Letter of advice

I want to give next year's students some advice before they start with International Business and Management.

Firstly, you do not have to be afraid of talking English in public if you are nog able to speak as fluently English as some other students do. In the beginning, I met a couple of students who had travelled for more than one year before they started with IB&M. They had a great advantage over students like me. However, you do not have to pay attention to them, just focus on your own skills and try to improve them. It is ok if you do not speak fluently English in the beginning. From time to time you will improve your vocabulary knowledge, your presenting skills and your pronunciation, and before you know it, you can speak almost as much as fluently as your fellow students.

Secondly, you have to ensure that you keep to the course schedule given at the beginning of the year. I know that the beginning of your first year is hard, you are new in a strange city, you have to make new friends etc. And therefore, it is hard to have the discipline to prepare every assignment and every presentation as well as you are expected to, but try to keep to the schedule. Otherwise, before you realize it, you do not understand what the lecturers are teaching you and what the content of your book is about. The consequences are that you have to study very hard for the exams, otherwise you will not pass the course.

Finally, try to get the highest grades as possible. Do not be satisfied with an average of a six, but go for the eight or even better, the ten. I know that this sounds geeky, but in your third year of IB&M, you will study abroad for approximately six months. If you want to go outside of Europe, in most countries the admission rate is on average a 7.5 and in some other countries even an eight. So if you do your best in your first year, you will benefit from it in your later years.