BSc Management: The second semester - Electives

Electives at KLU

You might have seen an entry called “General Studies, Skills and Current Topics of Applied Management” listed below our fundamentals courses in the KLU brochure. I thought it might be helpful to talk a bit about this rather large part of the BSc program at KLU.

The curriculum, which can also be found in our online brochure

Management is indeed interesting, but at KLU you will specialize on a certain degree path and focus on one field of research.

No matter how much you love your degree path, from time to time engaging with a different topic – maybe something not at all or only slightly related to your major study – is enriching and challenging.

That’s why we have the opportunity to take electives, “general skills and studies” classes, which we attend alongside our main studies. For example, here is a list of the ones I have attended:

Semester I:

Business English (skill) - 1 ECTS

Excel (skill) - 1 ECTS

Semester II:

Movie Production (general) - 1 ECTS

Presidential Elections (general) - 1 ECTS

Self-Management (skill) - 1 ECTS

Word and PowerPoint (skill) - 1 ECTS

Business students attempting to create an animated film in Movie Production

You can decide how many electives you take and in which semester you want to take them (there are certain requirements concerning the ECTS) and of course, which areas you are most interested in.

In addition to these classes, the big “General Studies, Skills and Current Topics of Applied Management” module also includes CPDP classes. This is a career development program with a variety of topics like interview training, cover letter training, and CV training. If you are not quite sure about the field you would like to work in after your studies or where to do your internship, don’t worry. Ina  and Anne from the Career Services will support and help you wherever they can (and having somebody to check your cover letter or CV is worth a lot)! It’s also important to think outside the box when it comes to career paths, and getting to know your strengths and (not so terrible) weaknesses will help a lot during your internship or summer job hunt, believe me.

Besides these classes, we have the opportunity to experience guest speakers from major companies. My last “guest lecture” in that sense was from Beiersdorf (you probably know their NIVEA product line) – our speaker talked about brand line extensions, which was very interesting (and we got free samples). 

Some of my friends even used the networking opportunity after the presentations to land an internship while chatting with the lecturers.

We have a broad variety of events on campus, and I will cover them soon with another entry!

Bye for now,

Helen

BSc Management: The second semester

The First Quarter
The second semester is probably the most relaxing one at KLU, at least credit-wise. In the first quarter, we encountered our first marketing class: an introduction to basic principles and techniques focusing on consumer behavior, marketing research, and of course, advertising. Customer retention management also had surprising applicability to our everyday lives (especially when you want to purchase certain subscriptions a bit cheaper…).

The best part of the class was a simulation game we conducted over a whole weekend with multiple continuous decision rounds. Each group represented one player in a market for technical products and competed against the other groups in terms of market shares, revenue, forecasting, etc. Equipped with an interface and certain decision parameters, we made decisions on factors like price, forecasts, marketing spending and allocation in each round. 

 

My group’s extremely rational decision-making process, represented here

This practical application of the concepts studied in class was as challenging as it was entertaining and enriching. Since we only had one class, the examination week turned out to be more of a holiday (which I obviously did not mind) before we started the second quarter of the second semester.

The Second Quarter

Although all professors will tell you at the beginning of the semester that their subject is the most important one, in microeconomics I had the feeling that this time the prof was telling the truth (don’t get me wrong, I still love accounting). Here at KLU you will attend a microeconomics class that focuses on consumer behavior, understanding the market, market power, and game theory. The fun thing is that everything, absolutely everything can be expressed in curves.

You will also begin to attend an accredited language class at this point. Here at KLU, you can choose a language freely; you just have to find approximately five people with roughly the same level willing to study your language. The language class begins in the second and ends in the third semester. I love Italy and want to go there for my semester abroad, so I am now attending a language class with four other students and a tutor for around six hours a week. After one quarter of studying without any prior knowledge, I can already express myself using basic vocabulary.

There will also be a course called “Descriptive Statistics and Introduction to Inference Statistics.” I would consider it applied, since we will be working with real-world business problems and the lectures are supported by a series of exercises. The course is essential for the bachelor’s thesis.

The examination week with a total of three exams is rather exhausting, but don’t worry – the period for studying beforehand is long enough to prepare optimally. Our standard trackers are now awaiting the semester holidays while we intensive trackers will acquire practical experience during our three-month internships. I will cover them in one of my upcoming entries.

Bye for now,

Helen