not only supposed to study hard for the exams, we also have the final (combined) paper for the courses Empirical Economics and International Business Ventures due at the end of this week.

Should my social life stop until all these horrific deadlines have passed? My answer is no. I really believe that no matter how busy you are and how much work has to be done, one should always reserve time to relax and ease the mind in order to achieve good results. That is why I do not cancel my football practise on Mondays and Thursdays, because during these 1.5 hours of practise you are able to forget all the difficult econometric formulas and strategic decisions that keep us occupied at school. It also gives me an opportunity to complain about the hard parts of student life (which is obviously utter nonsense) and to get compassion from the team mates that are in exactly the same position. Apart from the training nights I have two football matches scheduled for Friday & Saturday. Should I cancel these then? My answer is no. Although the Friday match will be played near Groningen in my hometown of Bedum and therefore costs me quite some travel time, I really believe it is not harmful for me to go and play. I can spend the 4 hours (2 hours both ways) in the train to study and in the same line of reasoning as above I can ease my mind playing a football match.

The following Saturday another match is scheduled with the student football club Odysseus ’91 in Utrecht, where we will compete against another side from Utrecht: Elinkwijk. For Saturday night, after the football match, the hardest decision has to be made. My girlfriend asked me to come to a Halloween party that a friend of hers organized and I have a really hard time to decline this particular invitation as I know how much fun it is going to be. At the same time I am well aware that a party the weekend before the exam week is not going to increase the productivity of my study efforts the day after. Should I decline the invitation? My answer is no. The solution will be to go to the party and leave early, as a hangover should be avoided at all times. Then I am confident that I will succeed to pass my exams next week. In my next blog I will report how my study strategy worked out and hopefully I will score sufficient grades for my exams and have a blast at the Halloween party.

Cheers!

And we're off, the first steps towards Msc

We are about half way the term as we speak, and so far it has been a really busy one.

What I have learned until now, apart from various new regression techniques and strategy case studies, is that the Master studies differ in a lot of ways from the Bachelor phase.

The level of the courses has increased, the workload seems to be a lot higher and fellow students tend to be more motivated. The courses I’m currently following are Empirical Economics, which builds upon the Econometrics course from the Bachelor phase, and International Business Ventures (or shortly, IBV). We are working on a joint project between the two courses, combining the insights from International Business Ventures with the regression techniques of Empirical Economics.

At the same time we follow a weekly tutorial and lecture for both courses. For the IBV-course, we are supposed to prepare a case study every week and hand it in to the professor. In the tutorial the prof decides randomly who is to present that week, which effectively means you have to prepare a well structured and quality PowerPoint presentation for each case as there is always a chance that your group has to present.

All in all, this is very demanding and exciting at the same time. Due to the continuous stream of assignments and deadlines you are required to plan all your work well in advance, to make sure everything is done in time and is of sufficient quality.     

Therefore, I find myself at school from 9 to 5 more often than not, as if I were already working a regular job and I am approaching the 40-hour study week more than ever, something I considered my worst nightmare during my Bachelor studies ;). But as I said, so far it has all been very exciting, for example dr. Pinna’s classes. His teaching approach is slightly different from other professors. He tries to bring in as much real world business examples as possible, which makes it easier to understand the theory. He also likes to joke around and provides us with practical tricks and tips. His best advice so far: when you are negotiating as a manager, always make sure to check your opponents mood with their personal secretary before you go into any talks. This allows you to alter your strategy if necessary.

Another thing that made me very exited is last night’s Bachelor graduation ceremony. Finally the time was there, completely dressed up in cap and gown,  to collect my Bachelor diploma.

From now on I’m at liberty to use the title Bachelor of Science (Bsc) and in the coming months I’m going to acquire my next title, Master of Science (Msc). I hope you will all follow me on my journey to reach this goal during the remainder of this year.

Best regards,

Lars Bos

A brief introduction!

My name is Lars Bos and I am currently a 5th years Masters student at Utrecht School of Economics (USE). I have been asked to share my experiences during this Master’s year, which will most probably be my last year of studies.

After finishing high school in 2007, I decided to postpone my study career for one year to go on a 8-month backpacking trip to Australia and New Zealand together with my brother. After this year of travels I started my Bachelor study Economics & Business Economics at USE, where I acquired the necessary 180 ECTS within 3 years. Instead of starting with my Master’s right away, I had decided to extend my Bachelor studies with one more year. The first halve of this year, I worked as an intern at the parcel division of PostNL, the largest parcel delivery company of the Netherlands. The second semester, I continued studying in Singapore at the Singapore Management University (SMU) to follow 4 more courses for my Bachelor program and to experience studying in a complete different environment with another culture. When I came back to the Netherlands I had already applied for the Masters program International Economics & Business, track 4: Globalisation and Development. This Masters seemed a natural extension of my Bachelor, as I happened to have followed the economic geography minor where we already discussed a lot of globalisation and development issues, which had catched my interest right away. So, I am very eager to deal with these issues in more depth in the coming year of my studies. I hope for now, I have introduced myself well enough.

I am looking forward to keep on updating you regularly about my experiences during my Master International Economics and Business at Utrecht School of Economics. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to approach me.

Best regards,

Lars Bos     

The art of job interviewing.

Six courses futher and a piece of the thesis already done, the future is knocking on the door today. Skills need to be developed, more knowledge to be obtained and money needs to be made. Where to find this combination? At the labourmarket. Yes you understood it correctly, the labour market, that big and scary thing people talk about in the papers. That place where evil employers hunt down potential employees and subject them to tortures to be sure that they have the best young professional available that they can mould to be their puppet on strings.

A month or two ago I started to think of what I wanted to do after my graduation and started sending my resume to potential employers. And all of a sudden there it was: an invitation for a job interview accompanied with something you might already know: an invitation to make some test to examine you verbal and numerical capabilities and your personality. Although I was nervous for making the tests, I expected the tortures described above, these turned out to be very do-able. One might expect that if one has finished an academic bachelors’ and masters’ degree that one does also pass these tests, although timepressure and nervosity do add an extra, let’s say, dimension to these things.

My very first interview was a big eye-opener. I thought I came well prepared, but it turned out that some questions where more difficult than I expected. ‘You say you are teamplayer, can you give me an example out of which this speaks?’ ‘What is the thing you accomplished that makes you most proud of yourself?’ ‘What is it that you as a unique person are bringing to this organisation?’.

I really had to learn to think of myself as an asset to a company. What is it that I have in me, that others might not have? How do my skills and interests match this specific company? And how can I show or proof this by giving examples? I must say the training of Tempo-Team organized by the University was a very useful event to help me trying to answer these questions. But as they also say, ‘practice makes perfect’, only by doing interviews, one eventually gets trained in it. And the most important aspect of what you bring to a company, is something you cannot change or do anything about, it is you. More and more we get selected based on who we are, if we are a pleasant person to be around. In all the interviews I had so far, there was one point were I just talked and had a laugh with the recruiter sitting in front of me, because we were talking about stuff that had absolutely nothing to do with the job at all. I hadn’t expected to be talking about bad tv-series and ‘de Zwarte Cross’, did you?