The Programme
The IBMS-programme shows great variation, both in content and didactics. The first two years are in-house, and in those years each semester includes a project which highlights a specific aspect of business. Of course all courses are in English. The programme also provides great possibilities when you are ambitious and wish to excel.
Foundation year
The foundation year focuses on basic knowledge and skills in the areas of marketing, management, economics and finance. In both semesters you participate in a project to which the other courses contribute. This project runs a full year and is about setting up a real company. You will learn a lot about working together in an international environment.
At the start of the first semester you choose your second foreign language, the first being English, which is mandatory unless you happen to be a native speaker of English. (When you are, you must choose two other languages). You can choose between German, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish and French. As is the case with English, you may not study a language which is your native tongue!
Second year
During the second year you acquire operational skills and you learn how to approach business problems strategically. And again in each semester you do a project: you work on export cases in one semester and do a foreign direct investment study in the other.
In the second semester of the second year you begin to prepare your exchange, which is mandatory for all IBMS-students. You must decide at which of our nearly one hundred partner institutes you prefer to do the exchange. Your results in the first and second year are crucial: a special ranking procedure, based on you results, will determine at which partner institute you will spend your exchange period. In the second year you must make another important choice: which minor would you like to follow in the third year?
Third year
The content of your third year programme can be two things:
- the first semester you study abroad, the second semester you follow a minor at HES:
- the first semester you follow a minor at HES; the second semester you study abroad;
Minors
You can choose to follow one of five minors to broaden your horizon, or study some particular area more in depth. All minors have English as language of instruction.
- Minor International Marketing
- Minor International Finance
- Minor Entrepreneurship
- Minor Latin American Business Studies
- Minor Academic Master
All minors offer you a combination of six modules. International Marketing and International Finance are specialization minors, enhancing your expertise in either marketing or Finance. Entrepreneurship focuses on competencies for innovation, sales and purchases, Latin American Business Studies highlights business in South America, and last but not least, the minor Academic Master offers courses that enable you to enter the master programme Business Studies of the University of Amsterdam, immediately after graduating.
Fourth year
The first semester of the fourth year you do an internship, which is a mandatory part of the IBMS study programme. In your final semester you write your dissertation. Besides writing your dissertation, you complete the final four modules of the programme.
The placement
The first semester of the fourth year you do an internship at an international company. This company placement abroad is a mandatory part of the IBMS study programme. Experience shows that the placement is an excellent stepping stone to an international business career. Many of our students have been offered jobs while on their placement.
The dissertation
The dissertation is the culmination of four years of study. It must be a problem-solving assignment, commissioned by an internationally operating company in the field of marketing or management. Using the knowledge, skills, and experience gained over the previous three and a half years, the student is expected to explore and analyse data and make concrete recommendations to solve the problem, or offer suggestions for a future line of approach. The student is supervised throughout the process by a member of the IBMS teaching staff.
After completing the IBMS programme you are, for example, able to:
- write a business plan
- map the economic and legal situation in a market
- manage new product development and introduction
- evaluate the financial and legal performance of the company
- recognise, analyse and evaluate (multicultural team) behaviour
- plan the company's logistics