Why did you become an active member of the Studytour at Asset | Accounting & Finance?
After my exchange in Canada I wanted to do something more besides just studying. When I saw the free spot at Asset | Accounting & Finance for the Studytour I knew immediately that this was what I wanted to do. Formulating my motivation for this committee wasn’t a problem, since I enjoy travelling a lot.
What kind of challenges did you face while organizing the Studytour?
Picking this year’s destination at the beginning of this year. Filling up the program with a destination like California was certainly not the problem. However, to maintain the study related character of the trip we needed to include some company visits. At first this did not seem like a problem, since there are many renowned companies located in California. It turned out that getting to speak with the right persons at those companies took a lot more time and effort than expected.
What was most challenging as being the chairman of this trip?
Keeping the group together as a whole. Since we didn’t have any company visits in the first phase of the trip, this part had an informal character. Consequently, we thought it would be quite a challenge to get everyone sharp for the company visits in the second part of the trip, in San Francisco. This proved to be no problem at all.
Did you face any problems during the trip itself?
Of course a trip like this can not always go exactly as planned. However, we did not face any major difficulties during the trip. By preparing yourself in advance, as a committee, for a variety of possible scenarios that might occur during the trip you can quickly respond to them if they actually happen.
What were the highlights of the trip?
The Road trip from Los Angeles through Las Vegas, Death Valley, Sequoia National Park and Yosemite National Park to San Francisco exceeded all of my expectations. This is definitely my number one experience of the trip. Besides the informal part of the trip, I found the company visits in San Francisco very interesting, especially the differences between Dutch companies and American companies.
When looking back, would you’ve done things differently?
I would have made the length of the trip a bit shorter. Especially the stay in Los Angeles, personally this city did not meet my expectations.
The Netherlands and the United States are pretty similar on cultural grounds, still there are some differences. Could you describe the main differences you have noticed during the trip?
There is a significantly noticeable difference between rich and poor in the United States. We have experienced this by just walking through the streets of the big cities. Also, as Dutch students we are used to dress quite formal when visiting companies. In San Francisco however, we were overdressed. We did not see anybody with a tie.
You have visited five companies, please tell us something about it.
For the accountancy students we visited KPMG and Deloitte. For the finance students we visited Fitch Ratings and the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. At the end of the trip we also visited the Dutch Consulate in San Francisco. In all of the companies we visited we experienced a very open business culture. The doors and offices were always open, and the offices of higher management were located at the center of the building with glass walls, which also stimulates the open character. The figures provided by the Big-4 Accounting firms showed us that there is a difference between the demand and the supply on the labor market, which is the exact opposite of the current situation in the Netherlands for Accountancy students.
How were the visits to UCLA and Stanford University? What did you do there and what were the most noticeable things about them?
The most obvious noticeable difference is the size of the universities; they are ‘quite big’. This might be the caused by the difference in finance structure when compared with Dutch universities. There are many significant donations from the business world. From conversations with students at both universities we heard that there are many guest lectures from leading companies in the area, especially from Silicon Valley.
At UCLA we had a tour of the campus, direct conversations with a group of students over a cup of coffee, and a lecture about the MBA programs. At Stanford we also had a tour of the campus, which fortunately only showed the highlights, and we spoke with one of their students. The visit at Stanford took place on the same day as our short visits to Intel, Apple and Google, which made our stay at Stanford significantly shorter than our stay at UCLA. After Stanford we drove towards our final destination of the Road Trip; San Francisco.
What did you learn from organizing the Studytour?
Looking back at the last 10 months I can tell that I have developed both organizational and personal skills. The events that took place over this period are simply too long to list. The planning of the trip itself, the acquisition of companies, working together, staying on the right track is just a mere selection of events that I have learned from. I highly recommend everyone interested in extracurricular events to organize a event like our Studytour.
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