“THE MASTER’S PROGRAM HELPED ME GET WHERE I AM TODAY”
TIAS EXPERIENCE
“After submitting my thesis, I started applying for jobs. I found one within the month.” The speaker is Pepijn Pieterse, Junior Financial Reporting Specialist at ABN AMRO as of the fall of 2021. On completing his Bachelor’s degree in Industrial Engineering & Management, he decided to sign up for the Full-time Master of Science in Business Administration at TIAS School for Business and Society. “I’ve gotten where I am today thanks to the knowledge I gained and development I achieved.”
SOLID FOUNDATION
Pepijn: “I opted for the Full-time Master of Science in Business Administration at TIAS because the program had a strong reputation and I’d heard some good things about it. The combination of a solid foundation in business and management, an opportunity to specialize and also work on my personal leadership skills was very appealing to me.”
MORE ACCURATE SELF-IMAGE
Before Pepijn started the Master’s program, he didn’t necessarily have a clear idea of how he wished to develop. “My primary motivation was to gain a Master’s degree by learning more about the world of business administration. I also wanted to give myself more time and space to consider my future career. TIAS supports this by including a Personal and Career Development Program (PCDP) as part of its Master’s program. For instance, a career counselor helps you figure out your values and motivations. Thinking that through carefully, with professional support, gave me a clearer idea of who I am and helped me define what type of job and organization would suit me best much more accurately.”
PERSONAL LEADERSHIP AND CAREER DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM
The Personal and Career Development Program (PCDP) is a part of the Master’s program during which you continuously improve your personal leadership and communication skills and prepare for the job market. The PCDP helps increase your understanding of who you are and what you’re capable of, in order to determine and work towards your ultimate career goals. To achieve this, TIAS provides individual coaching sessions, workshops on personal skills and practical tools to help you find and apply for jobs. Each student is assigned both a personal coach and a career adviser, and the career adviser remains available for additional advice up to three years after graduation, free of charge.
“The Personal and Career Development Program really helped me gain a more accurate self-image.”
INSIGHT INTO ORGANIZATIONS
Pepijn: “The subjects included in the program’s first semester introduce you to many different aspects of organizations. This range of perspectives provides for a better, broader understanding of how organizations operate in practice. You learn ways to view an organization or problem in various circumstances, and which questions you need to ask to find real answers. You also gain more insight into the social, ethical and climate consequences of business decisions. That taught me a lot about how to achieve true change in the area of corporate social responsibility.” “After that semester, you select one of five specialized tracks within the program: Marketing, Finance, Investment, Change Management or Business Analytics. I picked Investment because that appealed to me most. I started experimenting with investments myself during the Covid pandemic. I thought: the best course is to do what you enjoy most and what suits you best. That also tends to produce the best results, after all.”
Name Pepijn Pieterse Position Junior Financial Reporting Specialist at ABN AMRO. Within this role, Pepijn is responsible for reporting on mortgages managed by the bank in the context of specific objectives. Study program Full-time Master of Science in Business Administration (FT MScBA).
- Ranked by The Economist as the #1 best Master’s Degree in Management in the Netherlands in 2021.
- According to Elsevier’s list of Best Study Programs, the TIAS full-time program has offered the best Dutch Master’s Degree in Business Administration for six years running.
"The Master’s program helped me become smarter and more serious, understand the business environment better and make faster connections, improving the value of my contributions."
LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT
“Besides expanding your knowledge of business administration,” Pepijn continues, “there are various classes focusing on leadership skills and discerning your own capabilities in this area. The tools you receive here help you develop your own leadership skills further. As your fellow students have a very diverse range of nationalities, you learn how to interact with people from different cultures at the same time. During group projects, for example, you notice others approaching things differently than what you’re used to. Everyone has their own unique perspective due to their background. You all have to do the work just the same, of course, but I found it very instructive to see how people ultimately decide on a process together and how they behave towards one another along the way.” Communication in an international setting “Essentially, you’re using communication to explore everyone’s preferences. When you get an irritated response, it’s probably because that person has a different way of doing things than what you’re used to in the Netherlands. Then you adapt to that. I found it a fascinating experience. You begin to understand the importance of appropriate communication in an international setting. Sometimes, you have to adjust your approach to enable better understanding, in order to solve a problem together. Laughing: “Of course, it’s still to be determined whether this will actually help me gain success in the dynamic world of international affairs.”
‘The professors bring their international business experience with them to the lectures.’
GREAT LEARNING ENVIRONMENT
The TIAS Master’s program recruits its professors from renowned universities around the world. “The fact that they have a proven track record in international business certainly played a role. It means you take what they have to say more seriously. They can give examples of business situations they’ve encountered themselves, offering you a better picture to go with the theory. What they have to teach becomes much more interesting, and they know how to present things to make the subject matter easier to assimilate.”
THE LONG TERM
Pepijn doesn’t have any specific long-term career plans as yet. “For now, I’m busy learning and am quite content in my current position. I don’t know exactly where I’m headed after this, but I’m sure I’ll figure it out as I go. What I do know is that the Master’s program has helped me become smarter and more serious, understand my business environment better and make faster connections, improving the value of my contributions.”
TIP FROM PEPIJN
For anyone considering a Full-time MScBA at TIAS, Pepijn has the following tip: “Go for it! The program is a great learning environment, with an extra dimension thanks to 50% of students being from abroad and professors of international renown with lots of professional experience in the business world.”
TIAS FULL-TIME MSCBA: THE BEST MASTER IN MANAGEMENT (MSCBA) IN THE NETHERLANDS
Our One-year MscBA program will enable you to act in and engage with different areas of an organization. You will not only acquire the necessary knowledge and skills, but also have many opportunities to practice and apply them in theoretical and practical settings. To further shape you as a responsible business leader, you will also take into account the various social impacts and consequences of business decisions. More information? Download the brochure:
LEARN AT TIAS
Do you want to create more impact on your organization and on society? With the flexible approach of TIAS, you create impact:
- Tailor your education and learning path to your learning needs
- Learn a lot in a short time through frequent interaction
- Individual attention is at the heart of the TIAS approach
- Learn at your own pace, both online and on-site
- Start whenever you want
Would you like more information about our program design?
THE NEXT STEP
What suits you? Are you interested in exploring your learning question in depth, discussing the options and discussing the most appropriate learning path? I am happy to help you discover which learning path fits well with your ambitions, learning goals and phase in your career.
TIAS is the business school of Tilburg University and Eindhoven University of Technology.
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