Just Graduated: Coen Tomesen

My name is Coen Tomesen and I am 25 years old.  I recently graduated from the Masters of Finance program of Tilburg University.

In 2009, I moved to Tilburg to start my studies, not knowing what the student life would have to offer or whether the Bachelor Business Economics would be what I expected from it. Luckily, there was a possibility to switch to Tax Economics or Economics after the first year, so at least there were some options in case I did not like business economics. In the end, I found the program to be interesting and eventually obtained my bachelors degree in 2012.

However, after three years of studying I had the feeling I was missing something in my student life. During these three years of taking courses I did not improve any of my soft skills. Therefore, I wanted to do something fun besides my studies which was related to accounting and finance. That was the moment I decided to join Asset | Accounting & Finance and to become part of the Studytour committee. The committee perfectly matched my interests, since I loved travelling and organizing a study trip for 28 students was a good opportunity to develop myself. In the end, we managed to organize a memorable trip to Mumbai and New Delhi.  Even more importantly, I became close friends with four of my fellow committee members.  We had a really great time together by participating in all social and formal activities the association had to offer

Furthermore, the end of the Studytour meant the start of my exchange semester in Prague at the University of Economics. I had a great time meeting people from all over the world and experiencing what it is like to live in a former Eastern-European country. After four months of taking courses, travelling and partying in the Czech Republic, I returned back to the Netherlands with plenty of new international friends.

Once I got back home, I did not have much time to get bored. I immediately had to participate in transfer meetings since I was about to start my board years as Chairman of the board of Asset | Accounting & Finance of 2013-2014. Together with five fellow board members, I was responsible for the association’s overall well-being, which was a full-time occupation. In fact, this was the most special year of my entire time as a student.  I faced a steep learning curve and met a lot of interesting people and companies, which undoubtedly helped me further in choosing the right direction for starting my career.

After my board year, I started the Masters in Finance at Tilburg University. The program was very interesting and intense. There were a great amount of group cases and the competition among students to perform was fierce. Prior to writing my Master thesis, I did a three months’ internship at Deloitte Corporate Finance, where I aided in the preparation of market research and buy and sell side transactions. This internship helped me to develop my excel- and PowerPoint skills and showed me what it is like to work in the field of mergers and acquisitions. However, I figured out that this was not something I wanted to do for the first couple of years of my working career.

After graduating in December 2015, I started to apply for my first job. I knew I wanted to work in a challenging environment where I could work outside my comfort zone and learn as much as possible. Moreover, I wanted to work in teams that require lot of interpersonal contact. Because of my background in finance and my affinity with numbers and banking, applying for the Finance Traineeship at ABN AMRO was a logical step. After several challenging selection rounds, I was offered to start as a Finance Trainee in Amsterdam from the 14th of March onwards!

I am now looking forward to this new chapter in my life. I enjoyed my time as a student to the fullest and I think I laid a solid foundation for building my professional career as a banker.  The best advice I can give to students is to fully explore your own potential. Try to do as many things as you can besides you studies and try to discover your strengths and weaknesses. You are guaranteed of a great amount of fun and next to that it gives you an advantage when applying for internships, traineeships or a fulltime position.