Next to the possibility to study abroad, there are multiple ways to gain more experience abroad. One example is to do a voluntary project. In November 2016, Coco van Kasteren, master student Finance, went to Brazil to do voluntary work through AIESEC. In this article Coco tells us about her experience. I chose to go abroad with AIESEC because I wanted to stay for some time in a different country and get to know the life over there. Besides that, I wanted to help because I know how fortunate I am to be born in The Netherlands and not in some favela in Brazil. What kind of project did you do? The Gira Mundo project aims to give a world perspective to children and teenagers who doesn’t have access to culture through recreational activities related to relevant themes for their reality. The project has a total duration of six weeks and brings themes such as arts, sustainability, cultural diversity, sports and citizenship. The NGO I worked for, Prossica, helps children who live in Favelas. Poverty, drugs, alcohol, abuse, teen moms and criminality, that’s reality to the people who live in the favelas of Fortaleza, Brazil. Prossica will take care of the children when they don’t have to go to school. Prossica is trying to provide these children with some kind of guidance. “By teaching the kids to believe in something, social and personal values, sports, arts and by other activities, they are creating a safe environment for the kids to grow, learn and develop and to become something more.” Besides extra education, the children get food and attention, something what they usually don’t get (enough) at home. I was happy to contribute something to the good work Prossica is doing. Sometimes I gave some English lessons, but most of the time I played with the children or participated the sports activities. The children really needed some extra attention because most of the time they don’t get it at home. A lot of them were curious and asking so many questions about my country, my family, my house etc. When did you do this project? My project took place in November and December. I decided to raise money for Christmas presents. Most children at Prossica have a ‘godparent’ who sponsors them so they can have a Christmas present. But unfortunately not all children have a godparent so I asked all my friends and family to donate some money so I could buy Christmas presents for the children without a godparent. Would you recommend current students to do a voluntary project abroad? I think every experience abroad will help you in your future career, it is always good to learn about different cultures and to go out of your comfort zone.
Studying in Buenos Aires: A dream come true!
Ever since I got accepted into the IBA program, I was determined to go on exchange. I have always been very interested in exploring new cultures, and since a young age I felt I had to look outside the Netherlands to become a more open-minded person. I always wanted to live in a culture that is completely different from the Dutch culture, and so I chose to go to South-America. The South-American culture is the complete opposite of the Dutch culture, this was very appealing to me. Besides that I wanted to learn a new language and escape Europe for a while, since I travelled in 15 different countries but never managed to set foot outside of Europe. I can safely say that getting accepted for an exchange semester in Buenos Aires, Argentina was a dream coming true. So I spent the Fall Semester of 2016 studying at Universidad Católica Argentina (La UCA) in Buenos Aires. This university has a very good reputation in Argentina and South-America in general. One of the main benefits of studying at this university is that it is very nicely located in the middle of Puerto Madero, which is the rich Business district of Buenos Aires with loads of tall buildings and luxurious apartment complexes. Buenos Aires is the most alive city I have ever been to. You can go out in the middle of the night on a random Tuesday and you will find a city full of activities; people having diner, going to a theatre, dancing and drinking in the middle of the street, just enjoying life. “Buenos Aires is also one of the most fascinating cities I have ever been to in terms of its architecture and all the beautiful things there are to see. Every street is different, every building is designed beautifully and every neighborhood has its own stories. In six months’ time, I was not even able to see all the beautiful things this city has to offer.” Housing was not taken care of by the university so we had to arrange everything ourselves. It is not difficult to find a nice flat in Buenos Aires and prices are very reasonable. I lived in about five different houses, in my opinion this is the only way to get to know a city really well. Buenos Aires is with 15 million inhabitants a huge metropolitan and diverse city, with every neighborhood being completely different. There is the neighborhood Palermo (aka Palermo Hollywood) which is famous for all its bars, restaurants and clubs and obviously most exchange students lived here. Then there is Recoleta, which is the fancy neighborhood known for all the beautiful apartment buildings occupied by rich people and the stunning Recoleta cemetery. San Telmo, another neighborhood, is the oldest ‘barrio’ of the city. Its antique stores and small streets where you find people dancing Tango are typical of this neighborhood. Then there is Almagro which is considered one of the more dangerous neighborhoods of the city, which I thought was unjustified. I think I was the only exchange student living there and no one really wanted to set foot there. I really liked the neighborhood, to me it was just a ‘normal’ Buenos Aires Barrio where the hero of Tango, Carlos Gardel, was born. Microcentro, the City Centre, is another great neighborhood famous for the Obelisk and the extraordinary shopping streets. By living in all these different neighborhoods for a while, I got to know all of them really well. The worlds’ best steak, the worlds’ best red wine the worlds’ most passionate love for football are amongst the things the Argentine culture is famous for. Next to this, Argentineans are very friendly and open-minded. Family and friends are very important to them, way more important than in The Netherlands. If an Argentine runs into an old friend in the street, chances are high they will go get a coffee together no matter what appointment they might be running late for. This makes ‘I ran into an old friend’ and ‘I was spending time with my family’ very reasonable excuses for running late and you are not expected to show up for a meeting less than 30 minutes after the time you were supposed to meet. The openness and friendliness of the Argentines immediately made me feel at home and there hasn’t been a minute I felt the urge to go back to Holland. Castellano (which is Spanish with an accent) is the one and only language spoken in Buenos Aires. No one speaks English, don’t even try. I took Spanish lessons for a year at Tilburg University until I reached the B1 level. Also, I went one month earlier to Argentina to follow a Spanish language & culture intensive course at Universidad Torcuato Di Tella, which is another highly ranked university in Argentina. These daily 3-hour lessons for four weeks really improved my language abilities and by the time the semester began, I was able to properly have a conversation with a Latino or Latina and manage to get around on the streets of Buenos Aires. Four out of my five courses were taught in Spanish (!) which increased the pressure for me to learn the language. But even if this wouldn’t have been the case, I would have made sure my Spanish language skills were sufficient. In a country like Argentina, it is impossible to really integrate into the culture if you do not speak the language and by speaking the language you can learn so much more about the not-touristy things to do and get to know much more people. A great example of this is my Argentine granddad (not really my granddad), Modesto. He was the 80-year old doorman at my apartment building and the most typical argentine I ever met. He worked the night shifts and every time I came home he would be sitting next to the door listening old Tango music and drinking mate (argentine Herbal Tea) while asking millions
Studying in Taiwan: A Great Choice!
I chose to study for a semester in Taiwan, I really wanted to go to a country with a totally different culture than I’m used to and I definitely don’t regret that decision! The people are very nice, the weather is perfect, the nature is amazing and it is not too expensive. Also, the location is perfect, I traveled to Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam, all within 3 hours of flying from Taiwan. Arrival: My first week in Taiwan I couch surfed, this is a platform through which you can sleep at local peoples houses for free. I ended up in a Taiwanese family in the middle of Taipei. The oldest son, Chong-Han (22) fortunately spoke English very well and showed me a lot of beautiful and fun places in Taipei. By living in this Taiwanese family I was totally submerged in the Taiwanese culture, I learned a lot from it. After this week I was ready for my exchange at the National Taiwan University (NTU). Taiwan & the culture: When I arrived in Taiwan I had not a lot of knowledge of the culture and the country itself. Living at the Taiwanese family helped me a lot in understanding it. It was a pretty big culture shock for me, because a lot of people don’t speak English very well and the city looks completely different than I was used to in the Netherlands. Also the food was different ( a lot of rice). But I actually managed to adapt well to the culture. I found out Taiwanese people are very friendly, helpful, respectful but also very shy. As tourist you will likely not be bribed and if you ask someone a question, he will do anything to help you. They however are a lot more shy and less direct than us Dutch people, which could lead to some frustrations in group projects. Taiwan is a beautiful country with a lot of mountains and a great climate, I’m writing this letter in January and it is still around 20 degrees here. In the summer it can get extremely hot though, to around 35 degrees. I became a big fan of hiking, which is great here. You can also visit the nature parks and scouter around. Partying is different here, we always go to an all-you-can-drink club, where you can drink everything you want all night for about 10/15 euros, this led to some amazing night. “I do notice that, as a blonde- blue eyed European guy I do get stared at a lot by the local people.” The NTU: The National Taiwan University is quite highly regarded, the Taiwanese people really look up to you when you say you study at NTU. From Tilburg, you are obliged to collect 30 ECT’s, but I got 42 in total. I chose voluntarily to get Chinese lessons and have taught English to Taiwanese children. Both additional courses for me were great experienced for me. I held Skype-sessions weekly where, with help of a translator, I tried to teach them English. I was responsible for a class of 26 children, around 11 years old in a primary school. The children looked up to me and called me their teacher. We were received in a great way, they performed dances for us, organized group games and prepared a delicious dinner for us. I was enrolled in the College of Management and chose a lot of courses related to Finance. I have had a couple of nice courses about investing, risk management and mergers & acquisitions. The overall level of courses was a bit lower than in Tilburg, a couple courses were very easy, where others were more challenging. I think Chinese language was the hardest course I had. A part of your grade is coupled to participation and every course I followed was in a group. I worked with many different nationalities, made presentations and reports. Accommodation: Accommodation was well organized, I live in a big complex with student dorms. Almost just Exchange students live here. Male and female dorms are strictly separated and unfortunately you can’t have friends over in your room between midnight and 07:00 in the morning. My dorm room is pretty simple, with a bed, desk and own bathroom. It is pretty cheap, I chose a double room and I pay about 150 euros per month, but you can also choose a single room for 220 per month. By living in the dorms you meet a lot of new people very easily. All these fun international exchange students made my time here fantastic. The location is perfect as well, 10 minutes walking to lectures and in the middle of Taipei with easy access to metro and buses. Overall, I love Taiwan, perhaps to most chill place I have ever been to. The atmosphere is very pleasant, I felt at home very quickly. Despite Taiwan being a huge city, I didn’t have the feeling it is very chaotic and crowded. Moreover the interaction with the local Taiwanese truly is fascinating, they are really genuinely interested in me and my life (and I of course in their lives). It is just incredibly cool and funny to hang out with Taiwanese people. In the Netherlands I feel pretty normal, but here in Taiwan I feel super special. There is also so much to do in Taiwan, I literally was never bored for one second. I feel like I did and been through a lot here, life was truly intense here! I enjoyed the people, the nature, the culture and the amazing weather. In short: Taiwan has been an amazing choice for me and I would definitely recommend it to others!
How to work and live in Brazil?
Rio de Janeiro: the city of samba, beach, carnival and caipirinhas. The Cariocas, which is the name for the inhabitants of Rio de Janeiro, love to party and enjoy the beach. However, work also needs to be done. It has almost been 2 years ago since I moved to Salvador, a city which is 2 hours away from Rio by plane, for the sake of love. I have been living in Rio for 8 months now because of work. Unfortunately I cannot mention the name of our company due to contractual arrangements with one of our clients. I would like to describe it as follows: our company is a global market leader in the area of temporary water- and waste water infrastructures and purification of water and waste-water. This company is established in the Netherlands, and has been active in Brazil for 4 years now. It has scaled up significantly due to a major sports event this year. At that time, I was appointed to be the Cluster Manager because of this event. After the event had ended, I started working as Account & Operations Manager at the office in Rio de Janeiro and we are fully occupied with new business. The road towards our great victory, however, has not been without setbacks and difficulties. It was one of the biggest challenges our company has ever faced. As a company which puts a great value on quality, we had to pull out all the stops to actually realize a high level of quality. Everything, really everything, changed every day and besides that, the Brazilians also have a ‘doing everything at the last moment’ mentality. “This is the essence of the Brazilian way of working: everything will be okay.” Do not worry. “Luc, fica tranquilo”….Well, that was an expression I got to hear a lot. My first experience in the preparation of the mayor sport event was at ‘Forte Copacabana’, the age-old fortress on the corner of the beach of the same name. We had to lay a water- and waste water system on ‘the roof’ of the fortress, which was a complicated operation. I had just been one week before I gathered all stakeholders; people who supply toilets, people who build stands, the venue manager and electricity suppliers. With Dutch blood flowing through my veins, I obviously wanted to make arrangements. Making strict agreements in order that the deliveries will be on time is what typical Dutchmen love to do. When I called on the stakeholders to their commitments in a quite direct way, I soon found out that this way was too firm. The responsible venue manager namely interrupted me: “yes, Luc is a ‘gringo’, a Dutchman who has a different work ethic than we have.” I immediately got a reality check, and I realized I have to approach people differently in the future. I was way too direct and I proceeded too quickly… “Fica tranquilo, Luc, Fica tranquilo.” The following months was a real struggle to meet all deadlines: we were always present at the venue, but we were dependent on other suppliers. With a lot of blood, sweat and tears, we met each deadline. In the end you could say that the Brazilians were right, everything fell into place in the end. HOWEVER, work could have been easier and conducted with less stress, if we had used our (Dutch) ethics. Building and maintaining relationships is really important in Brazil. You cannot just push your plans ahead out of the blue. “When a good foundation is laid for a relationship, it is easier and more pleasant to work with Brazilians.” Their work ethics will not change, but they are then more willing to put in more effort for you and they will ensure that everything will be alright in the end. Meanwhile, Brazilians dó look up to foreign companies. They associate foreign companies with high quality considering service and goods by default, which leads to a high expectation. Essentially, this is not a bad thing, but you have to be aware of this fact as a foreign company in Brazil, and you should not be afraid to maintain your reputation. In the social sphere, Brazilians are the best. It has been almost 2 years that I moved to Salvador, alone. I have never been given a warm welcome as here in Brazil. They are very sympathetic and hospitable, their door is always opened for you and they genuinely always want to help you. This is something us Dutchmen could learn from the Brazilians. One last piece of advice: Rio is not necessary unsafe, but you do have to be alert and not just walk into a random neighbourhood and you have to store valuables in a safe place. I encourage you to look on every neighbourhoods safety, and filter them on safety. I wish you a lot of luck and fun in Rio de Janeiro, I am sure it will be a trip you will never forget!
Lisbon: What a way to live!
It is the end of the afternoon in the beginning of October while writing this, I am sitting here on a nice roof terrace in a pleasant 26 degrees with a cheap but great cup of coffee. Today was a busy day, the surfing session in the morning and the class at university I just came back from made me a bit dull, but the day is not finished yet. Dinner in one of the many great restaurants in the city and after that a few drinks in its nightlife are on the agenda. While I am describing all this I realize that it won´t be that hard to justify my choice for Lisbon as exchange destination, life in this city is not too bad. I would love to give you an insight in my ´Erasmus-life´ in Lisbon. My Choice The choice for a semester abroad came a bit later for me than usual, when I got the chance to go on exchange in the 3rd year of my bachelor Business Administration I wasn´t really paying any attention to it. Later, when I looked into it a bit more, I realised that I couldn´t let this chance slip. So I kept 2 courses open in my minor to make sure that I could add a 7th semester to my bachelor. The choice for Lisbon as destination was made pretty quickly, I liked Portugal´s climate and the city of Lisbon was recommended to me by lots of people. Since being here (from the beginning of August), all of these positive messages about Lisbon have become clear to me! Let´s go! The adventure began in the beginning of August, university wouldn´t start until the first of September but since my apartment (that I share with a Swiss and another Dutch guy, both met via Facebook) was already available for us in August I decided to travel to Lisbon on the 5th of August already. Housing for students in Lisbon is pretty good, if you are early there are a lot of great rooms/apartments available for low prices, really low actually compared to other European capitals. The main focus of the first few weeks was exploring the city with my roommate, the first month was over in a flash. What I discovered quit quickly is that some prejudices about Portuguese people are actually based on some truth. They are indeed not always on time for informal meetings and not really precise or effective, being a typical Dutch guy that was a bit hard getting used to. But I do have admiration for this Portuguese way of life too, living with as few stress as possible and just enjoying every single day of your life is something that I (and I think most Dutch people with me) can really learn from. In the end of August Lisbon began flooding with students. The student community in this city is really big, I don´t know the exact number but with something like 20 different universities the number of exchange students is pretty big. This leads to the fact that every day there is something to do and always someone to do things with, there are 2 different organisations whose sole purpose is organising activities for all the exchange- (or: ´erasmus´) students. Still after 2 months I meet new people every day and the list of things that I still have to see and do in this city is long. You will never get bored in Lisbon, with its countless viewpoints (Lisbon is also called ´the city on 7 hills´ and the altitude differences are therefore high), beautiful neighbourhoods, buildings, churches and terraces it is a city where you can easily spend a whole semester. As a football fan, a visit to games of Sporting CP or Benfica is cannot be skipped, tickets to the games are pretty easy to get and not that expensive. The next games for me are the Champions League fixtures Benfica – Napoli and Sporting – Real Madrid! Then of course the beaches, the beautiful beaches around Lisbon are very well reachable with public transportation, traveling time ranging from 30 minutes to an hour for most of them. I won´t be spending as much time as before there since the weather is going to become a bit less good in the next month. It will begin to rain a bit more soon but still it won´t be that cold, in October the temperature won´t drop below 20 degrees. In the winter, the temperature during the day can drop to about 10-14 degrees so that´s still pretty good compared to the Netherlands. ”No exchange semester is, of course, complete without traveling, and that´s also a thing that you can do well here” Portugal itself is great, I have already been to Porto and to the amazing beaches of the Algarve and there are trips planned to the Azores (an island group in the Atlantic Ocean) and to Madeira. Also tickets to Madrid or Seville are not too expensive from Lisbon, and even Morocco is very reachable. Let´s also talk a bit about the main reason I came to Lisbon; my studies. On the first of September I began with classes at my University. The quality of the available universities (for students from UvT) in Lisbon is excellent. Católica (my university) and NOVA are both top business schools with great rankings in both Europe and the world. The lessons at Católica are a bit different that I am used to; classes are smaller and more often mandatory and the professors are mostly people with a lot of experience in business. This gives the courses just a different dimension and it actually suits me well. It is often said that the quality of classes on exchange is way worse, but that is not the case in here. Moreover, only the fact that I work together with so many different nationalities is a great experience already. I hope I have been able to give you
Message from Abroad
The Emerging Market named South Korea Last academic year I went on exchange to South Korea, where I studied at Yonsei University in Seoul. I spent one semester in this Asian country. Within this paper I will outline some interesting facts and stories I experienced within this emerging market. Thinking back about my time there, I had a hard time figuring out what exactly makes South Korea an emerging market. I lived in a newly build dorm provided with anything you would ever need as a student, including a laundry service, 24/7 convenience store and multiple restaurants in the building. Sinchon, the neighborhood I mostly spent my time, was one big maze filled with countless bars, food places and a kind of rooms in which you can play games, watch movies or sing karaoke among others. The stores located in the area are mostly open 24 hours a day and everything is relatively cheap. These differences were the most striking and extraordinary differences between the Western world and South Korea. Despite the fact that these differences are rather big, I really enjoyed them. At Yonsei University I attended a course called ‘Managing in Emerging Markets’. Interesting to mention is that within this course South Korea was not classified as an emerging market anymore. Currently, in South Korea there is already a 5G network being deployed and moreover, the capital Seoul will be fully equipped with wireless internet across the entire city within a short period of time. These examples underline the definition of South Korea within the course ‘Managing in Emerging Markets’. To emphasize this importance, Seoul is the world’s second largest metropolitan area in the world with approximately 25.6 million inhabitants. If you compare this to the state of technology in the developed economies, then it is easy to notice that South Korea is way ahead of the curve. Of course, this is only one part of the story. South Korea has officially been at war since the start of the Korean War in 1950. In 1950 communistic North Korea attacked the pro-American South Korea. After some years, South Korea was considered as one of the poorest countries in Asia. This was due to the loss of a serious number of men and valuable resources. Nowadays, after more than half a century, they have regained a lot of strength. At the moment, there is 2% absolute poverty, which implies that these 2% are deprived from basic human needs such as food, safe drinking water, health and education. Strikingly, most of these people are the elderly as they do not obtain any benefits from the government. These elderly hope that their children will take care of them after their retirement. However, it is not obvious that this will indeed happen. Consequently, it is not uncommon to see older women selling stuff on the street or cleaning subways. During my time in South Korea I also travelled a lot. One of my trips had the destination of a tropical island called Jeju-do which is located to the south of South Korea. I found out that people in the smaller cities were way different. South Korea is one of the most ethnically homogeneous countries in the world. However, there are some foreigners in Seoul. . Some citizens of small villages have never seen a foreigner. This is not illogical as there are hardly any foreigners around. The reason for this is simple; there is not as much money to earn as in the big metropolitan city Seoul. Consequently, people in the rural areas have relatively sober existence. In order to have any prospective in your career, you will have to go to the major cities. This is something that does fit in the image of an emerging market.
