International Business and Innovation Studies

Assessment – Melchior ten Velden 563517 – PSD1 – IBIS passport appraisal – 2814BI114A – chance 1

IBIS

IBIS is a new study, now in it second year. The study is focused on innovation on a international business level. It is given at the academy Inholland in Diemen-zuid. It is an 4 year full-time bachelor programme that is given fully in English. The IBIS programme consist of three main elements:

  1. the Core curriculum (120EC)
  2. the Negotiated Learning Units (60EC)
  3. graduation track (60EC)

Core curriculum

This continuous from the first year all the way to the fourth and final year. It is aimed to introduce you to all the relevant aspects of international business innovations. Each term has it own theme. In this term 1 we did "Challenges of the 21thcentury", focused on the workings of business. This was for me a repeat, I did this already at the IVA which is a business school. Still I learned a lot from sir Kentson. For the next term we will focus on innovation; the strategies, design, and creative thinking and reasoning.

Negotiated Learning Units

or also known as: NLU. IBIS believes that people are more motivated to learn when they have a say in what they learn and how. In the 2nd semester I have to choose NLU's.With these I can create my own specialisation. I choose for:

  • Psychology
  • Mobile marketing
  • Photoshoot RAW
  • Gamification

I choose for psychology because i'm always have been interested in psychology. I found myself always good at understanding somebodies behaviour or feelings, but if i understand how the brain works i can really understand why and how. My girlfriend studies psychology at the university at Utrecht. We often talk about what she learned so far. Since i choose this NLU i can get deeper in conversation with her for example about Gottfried Leibniz. I believe this is a great opportunity and will tackle it.

At the IVA I studied marketing, when i saw the NLU list with mobile marketing I was sold, it first choose this NLU! I like everything that has to do with marketing. For exams i always got high marks. I'm really curious what this NLU will bring. Every where you look you see people on their mobile. As a business it is the question how will you attract the people with their phone? It is a really innovative NLU. We have the smartphone, we know now, for almost 10 years. Since then a lot has changed, as well as marketing especially on mobile level.

Too be honest, I made a miscalculation and found out that i missed 2 hours. So i had to choose an extra NLU. Because the registration was such a gladiator fight this was one of the few that were left. I did some research I still can't figure out what it is. But I always wanted to learn how to shoot pictures, this skill I will use when I'm travelling. A picture says more than a thousand words!

Gamification is a NLU in which i'm really excited! Gabriel McIntyre gave us a guest lecture speaker about this topic. He tackles global problems with videogames. what a group of scientist couldn't manage, did 200.000 gamers in 10 days! I always taught that gaming is good for you. I learned english by playing Pokemon Blue on the Gameboy. I'm wondering how the classess will be given, but again i'm really excited.

If you go down the page you can find more about the guest lecture speakers.

graduation track

The graduation track is divided into two tracks: macro innovation or micro innovation. Although this is in the last year it is still important to know. The macro innovation is on a global or societal level where the micro is more focused on innovation for commercial purposes. Now i have no idea which one I would choose, luckily i have several more years to think about it.

In general

Having almost finished the first semester i can truly say that i have learned a lot and also very important had loads of fun. IBIS is a perfect example where knowledge, dedication and fun can work together and have amazing results. During the introduction week we had to work in groups, the focus was on design. One day we got an assignment to make something out of garbage. This was a good exercise for teambuilding and creativity. If i compare myself with other students I'm not a the same design level as they do, what i did found out that my leading skills are more developed. Thank god for synergy! Despite that the end result wasn't that good we worked as team, created our poster and had lots of fun.

International World of Business

This is one of my favorite courses. We talked about economic events like the great depression, WWII, China, current events, etc. Although I discussed this at my previous education we did go deeper in the events. we had to make a poster about an economic event and present it. I choose the creation of the first limited company; the VOC or Dutch East India Company. I learned many interesting facts like: In 1600 there lived only 1.5 million people in the Holland but together the came up with the initial investment of 600 million florin. At the beginning i taught that i knew almost everything, this taught ended fast when we discussed some current events.Tom is a very smart man which hopefully will continue teaching me.

voc

Fundamentals of Business

This is also one of my favorites. I learned a lot about business in general at the IVA, but i had never heard of the Business Model Canvas. It is a very useful tool to analyze a company. We did several; Volvo cars, Phone Blocks, Hello fresh and Security services. For the final assessment we had to make an BMC for Frog Design. Very interesting company, just like all the others. FOB teaches us to have a critical look on a company and how it works.

phoneblocks

English 1

The use of english in term 1 was easy, this is of course to get everybody at the same level of speaking, writing and reading. I have no problem with English, I enjoy the lessons, do my homework. I didn't want to to the english exam because I believe that i can always improve my english. Perhaps in term 2 it will be more difficult.

Professional Skills Development 1

This is a bundle of HTML, What is in my backpack, Thinking and Reasoning and Information skills.

HTML

HTML wasn't completely new for me, a good friend of mine does this for a living, together we build some websites for fun. In my break year I did an online HTML course called Codecademy. I was very happy when I received the book list and saw HTML/CSS was in it. For me it is still a puzzle from time to time. I often help fellow students with HTML.

What's in my backpack

again wasn't something new for me. At my elementary school we did a lot of meditation and self-exploring, as well in my parents house, my mother has an homeopathic clinic who always encouraged my brother, sister and me to learn about myself. My aunt does some sort of psychology for a living and asked me a couple of years back to do a personality test just like in the class. Both of the test weren't complete surprise since I know myself pretty well. I liked the honesty and the will too share emotions and experiences from my fellow students in group 1C. Everybody keeps the other in their value and listens to each other.

Thinking and Reasoning

such a nice topic! Learned a lot, fast brain and slow brain. I don't think this is really crucial for everybody or at least me, perhaps it is more a NLU. I always liked the class with interesting topics and discussions especially when we had to sit in a circle. I learned that sitting in a circle is the best way to have a discussion. Every week we had to keep a blog, go for my blog to: mtvelden.wordpress.com

Information Skills

or call it Google... I don't have the feeling that i really learned anything, except for using the databases. Basically every lesson we had to look for information on the internet or google. For me it felt unnecessary to teach use how to use google (generation Y), if the teacher immediately started with the databases i would find it more useful.