I finish five years of studies at CBS soon, and ‘real life’ waits on the other side of my master thesis defence. This makes me think back on my years at CBS, and what I will take with me in my future career.

I chose to apply for the bachelor programme called BA in Intercultural Market Communication in 2012 because I liked the idea of attending a university with a close link to the business world. I come from the countryside in Denmark, which I believe has made me a person with a hands-on and practical approach to life. However, I was not ready to leave school. I therefore decided to apply to CBS in the hope of getting an education with room for both theory and practice.

As the years passed, I found out that even though we used many cases in class and practiced writing business letters, it is still difficult to imagine how you will ever be able to apply the things you learn in a job. Having a fulltime job is so much more than understanding what stakeholders are and how to write a sales letter. Therefore, I decided to get some experience with management and administration by joining the board of CBS International Choir, where I was appointed chairman. In this position, I learned how to manage an organisation and how to plan events in collaboration with my co-board members. This included a visit from a Finnish choir. When I think back on my time in CBS International Choir, I am amazed by the many things we succeeded in doing despite the fact that we had never done anything like it before. It makes me appreciate attending a university like CBS which has the resources to establish communities for all kinds of students and interests. These communities give the students the opportunity to develop competences which can be used in their future career. I will definitely take what I have learned with me in my career.

By the end of my studies at Intercultural Market Communication, I realised that my interests led me in a different direction than Cand.merc.(kom) (the master degree which I had automatic entitlement to)). Instead I applied and got accepted into a master programme in Human Resource Management (HRM). In relation to this new direction in my studies, CBS also gave me another chance to develop my competences when I was appointed as a mentor for the new students at my bachelor programme. I learned about mentoring techniques which are very relevant for my future career in HR. More importantly, CBS gave me a direction for my career which I had trouble pointing out before I entered my master programme. During my bachelor, I often had trouble with concentrating and rarely read much of the curriculum. This changed during my master in HRM, and studying had never been more fun. The master programme in HRM has offered me a selection of courses which made me feel like I finally had found the right career path – the place where I belong. Attending this master programme will shape the rest of my career and, thereby, the rest of my life. I am therefore grateful to CBS for giving me the opportunity to find this direction through the creation of a study programme completely dedicated to Human Resource Management.

In one week, I will defend my master thesis, and the search for a job will begin. The idea I had when starting my studies, of CBS as a place where theory and real life go hand in hand, has only been partly fulfilled. We have often discussed real-life cases, but an internship and student assistant jobs have showed how reality is way more complex than the cases during classes. I thought I learned how to be an employee and what to do in a job. Instead, I learned how to be a student, just as I was supposed to. Therefore, I graduate from CBS knowing  that my education is far from over. With me, I take all the theories I have been presented to and all the competences I have developed at CBS, especially the ability to be analytical and to learn. This is something that can never be taken away from me, and which I will continue to improve for the rest of my life. I thank CBS for five great years and for giving me the opportunity to learn.