Author: The board of Asset | IB&M

Being a working student at MAZARS: My experience

Being a working student at MAZARS: My experience

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,…

Day in the life of a student/intern/active member

Day in the life of a student/intern/active member

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…

Vice-Chairman of the Board: My experiences

Vice-Chairman of the Board: My experiences

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 der Welle, I’m 20 years old and I was born and raised in Melissant. Currently I’ve been living in Tilburg for 3.5 years already and I am finishing up my bachelor’s degree in International Business Administration. When I started my bachelors in 2019, I had no idea what Asset was, let alone that you could become active, so I started my journey at IB&M quite late in September 2021. I started out fresh in a committee that already started in February, the Recruitment Event. The first few meetings I was a little confused, but I enjoyed it a lot, and my orange love grew quickly. Since I missed out a lot on my student time during Covid, I decided that I wanted to join as many events as possible, and so I did! I enjoyed my time at all these events and I then learned that you could also do a board year, which would start in February. At first I was a bit hesitant, putting my bachelors on break in the middle of the uni year, but in the end I’m very happy that I made that decision.

It didn’t take a lot for me to be convinced to apply for the position of Vice-Chairman. I enjoyed going to the events, talking to people, and the whole atmosphere at the rooms. Additionally, I was very young when I started my studies and really didn’t have any clue into what kind of masters I wanted to do after my bachelors. With the application deadline for masters coming up, and me not knowing what to do, I wanted more experience before making a choice. Doing a board year seemed like the perfect solution to the problem: having fun with friends, joining fun events, and learning more about what I wanted for my future.

Being a Vice-Chairman is a very diverse task, and as basic as it sounds, every day is different. As a vice, you have to juggle a lot of different tasks, but some of your main tasks are the Active Member Policy, Promotion and Marketing, and the Events Yearplanning.

The Active Member Policy means that you are responsible for everything related to the Active Members, the core of the association. During the summer and winter, you recruit new members for the committees, but additionally, you make sure that your current members are enjoying their committees and time at IB&M. Sometimes you do this by joining events and talking to people, and other times you have 10 evaluation talks in a day. This makes it very diverse and a lot of fun!

English is one of your main communication languages since internationalization is one of our core points within the association. When meeting new members, you always have new member talks, and these are always in English. Such as our board meetings, committee meetings, and at events. Making sure that people are aware that we are an international department is also important to portray in our active member promotion.

Promotion and Marketing is your other most important task during the week. Making sure the members are updated through weekly updates, promotion in IBA or IM group chats, Instagram, TikTok, you name it and you probably have to do it. Canva will be your best friend during your board year, and luckily for us vices, this program is really easy to use! The nicest thing about the promotion and marketing, is the creative freedom you get. You basically get to design and do whatever you want, if it fits within your budget, which is really nice.

Your last, most important task, is the yearplanning. IB&M hosts a lot of events, which have to be spread evenly across the year. Making the planning is a challenge, but also a lot of fun. You get to pick which event will be hosted when, but luckily the task is very easy.

Of course you also have smaller tasks, such as tasks for Asset General, coordinating committees, organizational tasks, and all other things that come your way. For Asset General you are part of the Public Relations Meeting (PM for short) which is a meeting for all vices of all departments of Asset. During PM you discuss events such as the COdE, Kick-Off Party, and all other events Asset organizes. Together you decide the course of the promotion, how much beer you will give away, and make sure that there are events for passive members of Asset as well.

Coordinating committees is the most fun in my opinion! Together with your committees, you organize different events, make merchandise, and all in all have a lot of fun! During my board year I had the following committees: Recruitment Event, Promotion, Activities, Sports, European Trip, Almanak, Exchange & Internship, and International. If it was possible, I would have wanted them all, but unfortunately 7 committees is a little bit the max..

So, what does a board year teach you then? And should you go for it? During my board year, I learned a lot and developed myself personally in a lot of ways. I loved leading the committees, helping out during the TOP Week, working on the Almanak, fighting during PM over who would get the most tickets for the COdE, and so many design skills (I never thought I would learn so much about Canva and Adobe). Your communication skills will go through the roof, and you will learn how to manage stress and setbacks. While my year started out still in lockdown, I was glad that everything opened up so quickly and stayed open during my whole board year. If you would ask me to do it all again, it would definitely be a yes, and in my opinion there is no reason why you shouldn’t apply for a board year!

I want to thank all of you guys since it has been an absolute pleasure being Vice-Chairman of IB&M! I will never forget all the fun memories, the chill days at the rooms, and the crazy stuff I experienced with you guys, and I am grateful for everyone that made this such a wonderful year. I’ll see you all for sure at the Lustrum!

Dikke kus <3, fat kiss

Secretary of the Board: My Experiences

Secretary of the Board: My Experiences

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…

External Affairs Officer of the Board: Experience Report

External Affairs Officer of the Board: Experience Report

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…

Treasurer of the Board: My Experiences

Treasurer of the Board: My Experiences

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 start my bachelor’s in International Business Administration. In my first year, I focused on my studies and played football at TSVV Merlijn. It was only in my second year that I discovered the Orange Army and joined my first committee, the sports committee as their chairman. In my third year, my exchange sadly got canceled because of covid, so I did an internship instead. Besides that, I joined the Exchange and Internship Committee at Asset | IB&M. After completing my bachelor’s, I decided to apply for a board year, and I can say that it was a great decision!

Why did I decide to do a board year?

The reason I chose to do a board year was because I wanted to develop myself professionally and personally while still enjoying student life to its fullest. And what better association to do it at than Asset | IB&M? In this way I could also give back to the association that has given me a wonderful student time. As a full-time board member at this association, you are basically managing a small company of around 150 employees (committee members). This fact attracted me a lot because I thought I could learn a lot from this in terms of organization- and leadership skills. During a board year, you also meet lots of new people, either in your own association or in other boards. This is a good opportunity to broaden your network and make new friends.

I chose to apply for the role of treasurer because I like working with numbers and I am good in keeping an overview of the bigger picture. Moreover, I plan on pursuing a Master’s in Finance and somewhere down the line I want to start my own business, so having budget and accounting skills could come in handy in the future. The responsibility of handling quite a lot of money and the freedom you have to decide what happens with the finances of the association also attracted me to becoming Treasurer.

What was your biggest challenge during your board year?

The biggest challenge I faced was to make sure that an unforeseen flight change by our airline for the European Study Trip to Barcelona and Valencia would not ruin our trip. After the trip, I had to start a legal battle against the airline to get our tickets refunded.

One of my committees is the European Travel Committee (ETC), which organizes a study trip within Europe every year. During this trip, you will visit interesting companies in one or two cities abroad, enjoy cultural activities, and have a good time with around 25 fellow IBA students. However, before the last European trip, we found out that our flight back home was brought forward by a day only a couple of days before we would leave. This was a big problem for us because we had planned a company visit on the day of departure. Luckily, the committee immediately started looking at our rights in this case, because the airline did not notify us of the flight change. After doing a lot of research the conclusion was that we were entitled to a refund and compensation. Therefore, we quickly bought other flight tickets for almost the same price with another airline on the original day of departure. Problem solved we thought, but nothing could be further from the truth. To this day, the airline did not pay for our refund and compensation, so the trip is still standing at a big loss. Therefore, I asked for the help of our friends at Magister JFT, the study association for the Tilburg Law School. They pointed me at a legal procedure that helps keep small businesses and associations protected against big firms. I decided to pursue this procedure, and the judge in The Hague indeed agreed that we were entitled to receive a refund and compensation. A bailiff is now trying to get the airline to pay us. To be continued…

While this situation gave us some stress for sure, I also learned a lot from it. For example, how to deal with stressful situations and how to solve big problems. I also liked doing the legal work involved, since it is something you would normally never do.

What did you spend most of your time on during your board year?

Most of my time was spent doing Treasurer specific tasks like doing bookkeeping, sending and paying invoices, making and updating the budget and balance sheet, and meeting with the treasurers of committees. Another very important part of my time is spent on coordinating four committees and my own projects, called electives. The four committees I coordinate are the Drinks & Themes Committee, which organizes monthly drinks and our Active Members Weekend, the Case Competition Committee which organizes a two-day formal event, where students compete to solve companies’ cases the best, the European Travel Committee which I explained above, and the Intercontinental Travel Committee that organizes a two-week study trip outside of Europe. This year we will go to Vancouver and Seattle! The projects or electives that I have been to organize a Career Perspectives event for International Management students and the IBA Alumni Event, where successful IBA alumni talk about their experiences after IBA.

The busiest periods of the year are at the end of each quarter because at those times you have to make sure the bookkeeping, budget, balance sheet, and all other financial documents are exactly right for the tax authorities. Luckily, the Audit of Accounts committee helps me with this by checking all documents every quarter. Most of your other time can be spent on doing committee work and doing work for your own projects.

What did you learn during your board year?

Before my board year, I did not plan at all. I did not even use an agenda. Now, I can not imagine living without an agenda and task list. You can therefore say that a board year has taught me a lot about organization and planning skills. Besides that, I improved my leadership skills by coordinating and managing my committees. By participating in formal events and meeting recruiters of all kinds of companies I also now know way better what I want to do later in my career and my network increased a lot during the year.

I am very thankful for this opportunity, everything I learned, and all the people I got to meet! In the upcoming time I will still go on the ITC Trip to Vancouver and Seattle, and together with the committee organize the Case Competition. I look forward to the remainder of my board year, and I can recommend everyone to do a board year in the future!

I hope this article has given you somewhat of an insight into what it entails to be the Treasurer 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 treasurer@asset-ibm.nl or +31 6 37333922.

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!

https://www.asset-ibm.nl/about/board-application-information/treasurer
External Affairs Officer: My Experiences

External Affairs Officer: My Experiences

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…

Vice-Chairman of the Board: My Experiences

Vice-Chairman of the Board: My Experiences

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,…

EXTERNAL AFFAIRS OFFICER OF THE BOARD: MY EXPERIENCES

EXTERNAL AFFAIRS OFFICER OF THE BOARD: MY EXPERIENCES

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 am 20 years old, and for the last 6 months I am the External Affairs Officer of Asset | IB&M. I was born in Zegge, and lived there my whole life before moving to Tilburg. I still have to finish my third year of the BSc International Business Administration, with hopefully an exchange to Barcelona. Initially, I would go to Lima, Peru on exchange last year. But, like many other exchanges, this was canceled because of COVID-19. 

Speaking of COVID-19, it has changed a board year a lot in comparison to other years, but I can assure you, it didn’t make it less fun! 

Why did I choose to do a board year?

As I already mentioned, I first planned to go on exchange to Lima, Peru. When I heard that this was canceled, I started thinking about my other options. At first, I was thinking about doing an internship since I already figured out that online lectures would not be suitable for me. But then, my roommate suggested doing a board year. She did one herself, and was super enthusiastic about it, and promised me that doing a board year would be a good decision. This was not the first time I thought about doing a board year. I always wanted to do something where I could put all the theory I learned during my Bachelor’s into practice, preferably combined with a lot of fun. And this is exactly what you get to do during a board year. You get to put theory into practice by learning what it is like to run an association while also being able to have fun with all the members and other boardies and attend many fun events and parties. The last part is also the reason why I specifically chose to do a board year at IB&M. Although I have been an active member for only a year before doing a board year, I always really liked the atmosphere at IB&M. I was not the most active member before joining the board, but every time I went to an event, had a meeting or had to pick anything up at the rooms I felt very welcome. 

The reason that I chose to apply for the function of External Affairs Officer was that I really liked the social aspect of it. I was curious what it was like to be the contact for companies, to make sure they are up-to-date about anything, to acquire firms, and then seeing them at our formal events which they and other parties will also enjoy and benefit from. Another reason for choosing the function of External is that I had the feeling I could learn a lot of the function. In the beginning, my planning wasn’t that good but it evolved a lot the last few months because planning is essential as an External. Besides this, I also learned to keep a clear overview. Together with the other External, you are the helping hand for all the externals of the committees, and they often ask you to reach out to companies or for questions. Before doing this, you also have to think about the fit with the company, maybe the company has already suggested that a certain event is not for them, so you should not approach them again for that event. 

A challenge we faced during COVID-19, was the changing policies of companies. This year, quite some companies were hesitant to make promises, because they have also suffered from COVID-19. Besides this, we had to make a lot of changes in our events, and keep all the participating companies up-to-date about the changes. These are a few things that made the function of external different from other years, but also a nice challenge Gijs, Nicole, and I faced where we learned a lot from. And even though it sometimes causes some stress, having a successful event makes everything worth it! 

When starting your board year, you get to do a lot from the beginning on. After the announcement, you start the conveyance period together with your predecessor. In that period you also have summer rounds, where you go to the (online) offices of all of IB&M’s partners or potential partners and have a conversation with them about the possibilities for the upcoming academic year. These conversations are probably my favorite part of being an External. At first, it might seem scary to do this, but in the end, you find out that these recruiters are also just people, who are interested in what we have to offer them, and what they can get out of it. These conversations also really broaden your network and can be helpful with looking for an internship or a future career. 

Would you recommend doing a board year?

Most definitely! My board year so far has been the highlight of my ‘University career’. I am sad to leave, so I think that is a good indication of how much I like being a the board members at Asset | IB&M. If you are looking for an opportunity to develop yourself, broaden your network, and have a lot of fun, then I would highly recommend doing a board year!

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  

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!
https://www.asset-ibm.nl/about/board-application-information

TREASURER OF THE BOARD: MY EXPERIENCES

TREASURER OF THE BOARD: MY EXPERIENCES

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…

Vice-Chairman of the board: My experiences

Vice-Chairman of the board: My experiences

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…

Exchange experience Finland during COVID-19

Exchange experience Finland during COVID-19

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 realize just how special it is that I am having a wonderful time abroad. After having a quick chat with some university staff it became clear that only 3 out of all the 3rd year IBA students are on exchange, one of which is me, spending 5 months here in Turku, Finland.

“only 3 out of all the 3rd year IBA students are on exchange”

To be honest, it is really quite something strange being here, especially since there is hardly any impact of the Covid-crisis visible in daily life. Apart from following online classes with only a few assignments on campus, life just feels normal without any worries here.

Living in a house with 30 others that have the same urge to have the best time of their lives really makes the experience something special, after only 2 weeks here, the group was already so close that we made trips to Helsinki and Tallinn, we went on a cottage weekend in the amazing archipelago outside the Turku coast, and the highlight of our year, a 7-day trip to Lapland in December has just been booked. Currently I am finishing all my first period courses and scouting ones for the next few weeks.

All in all, it’s an experience I’d never want to miss, which might come as a surprise to those who know me a bit better and know that I always said I wouldn’t go. Well hey, times change, for the better in this case.

EXTERNAL AFFAIRS OFFICER OF THE BOARD: MY EXPERIENCES

EXTERNAL AFFAIRS OFFICER OF THE BOARD: MY EXPERIENCES

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…

Master Student Interview: Strategic Management (Entrepreneurship)

Master Student Interview: Strategic Management (Entrepreneurship)

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…

Master Student Interview: Strategic Management (consultancy)

Master Student Interview: Strategic Management (consultancy)

My name is Ties and I’m a 5th year student, who is planning to graduate next January. I have started the Consultancy Track of the master Strategic Management last September. Next to my studies I have been active at Asset | IB&M, Vidar and I did a board year at the Economic Business weeks Tilburg. During this board year I learnt more about my (professional) interests, which allowed me to make a solid master choice. 

I decided to follow the Strategic Management program for three reasons. First, I consider myself to be a generalist, not a specialist. The key courses of the program are aimed at teaching a little bit about a lot, while later courses have stronger focus on teaching specific skills. In this way, you are educated to become an individual who is capable of maintaining an eye on ‘the big picture’, while also being able of diving into details. Second, I developed a particular interest in consultancy during my board year. I think it’s very interesting to work on projects for a wide variety of companies, as each new project forces one to dive into a completely new challenge. Third, I prefer practical courses over purely theoretical ones. Strategic Management fits well with this preference, as it’s known as a hands-on program with many (real-life) assignments, in-class participation and presentations. 

The courses of the first block focus on strategy on three levels: Business- Corporate- and International Strategy. My honest opinion is that Business- and Corporate Strategy were somewhat disappointing. For these courses, we had to read many academic papers and discuss them class. Grades were solely based on an assignment and the in-class discussions, which -in my experience- led to many inefficient 3 hour tutorials. However, there were also several courses that I considered to be very valuable, including Strategy Analytics and Strategic Consultancy. The first course aims to teach the basics of data science and apply them to a strategic issue. The latter course involved executing a consultancy project for a real-life client. 

“I decided to apply for an internship and postpone my thesis until September, because I believe that I need more hands-on experience before I can enter the labour market.”

Even though I’m not satisfied about every course of Strategic Management, I’m already experiencing that the knowledge is very useful in practice. I’m currently doing an internship at a strategy consulting boutique in Utrecht. I have already come across many occasions where my knowledge proved to be useful to real-life projects. I decided to apply for an internship and postpone my thesis until September, because I believe that I need more hands-on experience before I can enter the labour market. All in all, I hope I gave you a clear indication of my experiences with this master program, which will hopefully help you with your master choice! If you have any questions about the program, a board year or an internship, please do not hesitate to contact me.