The first week of IBIS I had no clue what to expect. I enjoyed the first day of induction but then it came to my attention that it was an entire week of induction to IBIS and I had guess that they had a really good week planned for us and actually It was quite good. In my first week I was paired up in a group of 14 other students I had never met before and we were sent off to “scavenger hunt” to innovative business within the city of Amsterdam. This was quite interesting for me because I had never thought of going to an innovative business right here in my city.

I do not come from a business background but I did come from a creative one. So getting a tour of The Ceuvel. The Ceuvel is innovative café restaurant that uses natural resources to run their business and also using old boats as offices. This was quite in fact unique and creative in my opinion and I seeing this made me feel like my ideas can also be valid and come to life. The day after my we visited the Nemo Science Museum. I have been there before and it’s fun to walk around and see all the scientific games and interactive activities, it wasn’t something that I am fascinated about.

I really liked the creative activities that we did in school that helped bond us students. All the while working together and learning about one another we were already developing one of the IBIS meta-skill which is Design. The design meta-skill that were already developing was brainstorming ideas that we came up with. We had to put down on papers issues that we would like to see change, and I ended up with an issue that I can identify which people was not being polite anymore. My group and I had to brainstorm ways of coming up with solution and convincing people how does this issue impact us in our daily lives and how could we fix this issue. My team and I came up with a perfect campaign that can help the situation. We created banners and images that can help bring our ideas of handling the matter.

We also got guess speakers during this week, there were quite a few that came but they weren’t appealing and interesting nor appealing to me.

As classes actually started I then put my thinking cap on and try to keep focus. I saw the classes called PSD and I had no thought to what it was until I had the first class. Thinking and reasoning was part of the PSD personal skills development and once I saw that I thought maybe I can achieve one my learning skills I wanted to acquire in this course. Thinking and reason gave me great insight on how my mind works and what type of ways I portray when it comes to thinking and reasoning why the way things are the way they are.

What’s in my backpack, a weird name to call a class, at least that’s what I thought at first? This class was given on Fridays so I was always the last one to get taught but I would hear from the students who had gotten her class earlier that week. This clas made me tap into my inner self learning more about myself and it worked well hand in hand with Thinking and Reasoning. The frist class I remember was “ What makes me tik” this was all about what motivates me what gets me going, what do I love. The first class immediately feel like I was evaluating why I do the things that I do. I loved the fact that for both of these two classes made us write as if it was a journal. Writing communication were one of my skills I would have liked to learn and I am not sure If had achieved anything just yet in that particular area however writing the blogs and essay each week sets my mind to practice each and every week and to just become more of an active writer after all practice makes perfect.

There were something that I didn’t like for instance the assessments for Fundamentals of Business but before going into that let’s talk about my progress. This class was all about learning how to analyze a business in its full complexity and diagnose issues, from all the different functional perspectives. This will allow you to make well-founded decisions and come up with and implement valuable and sustainable innovative solutions at a later stage.

During the classes I immediately identified my skill in wanting analyze and assessing information. This class connected me right away on how to fulfill that skill. By the ending of this term I have fully executed the meta skill of learning. I attended the classes that I could have made and asked questions and took part in the activities. Ill admit that I am not the type to put my hands up in class and ask questions out loud in front of the class, I am more of a private type of guy when it comes to approaching a teacher with difficult questions, it isn’t that I am shy but I rather a more private space so that I may focus on listening without any distractions from a room filled with students. I practiced each week on my BMC learning the way of analyzing , assessing and critiquing a business before filling the canvas blocks.

Now I really did not appreciate that I had one week to hand in a business analysis . The amount of work that was put into this was tremendous, however I got a full good week of working hard on finishing my school assignments something that I rarely do so I am proud for stay until 10pm at school finishing my work. Assessment criteria was more than a handful in my opinion and could better be done in a group effort. Writing a business analysis was the first time for me and I think next time we can actually get writing communication classes on how to correctly structure certain type of written reports.

I know that IBIS takes a different approach on education and that is reason why I even enrolled. I never thought in my entire life that I would be making a website in HTML I had no idea of that works so I was quite excited at first because website are interesting its like designing your baby in my mind but it was harder than I thought. I had the impression that I would be learning the basics but It seems just a bit harder than I imagined. Acquiring skill is very helpful for me in the future I just however needs to have better time management to invest more focus and attention on HTML because I know I can deliver a lot more because I consider myself to be a creative guy.

My creative side came out in my poster presentation for International World of Business. I was really proud of what I had produced It took me while but I realized that when Im in my own space I get more creative and with IBIS I get the opportunity to use that side of me. As I mentioned above I am not a guy that has a background in Business but after the few week s of IWOB I can say that I have learned the way of the evolving world and why things are the way now . It has only been the first time and I cant say much of my progress just yet but I can say that I my mind has opened up and in and allowing all the information settle in now because it will help me further into my second term at IBIS.