Helen and Jelle about the Enexis Management Traineeship: “IN THE TRAINEESHIP YOU GET OPPORTUNITIES THAT YOU WOULD NOT HAVE OTHERWISE” The energy transition is in full swing. As a grid operator, we face major challenges. We can use the fresh perspectives and ideas of up-and-coming…
Hi everyone! My name is Femke Janssen, 22 years old and you may know me as the Treasurer of the Board 2022-2023. After my board year, I have not been sitting still. Recently, I have started my Master in Accountancy here at Tilburg University. Furthermore,…
Welcome to our first Go-Business article of the academic year 2022-2023! After long discussions, we realized that the best topic for this article would be something to help other students with their future. That is why diving into the life of Hugo Breuning was the perfect opportunity to take, an intern, student, and Active member at Asset | IB&M. Some may be asking
themselves, how does he do it all? Which is what we’ll try to portray here.
Firstly, Hugo decided to study International Business Administration at Tilburg University because he was captivated by the international aspect of the program. He did consider similar Dutch bachelors, but he believed that by following an English-taught program he would have access to more opportunities abroad, which was of interest to him.
As some of you may know, in the third year of the IBA program students have to decide whether they want to go on exchange, do an internship or follow a minor in a field of their interest. Hugo chose to do an internship as he wanted to get more practical skills and wanted to improve his skills by actually stepping into the work field.
Furthermore, his internship took place at MetrixLab in Rotterdam. A four days a week internship where he was given a lot of responsibilities, even being able to lead some projects of his own for big corporations such as Talpa Radio. One might be scared to jump into the work field after being only in educational institutions but in Hugo’s opinion “the step up is not that difficult”. He mentioned that the life of an intern is very different from the university life that a student might be used to. One cannot be partying every day, you are in a professional environment, wearing formal clothes, and working 9-10 hours…but “you can manage if you want”.
We were interested in diving deeper into what the internship life looked like. Hugo brought up that the first few weeks were mainly training and working alongside other employees who were really helpful with everything.
A normal day for Hugo really varied as every day was full of different tasks for every project. He is out of the house by 6:45, at 7:00 he takes the train and by 8:15 he is at MetrixLab in Rotterdam. He normally chats with his colleagues, they talk about tasks, objectives…He then dives into his responsibilities. Sometimes he works alongside another colleague on a project, he owns the project, and the other employee double-checks that everything is going according to plan. On some other days, he needs to contact the operation teams in India, the USA, or the UK, allowing him to dive into another culture and gain loads of useful information. Overall, Hugo mentioned that he had to work with data a lot.
Another important part of Hugo’s life has been being an active member at Asset | IB&M. He was the treasurer for the consultancy days this past semester however his participation was on a lower level as he focused on his internship, but his inputs were greatly appreciated by his fellow committee members. He also tried to join as many informal activities, but it ended up being less than in the past.
Moreover, how he was able to combine all of this was of great relevance. He had to follow 5 courses alongside his internship, which was an ensured challenge. This called for great organization and planning skills. He took advantage of the train rides to the internship and on his way back home to do some university work. He also had a free day, in his case Tuesdays,
that he dedicated to looking over lectures, having university-related meetings, and working on projects. He mainly used summaries as he was not able to attend lectures.
We also got his insights as to how doable he believed that combining an internship, courses, and being an active member was. He brought up the fact that a normal internship was 3 days a week and his internship was 4 days a week, which made it harder for him to be on top of everything. A less demanding internship would have made combining all the aspects more doable.
For Hugo the best part of combining an internship with IBA and Asset | IB&M is the mix of activities that you have in your life. The internship is a very formal environment and being able to combine it with more laid-back activities brought by Asset | IB&M. One of his favorites are the monthly drinks.
Hugo also provided us with some tips that can be really valuable for students looking into doing an internship. It is very important to start early with seeking for an internship as this will provide you with more options to choose from and you will be most likely to find something that really
suits you. Ask yourself: “What do I want?”. Once you have an idea, do a deep dive into your area of interest and reach out to as many companies as possible in that field of work. Even if you are not fully sure if a company would be of your interest, reach out, try it out and in the worst-case scenario you were able to figure out that that type of position is not for you. An internship gives you so many insights as to what a work environment looks like, it’s the perfect opportunity to be able to see if a future within a corporation would be best for you.
Over the past 10 months, I have been the Vice-Chairman of Asset | IB&M. In this article, you can read about my experiences over the past months and get more insight into what a board year and being vice entails. My name is Mylene van…
Hello, my name is Nils Oskam, and this past academic year I have filled the position of Secretary of the Board at Asset | International Business & Management. In this article, you can read about my experiences as a board member and gain some more…
Hi everyone,
My name is Tom Hoskens and this year I am the External Affairs Officer of Asset | International Business & Management.
I am 22 years old and I am from Geldrop, a village just beneath Eindhoven. I am currently already living in Tilburg for more than 3 years, and I can honestly say these have been the most fun years of my life! I am a fourth-year International Business Administration student, and I only have to do my exchange to complete my bachelor’s. This is my first year at Asset | IB&M, however, it feels like I have been here forever. The ambiance within the organization is subliminal and everyone is extremely friendly. Even though a lot of members already knew each other for multiple years, I immediately felt included within the group. Within Asset | IB&M there is a very open and inclusive culture, you have students from year 1 to master students hanging out together and it really feels like a large friend group. Also the international character of Asset | IB&M is very fun to function in, you have committees with multiple nationalities and cultures, in which you really learn a lot.
Why did I decide to do a board year?
There are multiple reasons I decided to do a board year. Firstly, to be honest the main reason I decided to start a board year was because of the cancellation of my exchange to Sydney. At this moment I decided that I wanted kind of a ‘’gap’’ year. I was not ready to throw myself into the full-time working environment and give up my student life. That brings me to the second reason, doing a board year at Asset | IB&M is the perfect combination to work in a professional environment while maintaining the perks of student life. Besides this reason, a board year is a perfect opportunity to develop yourself professionally and personally with the margin to make mistakes. During a board year within Asset | IB&M you basically run an organization/company with over 150 people, you are responsible for the vision of the organization, as well as the execution of this vision together with your other board members. You really improve on your organization- and leadership skills during this year and it is the perfect opportunity to broaden your network with other board members, members of Asset | IB&M and all the other people you will meet during your year as a board member.
I chose to apply for the role of External Affairs Officer because I wanted to get in contact with all kinds of companies. The variety of companies you have contact with is very fun to work with, it varies from enormous multinationals to large Dutch companies, but also local companies and small-medium enterprises. Moreover, I wanted to improve my acquisition and organizational skills. As the External Affairs Officer of the board, you are responsible for the organization of the majority of the (large) career events. I also really liked the social part of being the External Affairs Officer, you have a lot of contact with recruiters and employees from different companies and often you are invited to the offices to have your meetings there.
What was your biggest challenge during your board year?
To be honest, I think I must make a division into my 2 biggest challenges.
Firstly, the biggest challenge I faced was during the organization of the Ski Trip. Besides formal events, I also had the opportunity to organize the Asset | IB&M Ski Trip. Just weeks before we went on the trip, the regulations surrounding COVID-19 changed in France. As a result, I had to make a lot of phone calls with stakeholders, think of GGD, participants, Travel organization, the Dutch government, the committee, and other people who had an interest in the Ski Trip. We were almost forced to cancel the trip, but due to the flexibility and perseverance of the committee, we managed to make the trip happen and provide 18 IBA students with 8 days full of snow, apres-ski, and sun.
Secondly, the IBA week. This is a four-day event which is organized by the External Affairs Officer, just 2 weeks before the event we did not have sufficient companies to fill the days. Together with the committee, we mailed more than 200 companies, and, in the end, we managed to fill the days and provide more than 100 students with an exceptional career orientation event.
What did you spend most of your time on during your board year?
Most of my time was spent on contact with companies/recruiters. As the External, you will do the acquisition for events, make sure communication upfront is good with companies, you are the communication point during events and make sure to have evaluation talks with the companies after the event. Besides this, you represent IB&M during the Acquisition meeting of Asset. In this meeting, you sit together with all External Affairs Officers of the Asset departments. Together, we organized the new site and launch of CareerPlatformTilburg, bachelor internship market, extended master program market and other tasks. Another important (and maybe even most fun) part of being on the Board, is coordinating the committees. I coordinated the Marketing Expedition and IBA Week committees, together with these committees we organize the ‘’IBA Week’’ which is a 4-day event in which in total 8 companies participate. The Acquisition and Business Club committees, both committees are fully focused on doing acquisition. At last, I coordinated the Ski Trip, in which we organize a 10-day skiing trip for IBA and IM students to have an amazing time with each other on the slopes. Besides committees, you also have electives as a board member. Where I am responsible for organizing the International Career Event, Business Cafes, Inhouse-Days, Company Database and Board connection. The first 3 are events which are organized without committees, as External you are responsible for organizing these events.
What did you learn during your board year?
Before my board year, I was a very chaotic person. I did not use an agenda or calendar and basically never knew what to do. Currently, I have no idea what to do without an agenda, I plan my days very carefully and make sure I do not have overlapping meetings. Even when I do not have a meeting, I plan the tasks and the time I think I need for those tasks in my agenda. Besides my planning skills, I really improved in my organizational, leadership and teamwork skills. By working on a 6 persons board and coordinating various committees, you really develop your ability to work in teams and make well-considered decisions. By organizing formal events, informal events, and a trip, I really developed my organizational skills.
I hope this article has given you somewhat of an insight into what it entails to be the External Affairs Officer of the board of Asset | International Business & Management. If you ever have any questions about my function, Asset | IB&M in general, or anything I wrote in this article, do not hesitate to contact me via externalaffairs@asset-ibm.nl or +31 6 23 37 56 03.
Are you possibly interested in becoming my successor? You can take a look at our website for more information about my function, the other opening functions, and how to apply!
Hi everyone, My name is Kevin ter Bogt. This academic year I am the Treasurer of Asset | International Business & Management. I am 21 years old and I am from Lichtenvoorde, in the east of the Netherlands. In 2018 I moved to Tilburg to…
Over the past 10 months, I have been the external affairs officer of the board at Asset | International Business & Management. In this article, you can read about my experiences over the past months and get more insight into what my function entails. Let…
For the past ten months I have been the Vice-Chairman of Asset | IB&M. Originally from Bergen op Zoom, my name is Bram Teunissen, and I started my studies in Tilburg in 2018. When I started at IB&M, I joined the promotion committee as chairman, and later I became treasurer of the drinks & themes committee. After having been a member of the D&TC for 6 months, I applied for Vice-Chairman of the board, as I was convinced that would be the perfect position for me. Whether or not I did a good job, I’ll let you decide for yourself, but I’m proud of the things the board and I have done over the past year, and I am thankful for all the amazing experiences and the great people I have met.
During the first semester of my third year, things were not looking so great for the world. Lockdown after lockdown, cancelled event after cancelled event, and my exchange to Canada was cancelled too. After having done a minor, and not feeling like I had seen enough, I thought about doing a board year. IB&M was really the only place I wanted to do it, as I truly felt at home there, so it basically became “IB&M or bust”. I also had other reasons, I felt like processes within the association could be improved, marketing channels could be improved and modernized, and the international aspect of the association could really use a shot in the arm.
From what I have seen this year, I think being Vice-Chairman at IB&M means being social, creative and being able to juggle many tasks at once. Your main responsibilities will be the Active Member Policy, Year Planning and Marketing. The Active Member Policy means you’re responsible for the recruitment of active members for IB&M and passive members for Asset General, but also making sure you know what members want and need within the department. This means doing marketing, but also being able to communicate to different kinds of people and taking feedback into consideration. For IB&M, this also means your English needs to be up to speed, as we have a lot of members that do not speak Dutch. Conveying that we’re the international department is also important in your marketing. Another important part of the AMP is social cohesion. We’re one of the largest departments and have a lot of committees, so making sure they get to know each other and have a great time at the department is needed.
When members join the department, you will have introductory talks and find out where they would fit best. At IB&M people cannot apply for a specific committee, so an introduction talk is valuable for you to be able to give them a committee they would fit in. You will also want to take diversity of background, gender, and experience into account. Eventually, when you’ve completed the introduction talks and are finished with become active marketing, you’ll have to divide everyone. This can be quite the large challenge, so I recommend you keep track of who you talked to and what they said.
In the beginning of the year, you will have to create the year planning, which you will need to maintain and update throughout the year. IB&M usually has a lot of events every week, so it can be quite a challenge, especially if you’re not familiar with every event. Previous year planning schedules can be considered, but in my case, it was a lot harder due to the uncertainty caused by corona (more on that later). Especially the beginning of the year was hard, due to cancellations, or events having to be moved and all ending up in the same month. Luckily, this does not seem to be an issue for next year.
Finally, you’re also responsible for marketing. You are quite free to do what you want with this, as long as you make sure every event gets proper exposure. In my case, I continued the trend of focusing more on online promotion than offline. Not only because it’s more sustainable, but also because a powerful online presence is more important than ever (especially during corona). For me this meant increasing follower counts, changing our house style to what I thought looked attractive, focusing on readability, and increasing reach. We also phased out Facebook and went all in on Instagram.
Other than those three things, you have got other smaller tasks as well, like coordinating committees, organizational tasks with the board, and promotional/organizational tasks for Asset General in the Public Relations Meeting (PM for short). Coordinating committees is fun, helping them achieve their goals and getting to know members better. I’d like to express my gratitude for all the committees that worked with me, you were all great and I’ll miss you all next year! Organizational tasks with the board can be anything from organizing info sessions to parties to formal events.
As for PM, this faculty wide organ is responsible for marketing and events of Asset Tilburg. Depending on your portfolio, you’ll be working on Asset largest events, making designs for the Asset Cafe, or many, many other things. I have held the designer portfolio and the Asset Cafe portfolio. The results of my year can be seen at a lot of places. I designed the new food for thought logo, the Asset Cafe logo and house style. The wall within the Asset Cafe was also designed by me, for which I needed to clean up the logos and straighten them. PM is quite varied, so I won’t list everything I did here, these are but a few examples.
So, what does a board year teach you then? And should you go for it? This board year for me has taught me more than I thought it would. Leading teams is challenging, my planning has gotten better, and I have learned how to speak in public better. I discovered that I have a creative side to me and that I enjoy fixing things that don’t work as well as they could. You will also learn to communicate with companies, working together efficiently, and you will also learn to deal with setbacks and stress. While this year was different than others, the first half being severely impacted by a lockdown and my personal health leading me to have some sub-optimal summer months, I would do it all over again, everything included. If you have the ambition and are willing to give it a shot, I see no reason why you would not apply for a board year.
It has been an absolute pleasure being Vice-Chairman of IB&M and I am grateful for everyone that made this such a wonderful year. I’ll never forget it.
Curious about how I experienced my board year? In this article, I will tell you a bit more about being the External Affairs Officer of Asset | International Business & Management. First thing first, let me introduce myself; My name is Laura van Wesel, I…
Hello there, My name is Anton van Werkum and for the past 9 months I have been the Treasurer of Asset | IB&M. In 2017 I moved to Tilburg to study International Business Administration, where I joined IB&M as a member of the First Year…
Hi There,
My name is Ron Lether and for the past 10 months, I have been the Vice-Chairman of Asset | IB&M. I started studying IBA in 2016 and also started doing committee work at the beginning of that year. In my first year, I was the secretary of the Blog Committee. Taking notes of the committee meetings and helping with the layout and articles of our blog were my main tasks. In my second year at IB&M, I joined the Second Year Committee and we organized some fun events such as a hitchhike competition. Before I started my third and last year as an active member, I went on exchange to Stockholm, Sweden. I had an amazing time, and after I came back from Sweden, I became the chairman of the Yearbook Committee. I realized that my time at IB&M was not done yet at, so after an internship of 6 months at Tesla, I applied to become the new Vice-Chairman of Asset | IB&M.
Why did I choose to do a board year?
I have always regretted not being a very ‘active’ active member in my first year of IB&M. I mostly still had to find my way in a new environment, living with people my age and not with my parents anymore, and being completely free to do what you want, when you want. When I became a lot more active in my second year and eventually also in my third year, I got the urge more and more to prevent other people to make the same mistake as I did. I have met amazing people at this association and wouldn’t replace the memories and friendships with anything else! So initially, my first reason to do a board year was to help new students meet like-minded people and establish great friendships there, and what better position to make sure of that, than the one of Vice-Chairman.
My second reason for doing a board year was the continuing struggle of choosing a master. After I finished my bachelor, I already narrowed my possibilities down to Supply Chain Management, Marketing Management, and Marketing Analytics. Because I still found all three equally interesting, I first wanted to do an internship in either Supply Chain or Marketing (also because the position of Vice-Chairman would open at the start of the second semester). I got the opportunity to do an internship in Logistics & Supply Chain at Tesla which was very different from what student life and university life was. I had to get used to the work culture and the way you have to interact with people from different countries and educational backgrounds. I developed myself immensely during that half year but I still was not fully satisfied with the work I did and the future prospect I had in this sector. Because I also wasn’t quite sure if Marketing would then be the right decision it was even more confirmation that I still needed some time to gain experience and orient myself.
What does a board year as Vice-Chairman look like?
As a Vice-Chairman at IB&M, you will have a lot of different tasks ranging from small to very big. Firstly, you are the contact person of the board that is responsible for the members and their functioning within the association and the committee. Besides that, there are some big and important tasks or projects you are responsible of such as the Active Member Policy, Year Planning, and Social Media.
The Active Member Policy is seen as the most important task of the Vice-Chairman. As the Vice-Chairman, you are responsible for the recruitment of our active members as well as the recruitment of passive members of Asset General. Since we are a big department with a lot of committees, social cohesion between the different committees is one of the most important aspects the Vice-Chairman has, especially now. As a board, we try to enhance that is through committees such as the Date Dinner Committee and Activities Committee, but as a Vice-Chairman, you also want to provide committees to have diversity and learn from others when they work closely together in a committee. You will try to optimize this by having both introductory talks with new members as well as having evaluation talks with current members to see where they can develop themselves best. Making a division of the different people you have talks with and know on a personal level is a very interesting challenge which is also a very nice learning opportunity. Moreover, it gives an extra boost after you made the division, when you see that committees get along and start to loosen up a bit and start to develop friendships.
Next to the active member policy (which you will make during the summer break), your first challenge is to make the entire year planning of the association. IB&M hosts 100+ events every year, so it is quite a challenge to make them perfectly fit throughout the year. You will have to keep the Carnaval, exams, Christmas, Summer vacation, University planning, and Asset General year planning in mind when making the year planning. Nowadays with COVID-19, you will have to review the year planning week by week to see if everything is still possible.
My personal favorite task to do was the promotion of the association. Normally this is done mostly on campus through flyers and banners and lecture talks, but currently we have focused almost solely on online promotion. As the Vice-Chairman, I am responsible for the social media plan and the planning of online promotion. At the start of the new academic year I worked together with Janne (Secretary) to make a social media plan. Also, this year we focused more on making after movies of events to give students a good impressions of what we do on a yearly basis. This is a good example of new small projects you can pick up or make during your board year.
Next to that you are also a representative of IB&M in the Faculty Wide Organ ‘Public Relations’. In the Public Relations Meeting, you and the other Vice-Chairmen of the departments discuss topics related to the Asset General events such as ticket division and locations, the TOP-week and TOP winter week, and the Promotion of Asset General. It is very interesting to have this separate responsibility in your weekly tasks since you will have discussions with people that have very different opinions and motivations for dilemmas. It will help you in communicating and motivating your opinions and that of the board out of your department’s perspective.
What did you learn during your board year?
First and foremost, I have learned how to deal with setbacks and how to quickly solve problems by thinking out of the box and quickly shift focus. From the start of my year, we had to regularly postpone events or quickly resolve issues with physical events that were not really possible in an online setting. This makes you even more capable of working together and gain trust in one another. Even more so, when somebody is feeling a bit down because of a setback it becomes more important to resolve the issue together and be happy with the decisions you make as a board.
Next to this, you will learn a lot of things along the way such as coordinating of small teams, prioritizing tasks in busy periods, working in a team both on a daily basis and on a weekly basis, networking with companies and other associations, and communicating in a professional way.
Would you recommend doing a board year, even in these times?
Absolutely! Although the first ‘Lockdown’ was quite a disappointing moment, mostly because it had never happened before, nowadays everyone can rely more on past experiences of associations and the board and can act more proactive on new guidelines. We also experienced that now in comparison to the first lockdown, you can handle with a bit more confidence since you know what the worst-case scenario is, and you know how online events can be organized. As with every board year, there are plenty of challenges to take on, experiences to have, and skills to learn, only slightly different than normal years.
Laurens van Hest on his exchange to Turku, Finland 2020 Fall semester. “What, you actually are on exchange?” This question has been asked to me so many times the last few weeks that I have lost count at this point, however, it did make me…
This year has been an amazing rollercoaster. Where do I start? My name is Gijs Korthout and I am 20 years old. Currently, I am an External Affairs Officer of study association Asset | International Business & Management. Asset | IB&M is the study association…
My name is Britt and I am currently following the Strategic Management master. I started my master in February, which means I am following the Entrepreneurship track. Besides my study, I work as a student assistant for the Academic Director of MSc Strategic Management. Last year, I also became an active member at Asset | Strategy & Logistics, where I organised the Consultancy Days together with Asset | IB&M. Currently, I am doing a full-time board year at Asset | Strategy & Logistics, so have paused my study. But I will continue my master in September and at this time I will start working on my thesis.
As I already said before, I am doing the entrepreneurship track of the MSc of Strategic Management. I chose this master because I wanted to get an insight into the current challenges that businesses are facing, such as new innovations or new competitors entering the market. In the master, you learn how to make strategic decisions that determine the long term vision of a company. Often these are decisions that are made by the management team within a company, and it is great to get insight into how these decisions should be made. It also teaches you how to use data in an appropriate way to support these decisions.
The Entrepreneurship track specializes in entrepreneurial behavior in large firms and the creation of new business. I am not particularly interested in starting my own business, however I really like the idea of being an “intrapreneur”, which is an entrepreneur within a large company. I like to come up with creative ideas and be innovative, and this track specifically focusses on how to also achieve this in large businesses. If you start this MSc in September you will follow the consultancy track, which only differs with the entrepreneurship track on two courses: Strategic Consultancy and Strategy Analytics.
The courses I get during this Master are sustainable entrepreneurship, corporate entrepreneurship, strategy implementation, international management, business-level strategy, corporate-level strategy and research skills. Corporate entrepreneurship is my favourite course because it specifically focusses on innovation within large companies. I also like the course sustainable entrepreneurship since this is a very “hot topic” right now, and I think it is of added value to have some background information about it.
“I am not particularly interested in starting my own business, however I really like the idea of being an “intrapreneur”, which is an entrepreneur within a large company“
I followed a bachelor at the university of applied science, International Business. The main difference between my bachelor and my master is that my bachelor was a lot more practical. However, in the master, there still are many group assignments that you have to work on, which still makes it quite a practical master program in my opinion. We also have a lot of discussions about the articles, which I didn’t really have in my bachelor. You will have to do a lot of reading and most of these are articles. We don’t use any books in the master.
As I mentioned before I have not yet started working on my thesis but I plan to do it at the university instead of writing it at a company. The reason for this is that I want to do a quantitative thesis, so I can just use data from the databases at the university. I have thought about doing my thesis at a company as well, but most of the time you will do a qualitative thesis in this case, which mostly focuses on interviews etc.
I also have the feeling that most MSc Strategic Management students do their thesis at the university since it is often quite difficult to do a thesis at a company about a subject that covers a scientific strategic problem. Also, it can be difficult to mediate between the university and the company, as companies often want practical solutions, but for the university you have to focus on scientific problems. So, in my opinion, it will be easier to just use the data from the university.
I hope I gave you an idea what the entrepreneurship track of Strategic Management is like and if you have any further questions, do not hesitate to contact me!