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
Term abroad - Fall 2012
