GUIDELINES FOR WRITING THE EXPERIENCE REPORT
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BA Organization Studies
Summer semester
2014-2015
Cologne Business School
Germany
I GENERAL INFORMATION ABOUT THE SCHOOL
I have been living for 5 months in Cologne (Köln) Germany, and as I only knew Cologne from
its’ Christmas markets I didn’t had a lot of expectations. Cologne is the fourth largest city of
Germany with 1,1 million inhabitants. It is a big city, with great people and a wide range of
available activities. The CBS is located in the inner city (Innerstadt), which is the most
interesting part of the city. It has good connections with the public transportation and is
located next to a really nice park (Volksgarten). CBS only has 2 buildings and is relatively
small with only 1200 students.
CBS is actually pretty close located to the “student area”, which is located around
Zulpicherstasse. But actually you can find clubs all around the big ring road. The main tourist
thing of Cologne is the Kölner Dom, which is the giant cathedral next to the main train station.
Another nice thing about this city is that the river the Rhein splits the city in half, with good
weather everybody can be found there. The main difference with Tilburg is the size of course
and the language, but besides that you will find a great open vibe in the city and under the
people.
I studied at the international business faculty and was able to choose between first, second
and third year courses, all business related. They offer an interesting variety of international
orientated business related course with also business psychology courses. My semester had
about 60 exchange students, but in the winter semester there are usually up to 120 exchange
students.
CBS works in semester, which means that you will work on a course for 4 months, most of the
time 90 minutes per week and end with an exam and/or course work.
II PRACTICAL INFORMATION
I received all the information approximately 4-6 weeks before the arrival week. There were no
difficulties in the communication what so ever.
The arrival is your own responsibility. It is required to join the introduction week and I would
highly recommend doing this, as you get to know the other exchange students. In this
introduction week the international office staff explained everything you need to know for your
stay at CBS. There were not really activities to get to know the other students but a tour
through the city was included. Two weeks after the arrival there was a get together with drinks
to get introduced to your student buddy, which is an assigned student who you can use as a
contact person but also just as a new friend.
Through CBS’s website I found that they own one student dormitory with 32 rooms, and that
you could apply for them. I applied for one and found out that there was only one room left,
which was a shared room for 390 euro’s. I replied and asked that I actually was searching for
a single room and I got a quick reply with an offer of a single room in another student
dormitory, where CBS owns 6 rooms that was still available for 347 euro. So my
accommodation was actually really quickly arranged. I was really satisfied with my room
because it had its own bathroom, a shared kitchen and it was located just 2 minutes from
CBS. I couldn’t have wished for anything better. I think I got lucky because unfortunately it
isn’t that easy to find housing in Cologne because there are many big educational institutions
and thus students looking for housing.
I financed my stay with the Dutch “studiefinanciering” and the Erasmus grant. I did use a little
loan because I wanted to have a little bit more financial space as I also made little trips to the
big cities of Berlin. The overall expenses in Cologne are comparable with Tilburg, looking at
supermarkets and beer prices.
Most of my expenses were spend on going out and eating out, which is not different than in
Tilburg. Usage of the public transportation is free with your CBS student card in the province
of North-Rhein Westphalia, this means you can use the trams and busses in Cologne for free
but also the regional trains to for example Dusseldorf and Dortmund.
The approximate budget per month will be:
Housing 300-450, Food 200, Transport 0, Books 10, Miscellaneous 200
The schedule of the academic year was for my summer semester:
Arrival date at 19 January, Introduction week from 20 until 24 January and the first official day
of lectures on the 27th of January. The last day of classes was the 15th of Mai, with a two
week exam week following up. Because Germany is like The Netherlands a mostly Catholic
country it uses the Christian holidays as public holidays. This means you get an Easter break
and you are free on other days like Pentecost, Christ ascending day etc.
There is an International office that function as your point of contact if you have any questions
or problems. There is also a student organization that provided the exchange student
activities, such as a trip to a museum in Bonn, an optional weekend trip to Munich and the
farewell BBQ. I had a lot of contact with exchange students, but I was also in contact with
German students as the classes were mixed up and you had to collaborate with them.
Because CBS is relatively small it was easy to get in contact with the local students.
I didn’t experience a culture shock, as the German culture is highly similar to the Dutch
culture. My perspective on the Dutch culture hasn’t change, but was even more confirmed by
the reactions of others and my own experience. The German culture was way more open
than I expected. Many Germans I spoke to addressed that this particular city is very open,
and people living here are very easy to approach in contrast to other German cities. I
personally encountered this when I travelled to Hamburg and Munich, where definitely felt a
different vibe from the people and the city. A more closed one, especially in Munich. The
“Cologne culture” really surprised me and suited me really well because it was really easy to
get in contact with people.
In general do the younger Germans all speak basic English, at CBS everyone spoke very
good English because many students follow English programs. The older generation
Germans for example in supermarkets do not speak really good English. Therefor it is
convenient to know some basics in German to get your way around. CBS offered a German
language course, which I took and highly recommend taking.
This exchange semester influenced me in a great positive way. I learned a lot about other
cultures from being and working together with other (exchange) students. Stereotypes I had
of certain cultures, such as an Asian culture like the Korean culture were partly confirmed but
I definitely also learned more about it. My best experience and at the same time a day I will
never forget was the last day of the exams. CBS held a BBQ in the park and afterwards there
was a big student house party. It was a truly amazing day, being together with all the other
exchange students but also with all the German students. The vibe was great, everybody was
happy and in a good mood. My worst experience must be that my phone got stolen in the first
week of my exchange.
The most important lesson I got from the exchange is probably to look across the borders,
personally and career wise. Everything is possible and there are no reasons why you should
bound yourself within the borders of your own country.
III ACADEMIC INFORMATION
The courses at CBS are offered in German and English, but I think that as an exchange
student you can only apply for the English taught courses. I chose the following courses:
International Marketing & International Human Resource Management
Introduction to Consulting & Consulting Methods
Consumer Behavior & Media Psychology
New Trends in Business Psychology & Applied Business Psychology
German
CBS works in modules that consist of two courses of 3 ECTS each, which makes the module
worth 6 ECTS. I personally would recommend any course taught by Dr. Zmuda, because I
was really happy with her during my consulting course. The academic level is in my opinion
overall lower than in Tilburg. This is mainly explained by the fact that CBS is a business
school, which is a Fachhochschule in the German system, which corresponds to a
“Hogeschool” level. You can expect small classes of maximum of 25 people, and a lot of
practice focused topics.
Looking back I am happy to have experienced a really different way of teaching, coming from
a huge university going to a small business school. As I mentioned I am really happy with all
that I have learned from my Consulting courses, but the Psychology courses were not deep
enough to gain any extra knowledge from what I have already learned in my Psychology
courses in Tilburg.
The exams were 60 minutes exams per course. Mostly existing of 4-5 open questions.
The facilities at CBS are good and available for every student. It is very small, but as there
are also not a lot of students, this never gave any problems when I wanted to use anything.
Course
International Marketing
International HRM
Introduction to
Consulting
Consulting Methods
Consumer Behavior
Media Psychology
New Trends in
Business Psychology
Applied Business
Psychology
Prerequisites
Exam
Coursework
Written
Written
ECTS
3
3
3
Comments
2nd year
2nd year
1st year
Coursework
Written
Coursework
Written
3
3
3
3
1st year
2nd year
2nd year
3rd year
Written
3
3rd year
I would highly recommend going on a exchange, if you have any doubts if you can work it out
based on financials or practical issues, don’t worry. If me as decided 3 days before the
deadline of applying and only 2,5 months before the actual exchange managed everything
very well. Also please consider going to Germany on a exchange, as it might seems boring
because it is relatively close to home, Germany is a great and interesting country with more
than enough new things to discover!