MSc in In­ter­na­tion­al Busi­ness and Polit­ics

I chose CBS and IBP for my master’s because I enjoyed my bachelor’s and CBS in general a lot. I wanted to continue the deep dive into the interaction between business and politics, and I was not able to find the same combination at other universities in Denmark. I also enjoyed CBS because there have been created opportunities to participate in several events arranged by the different student societies. This allows me to get the deep focus from my studies and touch new topics in the spare time.

I enjoy the diversification of topics that we cover. We are going from method courses that focus on how research and approaches can be helpful to solve a problem to courses with a full focus on business, politics and markets and lastly courses that combine the two. This has opened the world of how business and politics cannot be separated, and no matter where you'll end up, you will have to work with both.

The intensity of the academic level and workload has increased. We are covering more ground in less time. But that’s also the great thing, as we are building upon our learnings from the bachelor, which only makes it more interesting, as you are not learning completely new material but always have some knowledge about the topic.  The professors also assume that we are well informed about both the current world and the learning objectives from previous courses.

The biggest challenges in my study programme is its ability to be concrete. Some courses can be very abstract and not very logical. This can be very intimidating for some students, including me, but when you finally understand it, the concepts from courses can be used in several other courses and real-life problems at a potential student job. This is both a challenge but also a great strength of the IBP master.

I would have loved to know which courses were new and which ones were old. The IBP study board is constantly trying to improve the programme, but this also means that the master students are sometimes the first cohort to experience a course, and this means that the professors aren't that prepared for how the formalities etc. for the course are, or what works well. Otherwise, almost everything I would need to know could be found online, courses, their exam forms, etc.

I would like to go into either consulting or the energy markets. 

I find the IBP master’s extremely useful for attacking specific problems with a general knowledge and a tool box filled with ways of thinking and solving problems. Whether this is going to be management consulting or specific consulting on energy markets, time will tell. Energy markets are a general interest of mine, and the IBP master’s allows me to explore this in any given course as we can apply the courses to any topic we want.

The advice I would like to give myself is to relax. You are going to be studying with so many smart and super nice people, and these people are doing a million interesting things. Don't rush and expect that you should or can do the same, but you are doing amazing stuff too. I think a lot of students, myself included, are stressing to get the perfect and most interesting student job or be president of the coolest society. Do what you want, and prioritise what you find the most value in. Don't stress about what others do.

I chose the IBP programme because of its unique combination of business and politics. Even after having finished my bachelor’s in IBP as well, I’m still curious about the intersection between business, economics and politics. I am a naturally curious person and fascinated by the world around us. I think that if you want to (attempt to) try to understand it, understanding economic and political motives is probably the place to start. CBS is a great university in my opinion because of the academic standard as well as the student life.

My favourite part must be the people I am surrounded by in IBP, which inspire me on a daily basis. Many of them have an international background and plenty of interesting stories to tell. I highly appreciate being in an environment, where people are ambitious in their (school) work but also incredibly collaborative and social - and always up for a discussion. 
Of course, I also enjoy the contents we study on an academic level, and IBP challenges me to rethink my worldview.

I think there has definitely been an increase in the academic level, however, I don't think it was a major problem. The amount of self-learning prior to showing up in class increased. Class is more like a discussion rather than a lecture now. However, being someone that enjoys academic challenges and a bit of a competitive environment, I still feel like the level is manageable. Also, IBP presents an environment where people are collaborative and help each other out. One of the IBP slogans is "sharing is caring", and we really live by that.

I think the reading load can be quite a lot, however, I am fortunate enough to have a great study group, so that we can share the workload. Many of us, including myself, also have student jobs as well as extracurricular engagement, so you become very good at scheduling and time management.

I also think that the first-semester exam season was just incredibly long (more than 2 months), which was quite stressful for me. I am thankful to be back in the quarter structure this semester.

Having graduated from the IBP bachelor programme, in addition to being friends with students from higher years, as well as being a farsighted and well-researched person in general, I think I had a very good idea of the programme prior to starting. 

One thing I didn't expect was to find so many new friends on top of my friend group that continued from the bachelor’s. The people coming in from other CBS programmes as well as outside made for an amazing addition to the programme and were integrated within no time.

I will take a gap year first, where I will need to do an internship (which is needed for me to complete my CEMS MiM double degree) and where I want to travel. 

After that, I want to work in sustainability consulting. I think that IBP provides an amazing basis for that, not only because it teaches you to think through complex systems in a very structured way, but also because you learn to be a good mediator between the business and the policy side. This is highly needed in the complex regulatory environment around sustainability governance.

Be open-minded, be curious and never stop asking questions. Also, don't be too hard on yourself. Everyone looks like they have it figured out, however, in the end we're all sitting in the same boat. 

I also think that you should join a student organisation at CBS, which is where I made a lot of friends. Being an international in the Danish social culture is not always easy, but in IBP, you're definitely lucky as everyone is by default a bit more open-minded and internationally interested.