BBQ Rotterdam

Enjoying the nature in Rotterdam!!!

Friday 21^st May we organised a warm barbecue in “kralingen bos”. This place is a huge park, totally covered with grass, trees and a big lake…plenty of nature!

So as Ibex students, we wanted to organise a funny event in order to create a nice international atmosphere and then this idea of organising a barbecue came up. We t

old the idea to the responsible people of IBEX

and they liked it, so we got some budget in order to cover the costs.

It was not limited to IBEX students only! We invited a lot of students from international course from Hogeschool Rotterdam! Even people from partner universities, as Erasmus University and Inholland Rotterdam attended the barbecue.

We were lucky since the weat

her was good even when we are in The Netherlands! So all the factors were pleasant and the at

mosphere was great. Nice weather, nice people from s

everal nationalities…perfect comb

ination for having a great time! Even with the problems of making the fire started… but everything was solved and people enjoyed a lot.

We also used this opportunity in order to film the new part of our IBEX promoting movie in order to show how the life is of an IBEX student.

A lot of people attended the barbecue and we received a lot of congratulations! So we can consider this event a success!

Life in Rotterdam

Most of the students think that life in Rotterdam is very expensive that’s why they don’t want to come here and have high expenditures, even if they like the IBEX program. BUT it’s not true!

If a residence place is too expensive for students than a good alternative could be, to rent an apartment or a house. On the internet anyone can find Agency sites with photos and prices of apartments and houses.

In Rotterdam are many shops with rather low prices for food (for example Lidl and Aldi), it is not necessary to buy food in expensive supermarkets if cheap ones are just around the corner. For example, our monthly average expenditure for food is 160 euro.

Public transport in Rotterdam is very expensive and you need a lot of money if you live far from university. So to avoid these high cost students can buy bikes! It will be much cheaper than monthly purchase subway ticket and it is also good for your health.

Clothes price level in Rotterdam is the same as in whole Europe, everyone can find something for himself.

So, don’t be afraid! Life in Rotterdam is not as expensive as people think about it, just come and enjoy it!

Trip to the harbor of Rotterdam

The day started a bit of like every other day, we had our weekly project presentations, the advisers gave their feedback etc. Everything was the same except the entire class was formally dressed. Instead of having a normal lecture that day we went to the Port of Rotterdam. For this occasion we had to dress a bit formally which all of us did, some more than others. Our assignment is to make a Balance Scorecard in groups of 4.

Our trip to the Port of Rotterdam was interesting to say at least. The trip was divided into 2 different parts, first we got a small presentation with general information of what the Port of Rotterdam does. Unfortunately the full presentation would have taken hours since there are more than 1000 slides current major projects like the Maasvlakte 2 which construction is similar to how the Palm Island of Dubai where made. Also a bit about how the competition goes, if you look at the figures of then you will see that the Port of Rotterdam does allot better than its competitors that are located in Europe. A brief explanation is that the depth of the water and some other natural environment gives the Port of Rotterdam an important advantage compared to their competitors.

The second part of our trip was to see the flour where the guiding and monitoring of the ships where being done. In this room you can see all the ships on radar in real-time and we got an explanation on what happens the moment a ship enters the beginning of the Port of Rotterdam.

As mentioned above the assignment will be making a balance scorecard. Each group will hold a presentation of their work and we will be graded. The reason why the Port of Rotterdam does this that they want to have a fresh look and some fresh ideas, and for us is a great experience from which we will learn a lot. In a few weeks there will be a second post about how it all went. So, it is not the end of the story. To be continued…

Guest lecture: Mrs. De Lange

Since we are studying IBEX (International Business experience) this kind of guest lectures and speeches fit perfectly to the proposition of this international course.

In this occasion, last Friday 23 April we had the pleasure to receive the lecture from Mrs. De lange. She is a consolidated Business woman with huge experience about International Business. Her company, De Lange Brokers, was founded in 1953. The firm enjoys a long standing reputation as reliable, independent brokers in the field of casings, animal by-products as well as pet food. De Lange Brokers has closed numerous successful transactions between buyers and sellers, all over the world, with exporters and importers all over Europe, North and South America, South-Africa, Asia, Australia and New Zealand.

(more in www.naturalcasings.nl)

In her speech, Mrs. De lange told us about her different experiences in the international business field, emphasizing about how important is to care about the possible cross cultural clashes, learning languages and improving in the different important business skills like:

a. Communication
b. Integrity
c. Confidence
d. Personality
e. Planning and Organisation
f. Cultural sensitivity

We enjoyed very much since it was nice, light and very interesting lecture. We learnt a lot about what “to do” and “not-to-do” in different cultures and we had the opportunity of learning from some of her funny stories which are part of her long successful career.