# 6 Warsaw School of Economics (SGH)

Warsaw School of Economics (Skola Glowna Handlowa w Warszawie) – Warsaw, Poland

(view from the Marriott SkyBar)

The city

Warsaw is a tremendous city, which is clearly booming in these times of crisis for the majority of Europe. Poland has a robust economy that, despite lacking some control regarding the budgetary component and fiscal consolidation, has always registered economic growth when everyone else was suffering. With a burgeoning nightlife, very reasonable prices for EU students, rich cultural settings, and a magic of its own, Warsaw makes up for an awesome place to have the 5-6 months of your life. I can only recommend this destination that in the beginning I put as my third choice for my CEMS period abroad, but, in retrospective, I would surely put as a first.

The best place to live is definitely in Centrum, either close to Al. Jerozolimskie or Al. Swietokrzsyska, which are the two most important avenues in Warsaw. Any place along those avenues or very close to them will be automatically close to very good transportation systems (Warsaw has a very punctual, frequent, and inexpensive one, and if you’re a student you get a 50% discount – in my case, I had to pay 30€ for a city pass that lasted for 3 months and gave me access to all transports!) as well as the party places, which you will surely appreciate. I was located in Chmielna, which is a very good street, close to Mazowiecka and the Nowy Swiat, which are the two main partying districts. There is always something happening in there, and I assure you will not be let down any day of the week (well, perhaps Monday). Alcohol in bars is very cheap (it’s frequent to find bars with shots at 3 or 4 zlotych, which is 0,75-1€), and the only time prices actually resemble those of Lisbon is in the disco (average 4€ per drinks such as whisky cola). Also, be careful when you go out in the night with two things: don’t have a Polish football club (for example, in Warsaw you have Legia Warszawa and Warszawa, and these adepts frequently beat each other up), and stay away from clearly drunk people. As long as you keep these two rules, you’ll be fine – Warsaw has police patrolling it actively 24 hours per day, and they are pretty strict, so security (aka being robbed or beaten up) is never an issue.

The best way to get a place will be through an agency: of course you’ll have to pay a commission, but it will save you a lot of time, effort, and potentially money (some of my friends had to travel to Warsaw and spend many nights in hostels just for this purpose, so you can imagine how much it cost them). As long as you point them these directions, they should be able to hook you up with a pretty nice place. Of course, rent won’t be as cheap as it would for locals, so you can expect a ‘foreign mark-up’ to be present (rents for good houses range from 300-450€, depending on where you live and whether you live alone or together with someone). In alternative, you can live in Sabinki, SGH’s student dorm, and pay a rent of 100€ - the disadvantage being that you won’t have a room for yourself and the facilities are far from European average (although improving in recent years). Get your preferences straight, knowing the costs and with how many (if any) people you want to divide your place, and I’m sure you’ll live comfortable with your choice. Know however that SGH has a metro station right in front of it, so no matter where you live, as long as you live close to the metro, it will be very fast getting to university.

Food is extremely cheap, and if you want to be a patriot, you can go and buy from Biedronka – its logo is the ladybug, and there are over 2000 stores all over Poland. It is actually strange getting food so cheap, and if you take into account that alcohol (aside from whisky and wine) is also very cheap (bottles of vodka for 5€, and 0,5l of beer for 0,5€…) and that bills are not really that expensive (I paid 100€ for 4 months and a half and I used heating, electricity, and water abundantly), you have all the elements you need for social gatherings and doing all kinds of stuff together with your colleagues. Have no doubt, your CEMS colleagues will probably become your family during this period, and I advise taking advantage of these elements to your benefit and be proactive in organizing this kind of events. Movie theatres cost about 5€, and discos generally charge a symbolic charge of 10 zl (aka 2,5€). It is no doubt less expensive than going out in Lisbon. You also have lots of museums and historical places, either in Warsaw or around Poland (Cracow and Auschwitz, Wroclaw, Gdansk), which are truly worth visiting – and if you use Polski Bus, you’ll be able to travel 500 km for less than 10€. Prices are truly insanely low in that beautiful country!

The boring part – the School!

At SGH you will most likely be scared that you have many more courses than at Nova – it is not uncommon to take 6 or 7. However, you can expect the workload to be much smaller, and also much more concentrated around the exam period, which occurs in January. It is customary that you just have to write an exam and do some kind of presentation or essay, so it is frankly easy for any student who has been through Nova’s intense training. The semester starts on the 1^st of October and officially ends in the 31^st of January, and the Block Seminar takes place, usually, in the third week of September. Regarding the second semester, it starts in the middle of February and lasts until the end of June.

This year the Block Seminar was about Entrepreneurship, and it was an awesome mix of fun, knowledgeable presenters and supervisors, and real-life coaching and experience sharing. The calendar was the following:

I won, together with my team, the best idea award, and we actually had a private investor which was willing to invest in it! I cannot overstate how contacting with all these brilliant people who were so much into entrepreneurship and leadership training was both enlightening and challenging – I definitely recommend this Block Seminar. It took place at SGH and not in a location outside Warsaw, and this was positive in that it allowed us to gather and meet bars, discos, and museums together instead of going to some remote place in Poland!

CEMS Courses offered on the Fall Semester 2012:

• ·         Ethics and Institutions in the Economy
• ·         European Strategies and International Business
• ·         International Management
• ·         Management Strategies in the New Economy (CEMS Core Strategy)
• ·         Media Economics
• ·         Organizational Behavior – Management Skills
• ·         Transition in Central and Eastern Europe
• ·         Microeconomics of Competitiveness (licensed by Harvard Business School)
• ·         Knowledge Management in Practice
• ·         Management in a Logistic Company of the Future
• ·         Developing a Winning Sales and Marketing Strategy with L’Óreal Polska

I only put here the CEMS courses because, to be honest, these are the only ones that can potentially interest you. All other courses you might take you can do it at your own risk, but these are actually the ones where the quality of the English dominion is certifiable. In bold you have the courses I took. International Management and ESIB are honestly not that interesting, but I can tell that, if you’re interested in the respective fields, Transition and Media Economics are very interesting and worthwhile taking courses. All these courses are worth 3 or 4 ECTS (except the Core one which is worth 7,5), and that is the reason why you end up taking so many courses. But again, if you come from Nova, I’m pretty confident you’ll find it easy and manageable. Regarding those that I didn’t take, my colleagues really enjoyed the L’Óreal course as well as the knowledge management one, but regarding the other two I have little or no positive impact to report. 

All in all, this is a tremendous experience, which I can only vividly recommend to anyone considering Warsaw as a destination. Don’t forget that this is one of the most powerful economies in the central-eastern block, and which will potentially drive the EU’s growth in the coming years. Jerónimo Martins Group, which owns Pingo Doce in Portugal and Biedronka in Poland, is rapidly expanding, and constitutes an excellent employment opportunity for Portuguese students who want an international experience and are interested in these countries. Do not think Poland is your typical ex-Soviet country: that is a huge mistake. It has developed beyond description over these past 23 years, and promises to continue having a shining future; so don’t judge this book over prejudice, but make sure you understand what an opportunity this truly is!

Finally, I share some pictures of my experience below. In them, you can notice that the group spirit is awesome, the parties are great, and the city is just beautiful. I promise you will fall in love for this city – and who knows, maybe with someone in the city. Truly an experience of a lifetime!

 New Year’s Eve – group picture at the pre-party.

 Bowling session at HulaKula, an arcade bar with a bowling strip. 

A typical bar hangout!

Nowy Swiat – one of the main party places – in Christmas time

 The city center as seen from the business district skyscrapers. When you arrive to Warsaw in September, it still looks like this!

Feel free to contact me in case you have any doubts: mim22000241@novasbe.pt

--

Diogo Nogueira Leite , Class of 2012/2013 
Term abroad - Fall 2012

# 5 Louvain School of Management (LSM)

Louvain School of Management - Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium

The LSM is situated in Louvain-la-Neuve, 30 km southeast of Brussels, in Wallonia, the French-speaking part of Belgium. The city was built from scratch 50 years ago to host the Université catholique de Louvain (UCL). IMPORTANT: this is NOT to be confused with the other university Catholic University of Leuven (KUL), in Leuven (also Louvain in French), in the Dutch-speaking part of the country.

Louvain-la-Neuve is a VERY small city with no metro – the city is actually fully pedestrianized, with all roads flowing in tunnels under it. It has a modern cinema, a huge shopping center, a bowling alley, the Hergé museum, a big lake, a big sports center with many different classes (only 40€ a year!) and very good small restaurants. At night most of the places are closed though…

 

  

You have many places to go out, such as “Casa”, a wild place where you must bring your worst clothes and shoes because you will have a “beer bath”; you can also go to Becketts, which is both a bar and disco; and many parties organized by clubs and friends.

Louvain-la-Neuve is within an hour’s distance by train from Brussels (but there are frequent delays and sometimes trains do not arrive at all). In the weekend there are discounts and the price to go to Brussels and come back is 6€. If you want to travel around the country, I strongly recommend that you buy a Go Pass – 10 trips for 50€. There are beautiful cities to visit such as Brugge, Leuven, Namur and Antwerp.

From Brussels-Midi Station you can catch fast trains to London (2h), Paris (1h20) or to Amsterdam (1h30) (if you buy in advance it’s not expensive.). If you have time, you can also catch a bus to Paris for 10€!  Luxembourg, Maastricht and Cologne are one step away and beautiful places to visit.

The price of food in Belgium is a bit higher compared with Portugal. However, you can go to the supermarket inside the shopping to buy most of your stuff and the food is less expensive. If you don't want to cook, you can have lunch and dinner in the canteen where the dish of the day is 3€. The other choices can be between 5€ and 8€. There are also many places during the day to buy sandwiches between 3€ and 4€.

Courses

The academic offering at LSM was the reason why I chose Louvain-la-Neuve in the first place. Louvain-la-Neuve is very good for students that want to learn more about operations and supply chain, but also for those interested in European business. All the professors are very good and speak English fluently. In some courses you can have the opportunity to learn from Ministers and famous names in Belgium! All the courses last the entire semester and are worth 5 ECTS.  Coursework starts in September and finishes in December right before Christmas, and the exams are in the middle of January (you’ll only find out the exact dates in October). It is very hard to get grades above 17, as professors think it is already very good…

The workload is a little bit less than at Nova, so I recommend traveling and hosting friends in the beginning of the semester because at the end you won’t have time.

In the Introduction to Supply Chain course, you have group projects, many presentations, company visits (Carrefour’s Central Warehouse, L’Oreal’s Distribution Center, P&G’s Duracell Packaging Center, Rossel Printing Company) and a written exam worth 30% of your mark (2h30 duration). Pierre Semal is a motivating professor that brings good humor to the classroom.

Supply Chain Modeling and Management and Supply Chain Coordination and Sourcing are taught by Per Agrell, a very good professor with great experience in this area. You have to prepare some cases in group to discuss in the class, but they are not that difficult and are very interesting if you like supply chain. While Modeling is more generic (and the one I enjoyed the most), in Coordination you learn about contracts that are common in the industry. For this course you may need some background in mathematics to understand the exercises and complete the group projects. In Modeling you have an oral exam, which consists of 1h to prepare the case alone and 20 min to discuss with the professor, but I didn’t find it difficult. In Coordination you can choose between a final exam or a written paper than can either be a model extension or literature survey. I did the literature survey since I could do it before the end of the semester and have less one exam in January…

The mandatory course, Innovation and Corporate Strategy, is taught by a former consultant and I guarantee you that won’t fall asleep in those classes. Gailly gives a lot of real examples to explain concepts and theory and students are encouraged to participate. You have to read a case and prepare a presentation, in group, for each class but they do not count towards your final mark; groups are selected randomly to make the presentation on any given week. You have a group project about a company and a final oral exam worth 50%, 10 min in his office, to discuss ONE question. The professor hands out 50 questions that can be picked in your exam beforehand. You should prepare well the theory and examples for each question and learn all of them by heart.

In some courses such as Corporate Social Responsibility and Entrepreneurship you don’t have a final exam, just a group project. 

All professors are approachable and receive students in their offices if they have doubts or difficulties.

In some classes you will have international students from LSM’s Bachelor degrees, so choose your team members wisely; you do not want to end up doing everything by yourself.

To get an idea about the courses and schedule I could choose from in my year, see the table below.

 Block Seminar

The topic of the block seminar is supply chain. You have classes every day and not much time to visit the city. However, you will play games to understand theory (The Chocolate Factory), and visit L’Oreal’s Distribution center, AB InBev Beer production and the largest port in Europe, in Antwerp. You have a final exam so be prepared to spend some time the night before to study for it… The CEMS club prepares some dinners and fun moments (bowling and beer drinking) during that week to relax after class.

 

Where to live

Some months before you can fill a form online to have a room in the residence, that costs around 270€. They are called “kot” which are basically small houses or apartments for students, between 5 and 9 per house. You may or may not have one bathroom in your room; the house may or may not be mixed gender; in the center or in the outskirts (10 min walking); and so on. Your room is selected randomly. Belgian students like to party a lot during the week in their kots and don’t clean much. You have a cleaning lady once a week to clean the main areas but not your room.  During the weekend the city is very quiet because almost all the students go back to their family homes.

You may find some apartments to rent for 6 months with other people but in that case you should start looking very early. The best studios are in the center of the city and can only be rented for a full year.

For a few nights, you can stay at the Ibis hotel, which is 10min walking from the center.

CEMS office

The schedule of the CEMS office is not very good (it’s open only three days a week for few hours) and they do not answer your emails promptly. Do not expect many smiles when you go there either…

24 heures vélo

In the Fall semester you have the biggest student event – the 24hour bike ride. This is a 24 hour competition that has three categories: racers, folk riders (very funny decorated bicycles built by the numerous student associations) and charity racers (that raise money for humanitarian causes). In my year, the CEMS club participated in the latter category and all the CEMS students rode the bicycle; it was a very funny event.

During the race proper, the city gets full of students and visitors that come to see the bikes, the concerts and to drink beer. In the morning, the activities end with a concert by some famous singer in the main square. Well worth attending!

Amélia Nunes, Class of 2012/2013 
Term abroad - Fall 2012

# 4 The University of Cologne (UoC)

University of Cologne - Cologne, Germany

The University itself is very different from Nova, much more academic oriented and a lot of courses don't have exams but rather academic papers with a lot of academic research to do. Officially the fall semester starts in October and lasts until March but you will have the Block Seminar in September and this year we could take another course in September as well. The first block of courses begins in October and ends in December and the second block starts in December and ends in January/February. In the Fall term of 2012/2013, the following courses were offered:

Courses offered Fall Semester 2012:

Exclusive and Core Course

·         Business Strategy in Global Supply Chain (Core Course)

·         Design‐to‐Launch Process and Management in Consumer Goods (exclusive CEMS course)

Accounting and Taxation

·         Operative Controlling

·         International Accounting

·         Fundamentals in International Taxation

·         International Tax Planning II (Block 2)

Corporate Development

·         Advanced Seminar: Corporate Development and Business Ethics

·         Strategic Management (Block 2)

Finance

·         Fixed Income Management

·         Value‐based Management of Insurance Companies

·         Corporate Valuation Theory (Block 2)

Marketing

·         Practical Application in Retailing

·         International Marketing

·         Customer Relationship Management (Block 2)

Supply Chain Management

·         Global Competition in the Aviation Industry

·         Supply Chain Management and Management Science I: Strategy

·         Supply Chain Management and Management Science II: Planning (Block 2)

Economics

·         Money and Banking

·         Advanced Industrial Organization

Cologne Specific Offer

·         Elective in Business and Economics in German Language

·         The Political System of the EU: Strategic and Conceptual Approaches

·         Research Paper Options

·         Project courses

  

     Every course is worth 6 ECTS except the Core Course which is worth 7,5 ECTS. Most exams will last 60 minutes and are longer than we are used to (given the time). This semester the Core Course was a block course (2 half-days of classes and a field trip to L'Oreal). The assessment was the following: 30% written exam, 50% academic paper and 20% presentation on the paper. The Design‐to‐Launch Process and Management in Consumer Goods course was a course offered in September, it lasted for a full week and there is no exam nor paper. This is a case-based course and you are part of a team (you assume the role of either Head of Marketing, Head of Controlling, Head of Sales, Head of R&D or Head of Supply-Chain). Your team is responsible for launching a new product on the market and present a plan to the "board of company" (aka the professor that pretends to be the CEO of the company). The teacher is amazing and basically you spend your days in the classroom with the rest of the students trying to figure out the best way to launch this product (obviously the teacher is there and he will help you out). In my opinion if you are going to Cologne, this course is a must, it is one of the best courses I've ever had! The University of Cologne is known for being the best university in Germany in Supply Chain, therefore Supply Chain Management and Management Science I: Strategy is a course to try out. In this course you will have two projects and an exam, the projects are fun and the instructor is good, nevertheless I don't feel like I learned much. Finally, Operative Controlling, the instructor is a little boring, the course is basically doing exercises over and over again and the exam was way too big for the time given (the exam is 100% of the grade in this course). These are the courses I did in Cologne, none of them had academic papers because I don't like them so I didn't choose them but bear in mind that in around 40% - 50% of the courses offered will have you writing an academic paper. You are also offered the possibility of doing a pre-semester intensive German language course for free but it overlaps with the Block Seminar and The Design-to-Launch course. You can also do a semester German language course for free but it will last until middle/end of January.

      Block Seminar

The Block Seminar is spent in another town called Oberwesel. We spent a week there from Sunday to Friday. The topic of the Block Seminar was Sustainability In Management: Applications to Logistics and Tourism. It is a block seminar with a low workload (basically a 15 min presentation in the last day that you prepare in the night before), professors from several universities (this year from Cologne, Bocconi, ESADE, HEC) and some company presentations (I would mention the presentation/drinks with A.T. Kearney and the day spent at Deutsche Bank in Frankfurt).

 

If you want to come to Cologne for your CEMS term abroad, you should start looking for a place to stay 6 months in advance. It is really hard to get a room in the city (a lot of students are looking for a place to stay), it took me around 100 e-mails and 30 phone calls to get a room! As usual there are two possibilities: a room with the university and finding a room by yourself. Getting a room through University sometimes can be very cheap (around 200€) but most of the time is a little far from University and the area where you go out at night (30 min by tram) and it is hard to get one (to get a room with the University you should apply for one online, wait a week or two and then call them and say you are an exchange student (it is easier that way)). For "personal search" I would advise www.wg-gesucht.de and www.housinganywhere.com (the best area would be "Lindenthal" which is very close to the university and bars, clubs, etc...) but be aware that most of the times they won't answer and when they do, they usually want to meet you first!

To study here you'll have to pay a semester contribution of 218.31€ that includes public transportation within the North Rhine-Westphalia  area (tram, bus, slow trains). In addition in the City of Cologne and around it from 7pm until 3 am every day, during the entire weekend and on public holidays you can take someone else with you (but not in the entire North Rhine-Westphalia area).

There are two different places (two different Mensas) to go if you want to have lunch/dinner at the university and it costs 2.20€ (it is really cheap!). There are also a lot of sports offered  for free at the University and they also have a gym that will cost you around 90€ the entire semester. As in all German universities there is a lot of bureaucracy but you'll manage it and the CEMS office is really fast to react to e-mails (next day maximum) and really helpful. Nevertheless, part of the websites are in German which is quite annoying. Moreover, there are weekly company presentations but are always in German as well! I would say that the University does not have the "mentality" of an international business school but it is a typical German University. Two last things regarding the university, they are really strict when it comes to dates and deadlines. Furthermore, you should react quickly to the e-mails sent before the semester starts as you may miss the chance of enrolling in some courses/skill seminars because of not reacting to e-mails. The CEMS class was of around  35 people (half foreigners half Germans) which is very good as the group becomes really close.

Regarding the lifestyle in Cologne, the university is practically in the center of the city and close to the bars. You can buy a bicycle in the beginning of the semester (on the bicycle market) for about 60€ and travel around the city with it. It is a city with some parks and a lot of green everywhere. The biggest "attractions" would be the Carnival, the Cathedral (Dom) and the typical German Christmas markets. Prices of food, going out, etc are more or less the same as in Lisbon and you have a movie theater where you can watch movies in the original versions (prices vary between days of the week and movies but Thursday is the cheapest day 4-5€). A lot of people speak English very well even if they are afraid of speaking it. The city is not as cold as most German cities (you will rarely see snow, I saw it once!) but a bit rainy. Finally there are tons of students, exchange-students and bars (Zülpicherstrasse). There is always something going on!

João Maria Hogan, Class of 2012/2013 
Term abroad - Fall 2012