Chantal Stoffelsma, master student in Chemistry
"The decision to follow SBB Fundamentals can be based upon a wide variety of reasons. Some typical answers of students to the why-question are: "I have a broad interest", "I might not want to do a PhD", "To learn new things besides science", "I’m not yet sure what to do after graduation" or "It’s a good way to find out whether something with business would be a suitable career opportunity for me". Pick some of these and you have my personal answer."
“Although having enjoyed my Bachelor in Chemistry and now pursuing a MSc in the same direction, I was not sure whether my personality, ambitions and in-depth interests would fit with the academic world on a more long term period. So, I figured that following SBB Fundamentals would be a good choice as well as a perfect opportunity to find out which business areas would appeal most to me.
An important part of the programme are presentations of SBB alumni; examples of their employers are BCG, Accenture and Chiesi. During a typical presentation the alumnus would start explaining his/her background: masters programme, extracurricular activities (e.g. having been a board member or participated in several committees) and how that combined with SBB Fundamentals and an SBB internship had brought him to his current job. Questions that were answered during these presentations were amongst others: How do you get an internship or job at this company? What type of people with which background and experience does the company look for? What is the content of the work and how are the interactions with colleagues? What are future career possibilities?
Prior to SBB Fundamentals, I had also followed a course on entrepreneurship (Orientation on Technopreneurship – Entrepreneurial Management, per September 2010 Research based Business Ventures). This course has given me good overview on what it takes to be an entrepreneur and gave me more insight in the process of starting a company; partly due to our frequent guest lectures by entrepreneurs, who were often from the Leiden BioScience Park. In relation to the entrepreneurship course, I participated in the Boston 2010 StudyTrip “Commercializing Technology” last June. Together with other SBB students and students from Delft and Rotterdam we visited several interesting companies in the Boston area as well as Harvard, MIT and Babson College. It was a great study trip during which we met lots of inspiring individuals that shared their valuable lessons with us.
To conclude: Following the SBB courses was a rewarding experience in gaining knowledge on business topics, creating a broader perspective on possibilities in the “business world” and learning how to effectively work in teams. It also provided me with a proper amount of background knowledge for my SBB internships. As a part of the SBB Specialisation, I will pursue two internships in different industries: during summer 2010 I was an associate consultant intern at the San Francisco office of Bain & Company and starting in October 2010 I’ll be a finance intern for six months at Procter & Gamble in the Netherlands.”
By Chantal Stoffelsma, 2009-2010 participant in the SBB master courses: SBB Fundamentals, Orientation on Technopreneurship (per September 2010 part of Research Based Business), SBB Internship and the Entrepreneurial studytrip to Boston 2010.