Student Report
Name of the University: University of St. Gallen
Exchange semester: Fall, 2013
I. PRACTICAL INFORMATION
Before leaving Norway
We received information regarding the online enrolment confirmation procedure in early
March. Everything went super smooth and housing confirmation, insurance and additional
fees was all done by late April or early May. All communication was online. If there was
something you forgot to fill out you simply received a personal email and then it was fixed.
No problems or difficulties at all. We are truly impressed by the professionalism of St. Gallen
at this stage.
Applying for a visa (if applicable)
No need to apply for visa. Only thing we needed to do was to meet at the city hall signing
some papers and then receiving our permit to stay in Switzerland for the full term. Remember
to bring your Norwegian Health Insurance Card so that you don’t need to sign and pay for an
additional insurance.
Travel
Direct airplane with SAS from Gardermoen to Zurich airport. Then exactly 1 hour train ride
from Zurich to St. Gallen. I you plan your trip ahead it is easy to get a round trip plane ticket
“SAS Go Saver” for <2000,- NOK. The train ticket to St. Gallen costs ~25 CHF.
Housing
Housing was provided by the housing office. Smooth sailing with this procedure as well. 4
types of options with regards to price level and preferences (live alone, live with German
speaking students etc.). The apartment standard varied quite a lot without being reflected in
the housing fee which ended up for everyone at approximately 5000,- NOK each month.
Costs
- Approximately how much per month did you spend on rent, books, food,
transportation, and other personal expenses?
Rent
Books
Food
5000 NOK
100 NOK
Equal price level as in to Norway
Transport
Equal price level as in to Norway
Other
Bars are cheap. Clubbing is expensive
Culture and language
No problems at all with respect to the university where everyone was fluent in English. If you
now how to speak German you might get surprised by the German accent in St. Gallen. In
some sense the pronunciation of Swiss-German is similar to the differences between Nynorsk
and Bokmål so in the beginning it can be a bit hard to understand everything. The culture is
very similar to the Norwegian culture. The train facilities around Switzerland are really good
1
(though a bit expensive) so there is plenty of opportunities to travel around. If you are
interesting in hiking trips in the mountains you have some awesome trips ahead.
II. ABOUT THE SCHOOL
Please describe:
The school was located at one of the hilltops of St Gallen. About 15 minute walk from the city
centre or 20 minute from the train station. The school itself is a huge concrete building with
auditoriums, lecture rooms, group study rooms and computer rooms. The main building
houses study areas, cantine, sleeping room, studt rooms and computer rooms. A connected
building to the main building, contains the library, auditoriums and another cantine. Campus
also contains a sports area which is free for students. There is a football field as well as gym
facilities, classes (yoga, spinning, body pump, dance arobic, pilates and so on), which is all
free to use by the students.
Course registration
Course registration is unique at the university. Every student is given 1000 points they can use
to bid on courses they want. There is 3 main rounds of course bidding as well as 2 waiting list
rounds. Remember that you are responsible to chech each course time schedule and make sure
that the courses you bid on do not collide! Remember to also chech the exam (decentral
exam) dates to make sure they do not collide as well. Spend some time to develop a schedule
that fits so that you have many options when you bid on courses, and do not bid on all courses
in the first round, it is better to divide the points you have on three courses in the first round to
make sure you get them. The course bidding starts at the end of August and continues
throughout September.
Academic calendar
Arrival date:
First day of the semester:
Last day of classes:
Examination period:
Any special events/holidays:
2. September
17. September
20. December
10-20. December
Two week semester
break in late
October/beginning of
November
Other:
Arrival
Introduction week is when you meet your buddy (highly recommended to sign up for the
buddy system) and start your German language course. The two first weeks are mostly social
and you get to meet all the other exchange students. The two first weeks are also when the
bidding process ends and you get assigned your courses.
2
The International Office
St Gallen University and the “student mobility office”, which takes care of the international
students, are of big help and everything is always in order. The opening hours are a bit short,
but they have great systems and the information you need is always ready for you.
Promoting BI and Norway
There was one exchange fair and a Scandinavian society that we participated at. The
Scandinavian society was great and we even have our own pub/restaurant in the city!
Social activities
All the social activities were planned and executed by the buddy system. The social life at the
Univerity of St. Gallen was great, especially among the international students. We did
everything from hiking, skiing, roadtrips around the country and party’s.
III. ACADEMICS
In the classroom
The teaching style is a bit more practical than at BI. The professors all (almost) have many
years of work experience and use this a lot when they teach. The approach to learning is more
practical in terms of the use of cases and workshops with local firms. The academic workload
is as big, if not bigger than at BI and if you do not prepare for the classes (read all the
material, view online lectures and do the cases) you will not be able to follow the lectures.
The academic level of the proffesors and the other students are very high and the workload in
each course is great, but we learned a lot and it was a great challenge.
Course materials
Mostly power point presentations and journal articals were uses, as well as books.
Exams
All exchange students take the decentral exam, which means that you are able to take the
exam before Christmas. The normal students take their exams in January. What this means for
the international students is that the exams are mostly during the last week of the semester and
often at the latest lecture. Hence all your exams are very close to eachother and there is not
much time to revice for the exam. The teachers know this and tries to take this into
consideration when making the exams. Most exams were written (60 mins to 3 hours). During
the semester most courses have both presentations, hand-ins, class participation, and in-class
assigments in addition to the final exam.
Library and technology
The library and the study areas was ok, though not as good as at BI. The technology was easy
to understand and use and there was little trouble accessing the computers.
3
Description of courses
Political Economy of Trade and Development. Master. 20% presentation in class. 80 %
paper assignment (written individually at home). Prerequisite. Free elective. Comments:
After the professor started the first class by stating she really didn’t want to be there the hopes
for this course pretty much vanished. No effort by the professor to make the topics of trade
and development interesting. Just a bunch of pp. presentations during the term. Unless you are
extremely interested in political science topics this was a rather boring course. The majority of
the class was exchange students. The 20 % presentation was easy as you only had to present
one or two pre-assigned articles. The 80 % paper was a bit tougher and it seemed like she
wanted an unrealistic level of quality in it.
Economics of Central Banking. 25 % home assignment. 75 % final exam. Prerequisite
would be a basic understanding of economics courses, statistics and some math. Free
elective. Comments: This professor was truly a unique intellect. He works as head of
inflation forecasts in the Swiss National Bank, and teaches this course on the side. For those
of you familiar with the lingo he is the one who developed the DSGE models for the SNB.
Looking at the curriculum one could get the impression that this class was all about algebra,
but as he stressed in the first lecture, it was going to be 90 % about intuition. I truly enjoyed
this class. Topics were great and relevant for masters in finance and economics. The math part
was non-terrifying. All in all a very cool class. The 25 % home assignment was easy and 6
hours work resulted in the letter grade C. The 75 % exam was 123 multiple choice questions
in 90 minutes and as the professor said in class: “I expect one or maybe two of you (class of
approx.. 100 students) to be able to finish all questions”.
Practical Leadership in Development Aid Management. Block course over 4 days in mid
term break. 25 % participation. 75 % paper assignment written in groups. Free elective.
Comments: Initially I thought this course would give me a brief intro to leadership in disaster
areas (as promised in the course content), but it was little of this and more general aid
management. The professor is Swiss but has lived in Norway for 30 years. He runs the
“Fontes” foundation which amongst other projects is known for bringing clean fresh water to
rural areas in U-countries. The class was interactive and expect to hear the voice of some
eager students a lot. Group assignment was interesting, but a bit far fetched for me personally,
but teaming up with local students we managed to create a decent paper.
Industrial Organization. 40 % presentation. 60 % two home assignment. Prerequisite
should be a really good understanding of advanced microeconomics. Free elective.
Comments: This course was highly technical. The professor sticked to pp. presentations of
equations and models that was really far fetched for me personally (finance major). He
regularly said: “you should check this at home” while referring to some nasty equations that
took 4 pages to calculate. This course builds and extends the topics covered in the
Microeconomics course in the first term at BI Norwegian Business School, while it also
introduces some new strange stuff that just went straight above my head. 40 % presentation
was easy though, as you only presented a pre-assigned paper in groups of two (haha I got an
up and running PhD candidate as my teammate). The 60 % portion of the course was made
out of two home assignments (30 % each). As I found out in one of the last classes it was
allowed to cooperate with other classmates. Some parts of the assignments was ok, but
naturally there are parts where the professor would like to separate the A students from the
4
rest. All in all the class was non-rewarding due to the pp. presentations with 90 % equations,
but if you are an economics major I believe this course might be right for you.
The Politics of Global Environmental Resources. 30% short test, 20% class
participation, 25% individual presentation, 25% research paper.
This course was quite interesting, and easy to follow. Good thing that the grading parts were
spread over the semester so that the exam did not collide with the others in the end of
December. The class wasvery small, only 12 participants so you got to discuss and ask
questions frequently. Participation was mandatory and you were only allowed to miss two
classes.
Innovation Management. 50% final exam, 25% group participation, 25% group hand-in
(based on the presentation).
This was a really interesting and good course. The professor was great and the class was not
too big. We had two whole days during the semester so this course ends earlier than the others
(mid to late November). The course was based on many case studies of MNEs, as well as
Power Points made by the professor. The workload was quite big, but the marterial was
interesting and always used in class, so it was worth reading it. The exam was fairly easy if
you had participated and read the materials.
Strategic Management (SIM). 50% exam, 25% group presentation, 25% individual
paper.
This course is with the SIM class (master of strategy and international management). The
students are highly motivated and the level is high. The course is only 4 ECTS points, but the
workload is big. A very interesting course, but a lot to do, and the requirements to you as a
students is great.
Political Economy. 50% individual presentation, 50% final exam.
This course was thought during the break and only consist of three whole days of lectures.
The prerequisites are microeconomics and ecomitrics. Should be good with models and
understand how microeconomic models are build up. Only models are used to explain how
the world political economy works. Would not recommend the course to many.
International Politics, Economics and Business. 50% individual paper, 50% final exam.
This was a great course. A lot of material to read, but the teacher is amazing and the best I
have ever had. He is by far the most intellectual and interesting professor I have ever had. The
course was very interesting and combines the views of politics, business and economics in a
brilliant way. In class discussions and presentations were stimulating and made you think
about world issues in a different way. The course is challenging, but highly recommended as
the professors is unique and the course content is highly relevant.
9168 Theory of Risk and Insurance. 100% written exam (90 minutes). No prerequisites.
Free elective.
Comments: The course was quite easy. The professor told us that it was sufficient to read the
slides to succeed in the course. Hence, it wasn’t much required reading in this course. In
addition, the exam was quite easy.
7250 Advanced Macroeconomics 1. 100% written exam (90 minutes). Prerequisites:
should be really good in Macroeconomics and Mathematics. Free elective. Comments:
This course was all about growth. The course took place in the first half of the semester, so
5
expect a high workload October (for the autumn semester). The course is quite difficult with a
lot of math. Compared to Macro at BI, the course is much more focused on calculations rather
than the theory.
7305 Statistics. 100% oral exam (20 minutes). No prerequisites. Free elective.
Comments: A course in quite basic statistics. Of course, the course consists of a lot of
calculations. An oral exam concluded the course. In the exam, you get some few quite easy
questions you have to answer, but the time is only 20 minutes so one need to do the
calculations quickly.
7315 Theory of Finance. 100% written exam (90 minutes). No prerequisites. Free
elective. Comments: The lectures was very “one-sided”. There was no interaction with the
professor. In addition, the amount of reading was quite high (18 Lecture Notes). Nevertheless,
the course is a good introduction if you are interested in finance. For the exchange students,
there was arranged an exam just before Christmas.
7488 Introduction to International Tax Law. 100% oral exam (20 minutes). No
prerequisites. Free elective. Comments: the professor was quite “old-fashioned”. He did not
have any power point slides during the lectures. It made it quite difficult to follow all the
arguments during the lecture. We did not have any required reading, and everything was
based on the case studies. To be honest, the course was not very interesting, so it is not
recommended to other students.
9182 Quantitative Aspects of Financial Regulation. 100% written exam (90 minutes). No
prerequisites. Free elective. Comments: Quite difficult course with many equations. The
course would have been more interesting if the course had more practical use of what we
learned. The curriculum itself was interesting, but the way of teaching was not very
interesting. It was mainly the professor who talked during the class.
6