Issue #2September 2012

BODY LANGUAGE How much does it need to make a good first impression

INCEPTIONLet your journey begin

STUDENT POLITICSMore illusion than reality?

C O M I N G U P

Prague Study Trip: October, 27 – October, 31

One-day Company visit at Philips in Aachen: October, 18

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THE SCOPE - 02/2012 3

Ready for take off? A new beginning is always exciting. Whether it is the start of a new study year, joining a new team, initiate change or realizing your

own ideas. Every idea or inspiration originates in a few sparks and then evolves. Still, you are the one responsible for the inception!

For the start of the new academic year, THE SCOPE investigated several different top-ics to give you new perspectives. Did you know that Quidditch is not only played in Harry Potter movies? Yes, true story, there may be even other things you never heard about. Did you know that the faculty sends a team of students to destina-tions everywhere in the world to competitions where they have to consult companies? Not only there, but anywhere and anytime money plays an important role, since it makes the world go round. The Maastricht Treaty plays an important role for the Euro and the whole Union, but obviously 20 years were not enough to solve all problems and pursue the right way.

Even though, money is a big issue caus-ing as well big problems it is still possible to be or become happy without money. The majority of business students may not believe it, but Mi-chael Wigge shows how one who just owned an apple can get a house in Hawaii. Another issue addressed is the overlooked importance of water. In our society we do not really think about how

much we “waste”. Yes, I agree that it sounds moral-izing, but it is crazy that the production of a single hamburger needs 2400 liters of water. You can start making your small change at any stage. For example, you can become active in student politics. You can read more about details and a compari-son with an Argentinian University. Though, never forget to make a good first impression and think of your body language - there are some advices in the magazine.

So what are you waiting for? Start your engine and experience your own rocket launch!

Enjoy reading

Yours,

Julia BerhardChief Editor

Dear reader.

I n c e p t i o n

4 THE SCOPE - 02/2012

table of content

Economic Affairs20 Years Maastricht Treaty 08

Committee ReportsPhotos of Study Trips 39+43

Student LifeSports? 12

Student LifeStudent Politics 15

Economic AffairsH2O - Hard To Oversee 25

Economic AffairsMoneyless Happiness 30

THE SCOPE - 02/2012 5

Introduction PartLetter from the EditorContent /ImprintLetter from the PresidentAbout SCOPENew Board 2012-2013

Student LifeSports?!Student PoliticsCase CompetitionMaastricht - What do you offer?Body Language

Economic AffairsH2O - Hard To OverseeMoneyless Happiness20 Years Maastricht TreatyWhat about the ethics? About SABIC - Interview with SBE alumni

Association ReportsSCOPE | 3MASCOPE | EconomicsSCOPE | FOCUSSCOPE | Vectum

Committee ReportsStudy Trip CommitteeEducation CommitteeSocial CommitteeForeign Trip Committee

03 04 06 07 09 12 15 18 20 22

25 30 28 33 44

34 35 36 37

38 40 41 42

table of content

EDITORIAL STAFF: Hendrik Borgaes [Executive Member of the Board], Mike Langen [Chairman Magazine

Committee], Julia Berhard [Chief Editor], Sina Neldner [Writer], Kathrin Wendt

[Writer], Maria Schütz [Writer], Robert Tilch [Photos Milan], Philip Rangelow [Photos

Budapest], Karin Kerkhof [on behalf of SCOPE | 3MA], Randi Wagner [on behalf

of SCOPE | Economics], Rinaldo Zopfi [on behalf of SCOPE | FOCUS], Suzanne de

Boef [on behalf of SCOPE | Vectum]

LAYOUT & DESIGN: Lars Holzberg

SPECIAL THANKS TOThe UM Language Center for their support

and all the people who contributed to this issue!

ABOUT THE SCOPE:The SCOPE is the free members’ magazine

of SCOPE Maastricht - the official study association at the School of Business and

Economics (SBE) at Maastricht University and the largest study association in Maastricht!

C.O.C.: Vereniging SCOPE Maastricht, KVK

number: 54093600

POSTAL ADDRESS: SCOPE Maastricht

Maastricht UniversityP.O. Box 616

6200 MD Maastricht

PRINTING: Compact Drukwerken

Europapark 24 3620 Lanaken

Belgium

CIRCULATION: 500

CONTACT: magazine@scope-maastricht.nlfacebook.com/magazine.scope

6 THE SCOPE - 02/2012

Right now you are holding in your hands the second issue of THE SCOPE – the members’ magazine of SCOPE Maas-tricht.

SCOPE Maastricht is the umbrella association of four specialized associations SCOPE | 3MA, SCOPE | Economics, SCOPE | FOCUS and SCOPE | Vectum. SCOPE Maastricht is re-sponsible for all Bachelor and Master students on a general basis, which entails that we organize events for the general student body. In the past year this included parties, Soft Skill Days, a McK-insey Workshop, Exam Trainings, Extra Tutorials, Movie Night, a Winterball and amazing trips to Budpast, Milan, Amsterdam and Barcelona.

‘‘Inception’’ the theme of the this edition of THE SCOPE fits perfectly to the situation most of you are likely to face right now. Some of you are new at SBE and do not know what to expect, some of you are about to start their final year and have to decide where to go afterwards, others are about to go abroad to an entirely new country. Furthermore also SCOPE Maastricht starts into a new year, with a new board to tackle new challenges.

For this new start in the academic year, I would like to wish all of you the best and would like to

thank you for the past year, which was a lot of fun and filled with great moments. I hope that you find the articles that catch your interest and may inspire you in finding out what to expect from you personal Inception. On behalf of SCOPE Maas-tricht , I hope you enjoy the second issue of THE SCOPE.

Last but not least, I want to use this welcome word to thank the people who carried the whole workload of this magazine. I congratulate the en-tire magazine committee for the second edition of THE SCOPE. I hope that it did not only enhance your professional skills but that you also had fun along the way. Therefore, I would like to thank you in the name of SCOPE Maastricht for the value that you have added to our association.

Kind Regards,

Robert TilchFormer President SCOPE Maastricht (2011-2012)

Dear reader.

THE SCOPE - 02/2012 7

About SCOPE

All first-year students please let us be clear on one thing: Study Associations are

not the same as Student Asso-ciations, which most of you have encountered during the party-loaded days of the INKOM. To put the comparison simple, student associations have a more academic focus – drinking esca-pades and boot camp-like intro-duction weeks play a less promi-nent role. In fact, our purpose is to add value to student life, by bridging the gap between theory and practice, by organizing so-cial, academic and career-orient-ed activities and by promoting the spirit of the international, scientific community at SBE. Study trips, workshops, par-ties, job fairs and movie nights are examples of activities in our portfolio. Being a member of SCOPE also entitles you to re-ceive a significant discount at the SCOPE book store in the faculty building and grants you access to our study material da-tabase on the SCOPE Maas-tricht website.

To meet the interests of students from different study years and study programs, SBE Study Associations went through a major restructuring in 2011. There are now five associations, with a total number of 3000 members, seven offices, 29 board members and a large amount of active members. In fact, SCOPE is at current point in terms of members and consolidated reve-

nue the largest study association in the south of the Netherlands. SCOPE Maastricht serves as the umbrella association and or-ganizes events and activities for all students irrespective of their program and year. The magazine you are holding in your hands is also a publication of SCOPE Maastricht. There are in total seven committees, for which we recruit young talented students in the beginning of each aca-

demic year: Master, Magazine, Study Trip, Foreign Trip, Social, External Relations and Educa-tion. As an active member you will take over responsibility for projects and organize them in a team. We believe that becom-ing active helps a lot in gaining valuable experiences for your later career. You will also easily get to know a lot of students and be able to enjoy our active mem-bers activities. Have a look at the reports of selected committees in the later part of this publica-

tion. More information are to be found on our website.

The other four associations under SCOPE take a more spe-cific, career and study program oriented focus. SCOPE | 3MA covers all students interested in Strategy, Supply Chain Man-agement, Organization and Marketing, SCOPE | FOCUS students of Finance, Accounting and Controlling, SCOPE | Eco-nomics students studying Eco-nomics Studies and Infonomics and SCOPE | Vectum students of Econometrics and Operations Research. All of them present

themselves in the later parts of this publication. SCOPE Maas-tricht and the SCOPE asso-ciations are non-profit organiza-tions and closely linked with the faculty to ensure transparency and make use of synergies.

Each association is lead by the board of the respective as-sociation – a small number of students who work for the asso-ciations full-time. The SCOPE Maastricht board of 2012/2013 introduces itself on the next pages.

Building Bridges – Shaping FuturesWelcome to the world of SBE Study Associations

Get ActivE!Join Maastricht's biggest study association

Social committee

Education committee

Magazine committee

Study trip committee

Foreign trip committee

External Relations committee

More infos at

THE SCOPE - 02/2012 9

N e w B o a r d 2 0 1 2 - 2 0 1 3

My Name is Sebastian Ihler. I am 20 years old and currently a first year

International Business student at Maas-tricht University. I profited a lot from be-ing a SCOPE member during my first year at university and therefore wanted to take an active role within the organization in the upcoming year where I will be President of SCOPE Maastricht.

I want to continue the very success-ful era of SCOPE during the next year and maintain the broad spectrum of social and academic activities SCOPE is offering both on and off campus. Together with my new board and all active members I want to fur-ther establish SCOPE as a young and valu-able study association that brings students together and supports them on an educa-tional level.

I am looking forward to this challeng-ing position and I will put as much dedica-tion into it as possible in order to fulfill all tasks to the best of my abilities.

My name is Surali Ribadiya and I am 18 years old. I am an Indian-born and brought up

in Antwerp, Belgium. I will be finishing my first year of International Business now.

In my free time, I like to go running, play sports, paint and so many things. Also, I really enjoy travelling and getting to know different cultures. This is one of the reasons why I applied to become a board member of SCOPE. Meeting new people and working together with them is an opportunity for me where I can learn from others and see things from different perspectives.

I am looking forward to take upon the chal-lenges that I will face and I hope to fulfil the re-sponsibilities that have been given to me. I am very excited to start the year as Vice President. I hope to not only work hard but also have a lot of fun with my fellow board members and all the actives! I am convinced that this will definitely be a memorable year.

P r e s i d e n t

V i c e P r e s i d e n t

President: Sebastion Ihler

Vice President: Surali Ribadiya

10 THE SCOPE - 02/2012

My name is Lotte van Doorn and I am 21 years old. I am Dutch and live in Maastricht. Last

February I started my master program International Business track Accountancy in Maastricht, which I enjoyed a lot so far. Simultaneously, I became a member of the Masters Committee of SCOPE Maastricht. I had a lot of fun organizing activities for master students and preparing the study trip to Prague that will take place this fall.

To be able to contribute more to SCOPE, I decided to apply for a board position. You can imag-ine, I felt really lucky when I was chosen to be the treasurer of the new board. I am looking forward to the opportunities and challenges that the new board will face, and hopefully we can handle them successfully. I hope we can continue to provide in-teresting social and academic activities and trips for our members and fellow students and create a great SCOPE year for 2012-2013!

My name is Nina Gibson and I come from Bonn, Germany. I am 20 years old and I am

about to finish my first year in International Busi-ness at Maastricht University. In my free time I like to dance, especially ballet. Dancing has always been a very important part of my life since I also participated in international competitions with my former dance team. Besides, I enjoy meeting with my friends and travelling to other countries to discover the different cultures and worldviews. During the past academic year, I experienced some of the activities SCOPE of-fers and got to know the great people from the board and the committees.

I had the intention to become more active in my second year and to do something besides study-ing, which would add value to our faculty and to the students. This is why I decided to apply for the next Board 2012-2013 for the position of Secretary. I am looking forward to work on our magazine and to write interesting articles about everything happening within SCOPE, the faculty and further topics which

could be in the mem-bers’ interest. My goal is to create a magazine that is rich in variety and reflects the spirit of SCOPE Maastricht that it has developed during the past year. I am motivated to keep up a good communica-tion between all mem-bers as the Secretary and to offer support where questions arise.

I am looking for-ward to the great experi-ence and I believe that we will have a lot of fun while working together in the new board. I am excited to face the upcoming challenges and I believe that to-gether, we can retain and further develop the good reputation SCOPE has gained so far.

s e c r e t a r y

t r e a s u r e r

Treasurer: Lotte Van Doorn

Secretary: Nina Gibson

N e w B o a r d 2 0 1 2 - 2 0 1 3

THE SCOPE - 02/2012 11

C o m m i t t e e R e p o r t s

My name is Alexander Kaden and I am 21 years old. I am about to finish my first year of

International Business at Maastricht University. In my spare time I enjoy meeting up with my friends, playing tennis and go jogging.

Travelling always constituted a huge inter-est for me and I appreciate to discover and expe-rience countries and their cultures that I have not sophisticated before. I feel honored to become the Academic Activities Coordinator for the upcom-ing academic year and will definitely try my best to organize further successful and entertaining study trips in foreign countries together with the study trip committee.

Working together with the education com-mittee, I want to further elaborate the success and good reputation of SCOPE’s academic activities. I am looking forward to establish last year’s activi-ties and even thinking about new possible activities SCOPE could offer.

Creating a positive and pleasant atmosphere among all students will be an interesting and ex-periencing responsibility for me, I would like to ac-complish together with the SCOPE board and its committees.

My name is Daphne Dovermann and I am 19 years old. I am from Kerkrade and cur-

rently finishing my first year as an International Business student. I like sports, especially dancing, music and travelling.

At the start of the first semester I signed up as an active member for SCOPE Maastricht and became a member of the Social Activities Com-mittee. This gave me the opportunity to organize nice events for my fellow students, the chance to meet new people and an impression of the duties of a board member.

I am very pleased and honored to be cho-sen for the Social Activities Coordinator and look forward to this challenge and the coopera-tion with the new board. I am eager to continue the success of Partylovers and hope to organize a great foreign trip. Most importantly, I am dedi-cated to make more people aware of the great activities SCOPE offers and encourage them to take part.

a c a d e m i c a c t i V i t i e s c o o r d i n a t o r

s o c i a l a c t i V i t i e s c o o r d i n a t o r

AA Coordinator: Alexander Kaden

SC Coordinator: Dapthne Dovermann

12 THE SCOPE - 02/2012

Student Life

All of these sports are typical or emerging US college sports. They have several

things in common: their rules are more or less easy to learn, equipment requirements are low and skills are easy to develop. But the most important similarity is fun! These sports are relative-ly young compared with other sports like football or basketball. Good players are rare, at least in Europe which gives some peo-ple and additional motivation to participate in these sports. Let us now focus on each sport individually by rating the sports according to their skill, equip-ment or space requirements and fun factor. A scale will indicate if skill and equipment require-ments are high or low.

U l t i m a t eUltimate was formerly

called Ultimate Frisbee, un-til a sports equipment sup-plier registered this name as its trademark. Nowadays it is just

called Ultimate, since Frisbee would not do justice to the high speed of the sport. Two teams of each 7 players play against each other. Ultimate is played on a 100-meter-long and 40-meter-wide rectangular field. Included in the 100 meter length are 2 end zones of around 20 meters length (so the actual running area is around 60 meters long). All of these values can be adjust-ed according to the number of players. The object of the game is to score 13 points before the other team does by catching the Frisbee in their end zone. You may only pivot while you have the Frisbee (no running while you have it), and you must throw it within 10 seconds of catching it. If the team on offense lets the

Frisbee touches the ground or if it is caught out-of-bounds, then the defending team assumes the offense. There are other nit-picky rules involved, but that is the gist of it. Heavy tackling leads or disregarding the rules leads to a foul, which gives the other team the offense. Ulti-mate is a little bit like Ameri-can Football, but less rule-based and less based on physical fights (tackling). Nevertheless, it re-quires a similar physical fitness depending on the other play-ers. Running and handling the Frisbee are the most important skills.

When the Sun comes out again and the temperatures rise, students come out to occupy Maastricht´s parks and enjoy the weather. Normally this is combined with outdoor activities and sports like slacklining or football. Maybe you want to discover something new this year. What about trying Ultimate, Frisbee Golf or even Quidditch? You don´t know these sports or have heard about them and want to get to know more? We will present their uniqueness and give you an insight into players’ personal motivations.

Sports ?!

THE SCOPE - 02/2012 13

S t u d e n t L i f e

Sports ?!

FRISBEE GOLF

Frisbee golf is exactly the same as regular golf, but you have to hit standing poles (about 70 cm high)

with the Frisbee instead of getting a ball in a hole. The person to fin-ish a round of Frisbee golf com-pleting the fewest throws wins the round. A course can include up to 18 poles. You sometimes use up to 3 different types of discs (different weights for different distances). Of course rules can be modified and as in many US colleges without a fixed Frisbee golf course, poles can be substituted by everyday objects (e.g. trees, buildings, street signs). Therefore, you only need a Frisbee

and some creativity to play! As in ordinary golf, Frisbee

golf challenges your physical fit-ness less. Nevertheless, it requires some skills to throw the Frisbee as precisely as possible. There is no maximum number of players, but you need at least 2 players to experience some competition. A game can last from a few minutes to hours depending how many targets you choose. This makes Frisbee golf an extremely flexible

activity. Maybe you just want to throw some discs in the park for leisure or discover the whole city in an extensive course. It is an ex-tremely sociable game and can eas-ily become one of your favorable leisure activities. Some players use it to relax, others to socialize and meet friends and some are seeking the challenge of hitting impossible targets. If you want to try one of the Frisbee sports, go to Scope and ask for one of their free Frisbees!

As long as everybody plays fair, rules do not need to be fol-lowed very strictly. To play, you need at least 3 players per team, which is easy to accomplish. A plain space should be sufficient to play as long as you can mark the end zone somehow. So the only equipment you basically need is a Frisbee! But be aware, this sport can make you addict-ed! Once you manage to throw and catch the Frisbee properly, you won´t stop anymore! The fun factor is quite high. Especially in the US, college Ultimate teams compete not only at the field. It is social sport, including drink-ing game competitions and a lot of partying. Sometimes these as-pects are combined in so called drunk tournaments (where you need to drink a certain amount before playing). Players love the team spirit, challenge, workout and most of all fun of playing.

Required Skills: (coordination, physical fitness) Required Equipment: (a Frisbee and some space) Fun: (it may take some time to handle the Frisbee)

Required Skills: (coordination) Required Equipment: (a Frisbee) Fun: (it may take some time to handle the Frisbee)

14 THE SCOPE - 02/2012

S t u d e n t L i f e

QUIDDITCH

Whoever read the famous Harry Potter books will probably

still know the rules. Yes, this is the magic sport out of the books and you can now play it with your friends. The real life ver-sion of the game is often called Muggle (a non-magician in the Harry Potter world), because it is played on the ground instead of flying in the air. Every team con-sists of 7 players and every player needs a broom which she/he has to carry between her/his legs all the time. There is 1 goalkeeper, 3 chasers, 2 beaters and a seeker in every team. There are 3 up-standing hoops, through which the 3 chasers have to throw a

ball called a Quaffle and gain 10 points for their team. The goal-keeper of the other team has to prevent this. Additionally, there are 2 beaters equipped with softballs called Bludgers, try-ing to hit the opposing team’s chasers. Once a chaser is hit by a Bludger, she/he has to run back to his own hoop and touch it, afterwards she/he can continue playing. The role of the seekers is to catch the Snitch, a neutral person (!), running around the area and hiding from the seek-ers. The Snitch is wearing a yel-low shirt and a yellow hat. Once the Snitch is caught, the game is over and the team that caught the Snitch gets 150 points.

As you see there are several rules making the game complex. This can be a problem in the beginning, but once you under-

stand the rules it offers a highly tactical game. Another problem of the game is its nerdy reputa-tion. Maybe you also think all players are Harry Potter freaks with a maximum age of 15. But Quidditch can be an intense game! Alastair, a former British world cup athlete I meet, argued: “I think people can have a pre-meditated view on Quidditch, I encouraged anyone who is brave enough to come out and try it. I did and I love it!” He describes it as rather challenging: “You are consistently being asked to use a range of different athletic skills from different sports, from sprinting to dodging, to mark-ing, to full contact tackling, this all while being on a broom!”.

Quidditch is definitely not a sport for everyone, but once you try it you will be surprised. The hardest part here is to start! There are not many skills re-quired other than a certain phys-ical fitness. You further need to have a few brooms (or similar things) and hoops or other goals (the first students who played it used chairs), a few different balls and a field.

Required Skills: (coordination, fitness) Required Equipment: (quite a lot of stuff is needed) Fun: (it may take some time to understand the rules)

Author: Mike LangenThird Year IBE Student

THE SCOPE - 02/2012 15

Student Life

I talked to a couple of SBE students and the general opinion seemed to boil down to the following

points: The difference between the two student parties NovUM and DOPE is hard to tell, so it doesn’t make that big a differ-ence who you give your vote to. The voting procedure is a joke, as there is no secret ballot and people are pushed into making some hasty clicks without re-ally being informed about what they are actually doing there. The parties only show their presence when it comes to voting and dis-appear from student life as soon as election week is over. And fi-nally, there are simply no notice-able changes after the elections. To put it in a nutshell, the per-ceived importance of the student

parties as well as student politics in general is overall quite low at our faculty.

What is the reason for this low level of interest in student politics? Is it the SBE students, caring about nothing but the product they purchased - a cou-ple of years of higher education - and leaving for good after it is completed? The cliché is that the business and economics student is indeed the snotty rich kid. Not typically an idealistic person. Rather conservative by nature. And being a politically conser-vative student means trusting in the decisions made by the school authorities and seeing no need for improvement triggered “from below”. But of course, no one would identify with this cli-ché. And maybe it is not simply

a problem of business students, but rather of Maastricht stu-dents. Or even our generation. Or might it not be our problem at all? In a perfectly functioning system there is no need for im-provement, so any kind of ideal-istic activism might just be naïve pretentiousness.

To take a look at the bigger picture, let’s go back to the elec-tion week scene. Switch to Bue-nos Aires, Argentina. The fac-ulty of economics is massive old building with marble stairways and a palm tree peppered patio right in the center of a huge, bustling city. But not only on the outside is this the exact op-posite of what we are used to in Maastricht. When you enter the building, you immediately notice the walls covered in posters and

Remember election week? If you are the typical SBE student there is a good chance that you decided to pick up your pace as soon as you first spotted the boys and girls in blue or green shirts around the faculty entrance. You were anxious to pass through the hallway and get to your tutorial room as fast as you could. But there were lots of enthusiastic members of student parties holding you back, asking you if you had voted already and rambling on about their party programs. In the end, they held a laptop in front of your face or dragged you to a faculty computer and you simply entered your student number and made a click. Maybe you felt slightly pressured. If you feel familiar with this scenario, by now you have probably forgotten which party you voted for back in May. But as you may have the opinion that the party programs offered are fairly equal anyway, what does it matter?

Student Politicsat UM

16 THE SCOPE - 02/2012

S t u d e n t L i f e

banners. They advertise for the several student parties, in every color of the political spectrum. In election week, the patio is buzzing with students handing out flyers. Some stand on chairs holding impromptu speeches. In the classrooms, no lecture will start before a couple of students take the professor’s place prais-ing their party and their politi-cal ideology in general with fiery eyes and pride in their voice. Not everything they say or do seems sound for the average Maastricht student that is characterized by prosaic utilitarianism and a bal-ancing, analytic attitude. To us, they appear incredibly romantic and naïve. But no one can deny that they are fervently commit-ted. And the most astonishing thing is that everyone takes part in the system. I didn’t meet a sin-gle student that is not involved or at least interested in the poli-tics of the university.

So our level of political in-terest and participation might be a cultural issue then. In Argen-tina, studying is quite often done for the intrinsic quest for knowl-edge rather than for initiating a career. In fact, most students al-

ready have a stable full-time job during their studies and profes-sors teach for free on a voluntary basis. I met a couple of highly educated taxi drivers that do their job at night and teach his-tory of arts or biology at daytime. And at the same time, students really care about their university. They realized the installment of the first internet workplaces at the faculty, a tutoring program for incoming exchange students and the connection to several scholarship programs: Exam-ples of real, tangible results. Big changes. But obviously necessary at a University that still manages the administration of its more than 300,000 students with pa-per files.

It is very different at our University, where students obvi-ously have no need to fight for the very basic necessities such as the existence of a refectory or an up-to-date library inventory. We are given what we need in order to be successful in our studies even without student parties organizing sit-ins and petitions to fight for it. But that doesn’t mean there is nothing more to do. Just think about political de-

cisions such as the budget cuts at institutions of higher education or the 3000 Euro fine for study delays. Protest marches against these issues by ten thousands of students in the bigger Dutch cit-ies make it abundantly clear that there is room for protest. There always remain issues that we have to deal with.

So let’s just assume that the political laziness is an SBE-specific problem. Of course, there are a couple of students that have ideas and beliefs, that have the urge to constantly im-prove the situation, even in a relatively pleasant environment like our faculty. But the number is small, and you probably won’t ever experience students pub-licly exposing the same intense passion about political issues like I saw it in Argentina. Why is it the case that the students among us that try to put a lot of effort into shaping our Univer-sity by joining a student party and bringing their ideas into the council receive only a low level of feedback?

Tobias Bünder, member of NovUM and currently student representative at the University

THE SCOPE - 02/2012 17

S t u d e n t L i f e

Council, is a student at UCM. Before switching to UCM, he studied one year of Economics when he came to Maastricht in 2009. How does he experience the general atmosphere at SBE when it comes to politics?

Tobias agrees with my im-pression that the SBE is on av-erage more on the incurious side regarding student politics. He confirms that the portion of SBE students among the NovUM ac-tives is relatively low compared with other faculties. However, he opens my eyes to what is actually going on behind the scenes. In fact, there is a good number of students that take political issues at Maastricht University very se-riously. Besides organizing vari-ous events and lectures about all kinds of topics ranging from stu-dent life to global issues, they ac-tively take part in decision mak-ing by sending representatives to the University Council and the Faculty Councils. Although the status they have at the councils is on an advisory level and the student representatives enjoy no veto right, Tobias assures me that their influence is definitely significant: “I am convinced that student representatives can have a great influence nonetheless via the enormous soft power that being in the council brings with it. “

He explains the functions that the students have in the councils:

“On the one hand, via the right of advice it sends a clear and strong sign if the council gives a negative advice to an issue proposed by the Executive Board, as

this means that the whole community of UM speaks against that plan. Usually we don’t struggle too much to come to unanimity. On the other hand, we en-joy the right of initiative, which I believe is one of the most important pow-ers. We are allowed to set our own agendas and to ask questions to all pos-sible items. The Executive Board is obliged to react to them. Moreover, stake-holders in UM and else-where are very open to meet and to listen to your concerns when you tell that you are a Council repre-sentative. That allows you to push for a lot of projects that are based on own ini-tiative. Therefore, I believe we have an important role and great influence.”

After all, there are students at our University and at our fac-ulty who do show interest and engagement in politics. And the status of the ones that get active is not just façade; the influence is significant and changes can be made. There is a lot going on, but we still have the fact that our student parties are simply not present in the daily awareness of the students. Tobias supposes that this is not just the fault of the students, but that the univer-sity could contribute its part to putting the parties more toward the focus of the attention. He

noticed that it is difficult for any kind of group at the university to present themselves constantly, as flyerspots, information booths and posters strictly require ex-plicit permits by the respective faculties. In addition, the parties could always use more internal support to increase promotion beyond the period of the elec-tion campaign. It is important that the parties are given enough room to move into the students focus by being part of everyday university life.

Naturally, all that is of no use as long as the general in-terest in political issues is lack-ing among the SBE students. However, it takes little effort to inform yourself about what is going on and what can be done to improve university life. If elections are taken seriously, votes can be cast according to your personal needs and visions as a student. Or maybe you even want to go further and get active at the student parties NovUM or DOPE. There is a lot of in-fluence you can take very eas-ily. So next time, when election week comes around, you might want to stop for a moment and become aware of the impact of your partaking.

Author: Maria SchützThird Year IES Student

18 THE SCOPE - 02/2012

Student Life

Sounds awesome, doesn’t it? Nevertheless, you first have to go through a certain selection proce-

dure to get the chance of join-ing the top 4 to 16 BSc IB/IBE students.

How does the selection work?

At the end of the first half around 30-50 second-year stu-dents with the best GPA of the first year courses will be asked via E-mail to send in their mo-

tivation letter and CV. Of these applicants 24 will be invited to a “encounter session”. There you have to do some assignments, which determine the final 16 students who will participate in the skills training “Preparation for the Case Competition”. Sid-ney Fiegen, a third-year student who was part of the team for Case Competitions in Bangkok and New York, had an unexpect-ed tip for this stage: do not come prepared! Just be yourself and be confident in what you do. How

the assignments look like: top secret. Let yourself be surprised! Finally part of the 16 students it depends on your performance during the skills training if you have the privilege to be part of the effective team, which means usually 4 students representing the SBE.

Assigned to a Case Competition you will compete with around 8-30 other universities.

Case Competition – Reputational high for the top! T h o u g h , a n y c h a n c e f o r t h e m o t i v a t e d e x p e r i e n c e d s t u d e n t s

w h o d o n o t c a r e a b o u t g r a d e s ?

Case Competition? “No, thank you. I have enough fake cases to solve for my courses!” Most of the students probably do not know about the concept, which offers an active participation in case competitions all over the world. Once you got into a team you may be assigned to go to places like Copenhagen, Bangkok, New York, Singapore etc. where you get a real life problem you have to solve with your group in a short period of time and afterwards you can relax and explore the city. On top: University pays most of the expenditures.

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S t u d e n t L i f e

How does the preparation look like?

Usually you just get your case when you arrive at the ho-tel. Therefore, it might be diffi-cult to prepare and that is why you have an advisor from the faculty, who supports and leads you during your preparation. Next to your skills training you will have to read extra mate-rial and do some research on the country where you are going, as you may confront a case happen-ing in another culture. Hence, all additional information can be helpful and thorough prepara-tion is fundamental, as it is not only about applying knowledge you acquired during normal classes. Though, this does not mean that everyone has to know and be good at everything e.g. in finance, marketing, strategy and presenting at once. The team is typically composed in that way that “experts” out of all fields are present and everyone focuses on other new aspects. Ergo, it is a real synergy of competencies.

Then the core part of the Case Competition starts. Obvi-ously, you do not start directly with the business case when you arrive at the University or-ganizing it. Sidney, the student not the city, e.g. first had some nice touristic days with his com-petitors and team members in Bangkok, before his team was “locked into the hotel room without any mobile phones or internet”. Why that? You only have 24-60 hours to read the case, which may include 2 or up to 50 pages, identify the is-sues, develop the plan to resolve the problem and finally present

it to the panel of judges, which is most of the time the board of directors of the company, which could e.g. be DHL, ABM-Amro or PTT Global Chemical. Cer-tainly, most case competitions consist out of several rounds, stating when, where and who will receive the case, lunch, make breaks, prepare the summary or presentation etc. This is a though plan, because you did not know anything about the case in ad-vance and you have a limited time period, which causes high pressure on the team and leads to some tensions. However, af-ter the announcement of the winners all the pressure should vanish at first. In addition, to the honour and reputation the win-ning team gains for their uni-versity, solutions are said to be implemented by the companies.

Sounds too good to be true?

University pays for a flight to and stay in a nice city, you gain new experiences and get in con-tact with several boards of direc-tors. You think you can stand high pressure, are social and are “an expert” in e.g. marketing or finance? Thus, you are perfectly matching the criteria!

Oh wait, one criterion was missing: namely, that you

have to pass all the first year courses in the first sit with a high grade relatively to your fellow students and be in the

top 30-50th. You worked already a con-

siderable amount of time in a company or even your own com-

pany, which may prove several skills important for this com-petition, but you did not care about grades? Sorry, that does not count. Even though, motiva-tion and extracurricular activities are very important for the de-velopment, university does not take it into account. All that is important are grades. Therefore, you better get acquainted with the ranking system of Maas-tricht University and only work for your high grades. As a mat-ter of fact, you will not miss the opportunity to get into the top 30-50, may be chosen based on your application letter, then you attend the encounter sessions and finally you may be selected to be part of the case competi-tion group. Unfortunately, there is not yet another way to get around this selection procedure and become one of the specials that make the university pay for their experiences abroad. Some may think rightly…

However, all in all it is cer-tainly an experience one does not want to miss and as Sidney Fiegen described it: ”The whole case competition is exciting, challenging and eye-opening!”

Special thanks to Sidney Fiegen!

Author: Julia BerhardThird Year IB Student

20 THE SCOPE - 02/2012

S t u d e n t L i f e

Maastricht what do you have to offer?

Are you a new in town or are you simply looking for something else to do beside studying and going to the Alla? Maastricht is not a big town but it has a lot to offer – here some food for thought

Sight Seeing

City Tour with a vintage / (old-timer) bus

Boat-Trip on the Maas

Maastricht Undergroundwww.maastrichtunderground.nl

Fortress Sint Pieter

Maastricht Caves

Maastricht Casemates

Dates and more information on Sight Seeing can be found on: www.maastrichtsuitburo.nl

For more recent events or parties, check out:

www.maaslife.nl

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S t u d e n t L i f e

Activities

Funvalley Maastricht

Swimming, canoeing, pedal boat, Midget golf, FKK, Paintball, check out the website for more information.

www.funvalleymaastricht.nl

Cinema Lumière Maastricht

Cozy cinema, with movies in French, English, Dutch, German…check the program!

www.lumiere.nl

“La Place” Roof terrace

In the V&D shopping centre you can chill out after seeing all the forts and going shopping or if you need another place to study with free wifi.

Bischopsmolen- Bakery

Do you fancy making your own “Limburgse Spe-cialiteit” the Vlaai? At the Bischopsmolen you can not only watch how, but also take a course.

www.bisschopsmolen.nl

Take One Bier Café

The couple running this bar owns almost 200 different sorts of beer. So if you tell them which kind of taste you would like to try, they will offer you the right one.

www.takeonebiercafe.nl

Cultural CentresNote: unfortunately these cultural centres have to fight some legal issues to survive. Therefore, it may be the case that some of them do not exist anymore, but other new projects arise.

Landbouwbelang – Cultural Freezone

An old factory where many activities like music, arts & culture are organised.

www.landbouwbelang.org

Mandril Cultural Centre / Hotel Ossekop

The task of this centre is to “provide a platform for stimulation of cultural participation in Maas-tricht and beyond”. So you can find yoga lessons, jam sessions, movies or whatever you want to organize.

www.mandril-maastricht.org

Muziekguiterij

Several concerts or band contests were already organized there.

www.muziekgieterij.nl

22 THE SCOPE - 02/2012

Student Life

Let your body do the business!I n t e r v i e w s – H o w t o m a k e

a g o o d f i r s t i m p r e s s i o n ?

1. When Walking in…The first thing to remember

is never to sit down in the recep-tion area even if you are asked to. Sitting down means that you are ‘out of sight’, while standing with your hands behind your back shows confidence.

2. The Entry…The way you walk in indi-

cates how you expect to be treated. When entering the room, walk in without hesitating and maintain the same speed. Changing your

speed is a sign of insecurity and a lack of confidence.

3. Coming closer…Even if the person is busy,

walk in directly without stopping to show that you don’t expect to be kept waiting. Walking in slowly reveals that you have a lot of free time in your hands and also shows a lack of interest in what they are doing. This might be fine for retired people with lots of money but not if you want to appear powerful and ambitious.

4. The Handshake…It is important to remem-

ber to respond with the same pressure you receive and to wait until the other person ends the handshake. Instead of shaking directly across the desk, try step-ping to the left as you approach.

5. Sitting down…It is always better not to

face the other one straight ahead but to slightly turn your body away. You will thereby decrease

Have you ever had an interview which was a total disaster and after leaving the office you felt like crawling in your bed and crying? There are definitely ways in which you can improve! Many people tend to think about what they are going to say and forget to keep in mind that 60 to 80% of the impact they will make is non-verbal. In the end, your behavior in the first four minutes is crucial as others form 90% of their opinion during that time. Consider the following rules for your next interview in order to make a great first impression:

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S t u d e n t L i f e

The 5 biggest mistakes during a presentation

When seeing a visual presentation, only 11% of what you will remember is what you hear the presenter saying. The rest of

the information is gathered via the eyes. By combining your presen-tation style with visual elements, you are able to increase your effi-ciency by 400%. Also concerning presentations, your body language plays an important role. Avoiding the following 5 main pitfalls al-lows you to effectively increase your persuasiveness:

LegsFoot-Forward Position

You stand in this position when your whole weight is cen-tered on one leg and the other leg points to the side. This posi-tion indicates where your mind actually wants to go. By posi-tioning your foot in this way, your audience will have the im-pression that you will start walk-ing any second. You will seem as if you would rather leave the room because you convey a feel-ing of insecurity.

Leg Cross

Having your legs crossed is a sign of a submis-sive or defensive attitude. In this position it is quite easy to tumble over, which is why you can be easily brought out of balance during your pre-sentation. For this reason, you will feel even more inse-cure and show a lack of con-fidence which the audience will most probably notice within seconds.

Solution

The most neutral position is to stand with your weight cen-tered, your legs straight and your feet pointing to the audience. This position indicates a strong and determined attitude.

the feeling of insecurity and vul-nerability. When offered to sit down on a low sofa, make sure you sit upright on the edge in or-der to keep control of your body.

6. The Movements…Using clear and uncompli-

cated gestures will convey that you are calm and collected. If you are unsure about how much movements are appropriate, ob-serve the other person’s gestures and try to mirror them. During the conversation, a golden rule is to never talk for more than 30 seconds at a time.

7. Keeping the Right Dis-tance…

Every person claims their own personal space which you should respect. That is why it is necessary to hold yourself at the right distance. In general, move closer to people who are familiar to you, but further back from the ones you just met. Additionally, you are allowed to be closer to those with similar age, whereas you should stand further away from people with a significant age difference.

8. The Exit…Before leaving, make sure

to adjust the back of your cloth-ing as people will always study your backside while you are leav-ing. For example, only cleaning the front part of your shoes will not be satisfying. If the door was closed when walking in, remem-ber to close it again when leav-ing. But more significantly, turn around beforehand and smile - In this way people will remem-ber your smiling face rather than your dirty shoes!

24 THE SCOPE - 02/2012

S t u d e n t L i f e

ArmsCrossed-Arms

Folding your arms across your chest is seen as creating a barrier between you and the audience. It generally conveys a negative mean-ing and generates a remote distance. Even if you cross your arms simply because it is comfortable, the audience will still believe that you are unapproachable.

Disguised Arm-Cross

Even if you only play with your watch, adjust your zipper or place your hand on your other arm, the audience will still be remind-ed of the negative meaning of having your arms crossed. However, instead of appearing distant, the person rather looks uncertain and nervous which evokes anxiety.

Solution

Move your arms slowly while keeping your palms visible to the audience. As a result, you will come across as open-minded, confident and honest.

Eyes Down-to-Earth

Where you look with your eyes matters more than you think! Constantly looking down at the floor or beneath the listener’s eye level will make you seem shy and inferior.

Solution

It is always recommendable to search for eye contact with individuals in the audience. When you talk in front of a group with more than 50 people, you can keep eye contact with a person at each corner of the group and with one in the center. In this way, approximately 20 out of 50 people will get the feeling of direct eye contact which results in an intimate bond with the majority of the crowd.

Authors: Kathrin Wendt & Sina Neldner2nd Year IB/IBE Student

If you want to learn more about how to use body language in daily life, we recommend the following book:

->The Definitive Book of Body Language by Allan and Barbara Pease (2004)

THE SCOPE - 02/2012 25

DestinationUnknown

EconomicAffairs

Aman lam”, is a say-ing of Mali’s na-tive inhabitants and means “Water is

life”. Admittedly, this might sound pretty philosophical and cheesy to many people, but still this small African tribe gets the

point, maybe because for them a shower or a glass of water means walking kilometers to a water well and walking the same kilometers back carrying heavy canisters, knowing that the next day they will have to do the same again. People living

in countries affected by water scarcity have been aware of the value of the important resource for a long time, but now it is the time for industrialized countries to start thinking, too. Accord-ing to the United Nations, there are 700 million people without

H2O

Hard 2 Oversee

Taking showers, a hot bath or getting something to drink from the tap – actions all of us take for granted! However, all these daily events link to one of the biggest political and economic questions in today’s world: How can we save our most valuable resource?

26 THE SCOPE - 02/2012

E c o n o m i c A f f a i r s

proper access to clean water. Of course, this is partly due to geographic differences between the countries, which are really hard to overcome and probably just need to be accepted. More alarming are current forecasts that the water shortage will ac-celerate tremendously within the next years. The balance be-tween supply and demand for water will more and more be uncertain because demand for water is rising steadily in agri-culture and energy production. In addition to climate change and the steady world population growth, the UN predicts that in 2025 the number of people suf-fering from water shortage will have more than tripled to three million people.

Additionally, you should not forget that increasing wa-ter scarcity also supports water to become a tool of power. Po-litically seen, water is a ticking time bomb. So far, industrial countries have not really no-

ticed, but in poorer countries water scarcity leads to political instability and distrust between countries. For instance, the Nile serves as livelihood for various countries among others Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan. Due to very fast population growth, Egypt claims a high amount of Nile water, which results in dif-ferences and conflicts with the other countries. The big issue about water is that it is the basis of all life and everyone knows what happens when peoples’ basic needs are not satisfied – it ends in fear, riots and at the very end results in wars. Last but not least, this is also when developed countries are affected.

Unfortunately, this out-look hasn’t seemed to bother governments of developed countries too much so far, but eventually the current situation of the United Kingdom will open some politicians’ eyes. In spite of the rather rainy weather in the UK, the country has been

suffering from water shortages in many parts in recent years. The drought has taken such a dramatic extent that it is now officially forbidden for Eng-lish citizens in the affected ar-eas to use hosepipes to irrigate their gardens and thereby save water. Hopefully, this restric-tion for English garden fans is a small step for governments to deal more carefully with water management and creating seri-ous policies in order to realize a more efficient supply of the im-portant resource.

“Water is Life”, is easy to apply to human life, because human bodies need it to survive. However, with an economic perspective it should also be clear that, whether directly or indirectly used, water is also inevitable for an economy to survive.

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E c o n o m i c A f f a i r s

The most basic example is the agricultural sector, where wa-ter is directly used for animals or to immigrate fields. 70% of the overall water supply is consumed by that sector. Still, almost every industry indirectly makes use of it. A stunning example is the food industry: To produce one beer, up to 25 liters of water are necessary, not to mention a sin-gle hamburger, for which 2400 liters are needed. These examples show that the current trends in water scarcity seriously endanger a firm’s productivity and will at some point set limits to the eco-nomic growth of countries.

Having this scenario in mind raises the question why in the world many companies do not actively research more ef-ficient ways to conserve water resources in order to safeguard their most important goal: their survival in a very competitive, global environment. The reason makes sense, when thinking eco-nomically:

Water until nowadays did not really cost anything.

So, why spend tons of money finding more

effective ways to deal with water when it is “for free”

anyways?

Considering the economy, another striking example of hu-man interaction with complex water systems is the Aral Sea in Central Asia. For the sake of the cotton industry, the inflows of the former 4th greatest lake of the world were used to irrigate cotton fields – with the conse-quence that the huge body of

water will not be visible on maps anymore in just a few years.

A very innovative way to counteract the reckless attitude of companies and industries is the project “Virtual Water”, which informs us about the amount of freshwater used to produce certain products aiming to influence consumer behavior and thereby forcing companies to reconsider their water con-sumption.

But even if this idea does not work out, if the development is as harsh as predicted, the value of water will rise and with it its price. Probably, those companies will then finally notice that it is time for some action. Fortunate-ly, there are already some inves-tors and entrepreneurs noticing that the water technologies and services are not only helpful to save water but can moreover be highly profitable as the wa-ter market will approximately be worth one trillion Euros by 2020.

Blaming politicians and companies is the easy part. Ob-viously, as in many aspects of life, someone has to start with small steps in order to make big dif-ferences. That is why, also we, as tiny consumers, should become aware of our behavior concern-ing water. Only a single flush of a toilet takes 10 liters of water. Fair enough, this is a necessity, which is pretty hard to avoid, at least if you or your roommates have some need for hygiene. But still, by just changing some bad hab-its it is possible to become more water efficient. Talking about hygiene, usually, after going to the toilet, washing hands should be the next step. Here it is very easy to save up to 70% of water

by just using soap first, before opening the tap. Another out-standing figure is the use of tow-els in hotels. It is quite shocking that up to 30% of all hotel guests have their towels changed once a day, which increases the water use of hotels into overwhelming quantities. Finally, even though it is only a rather small part, drinking from the tap is another suggestion. The water in Maas-tricht is of high quality and can be drunk without any risk. In addition, it is a lot cheaper com-pared to bottled water. To put it in other words, as Jacob, a Pub-lic Policy student in Maastricht states: “Tap water is cleaner and cheaper. A tip: TAP!”

Clearly, it is not in the hands of only politicians, com-panies or consumers, but it is ev-eryone’s responsibility to become more sensitive to the scarcity of our most valuable resource. Still, it is not too late to act. As Benja-min Franklin already mentioned in the 18th century:

Author: Sina NeldnerSecond Year IBE Student

“When the well is dry, we know the worth of water.”

28 THE SCOPE - 02/2012

EconomicAffairs

It was February 7, 1992, when the Foreign and Fi-nance Ministers of twelve states in Europe signed a

treaty on behalf of their coun-tries’ citizens’ in the Gouver-nement near the Maas. Their signatures had major implica-tions on a political, financial and also on a cultural level. The European Ministers not only paved the way for a more in-tegrated Europe in the field of economic coordination, defense and jurisdiction, but also com-mitted themselves to financial conditions. These five so-called Maastricht criteria among other things were supposed to limit incurred debts and keep infla-tion at a low.

Based upon the agree-ment, the Amsterdam, Nice

and Lisbon Treaties followed and created political Europe, as we know it today. Due to the Maastricht treaty it comes with no surprise that some people even call our city the ‘birthplace’ of the European Union and Euro. And certainly, because of its unique location in the tri-border area in the heart of back-then Europe Maastricht was certainly chosen to host the negotiations for good reasons.

So much about the past. Since then, 20 years have passed and considering all the former spirit of optimism and good-will, it might sound strange to hear that no real festival cel-ebrations are planned for 2012, either on a local, national and especially not on a European level. In fact, disillusion might

be the English word to describe best the feelings of EU officials looking back at recent history. No chorus of praise was heard, but a lot of critical questions asked during the only ‘real’ com-memoration activities of the year: A conference on Febru-ary 7/8 organized by the UM Center for European Gover-nance and the Municipality and another conference organized by SBE Study Association SCOPE | Economics, under the meaningful title ’20 Years Maastricht Treaty: A blessing for Europe?’

What has happened? Without dispute, the Maas-tricht criteria, or more formally the Euro convergence criteria, played a prominent role in this development. Complying with

maastricht 20+x

It has already been 20 years since Maastricht was chosen to host the negotiations for what later became known as the Maastricht Treaty. The agreement laid the basis for the European Union in its present shape and formed the Europe we value and live in today. Lucky times to celebrate the anniversary you believe? Well, with the crises evolving and Europe in a constant state of mistrust at the edge of financial doomsday think again...

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E c o n o m i c A f f a i r s

the criteria was a necessary con-dition for introducing the Euro as new currency. They aimed at ensuring that only healthy and stable economies participated in the Euro without bringing harm to the currency and other member states in the near fu-ture. The Maastricht criteria contained restrictions on the level of inflation and long-term interest rates, both seen in rela-tion to the values of the three most stable member countries. As well as that, the Maastricht criteria limited public spending, namely the national deficit ratio and the national debt ratio to certain percentages and only al-lowed non-devaluing exchange rates in the previous two years.

As one can guess, these conditions came in as inconve-nient obstacles for some coun-tries – obstacles they had to ‘work their way around’, before joining the promising new cur-rency. After the launch of the Euro until today, the criteria are still to be followed as part of the European Stability and Growth pact.

Looking at the Maastricht treaty retrospectively, some fea-tures are striking and remark-able: Among others, the concept of punishing criteria-deviants and its enforcement. Of course, at this early stage of European political maturity there was no real supranational power to enforce any agreements (it re-mains open to the reader to de-cide whether there is such thing today). Penalties were mostly in form of sanctions and payments. And indeed, it sounds paradoxi-cal that those states, which have it the worst financially and vio-late the stability and growth

criteria, will have to pay penalty fees of billions of Euro, mak-ing them even worse off. Ad-ditionally, in 2004 France and Germany were in the position to pay large fines but refused to do so and there was nothing that could force them. Since the very beginning enforcement has been a major issue.

When the crisis hit Eu-rope with all its severity, eco-nomic conditions worsened. The debt level grew further and further and in 2010 only Swe-den and Estonia of the 27 EU member states could fulfill the criteria. The idea of penalty fees was completely put on hold.

Further criticism comes from the ambiguous nature of the criteria. For some, they are simply no reliable measure of economic health. Others claim that countries like Belgium and Greece, who originally could not fulfill the criteria and ap-parently even smartened up their statistics before the official Euro launch, should have never been allowed to adopt the Euro as currency. For those it comes with no surprise that Greece was also the first country to file for a bailout by the troika of Eu-ropean Commission, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund and accuse the Hellenic Republic of putting a lot of taxpayers’ money at risk.

The horror scenario of a Greek bankruptcy triggering financial doomsday in Europe calls for critical voices, claiming the Maastricht treaty has failed to unify the European commu-nity. On the other side, a lot of new ideas were brainstormed in 2012, among them differ-ent approaches in designing

effective penalty mechanisms. As proposed, either the Eu-ropean Central Bank by itself, the European Court of Justice, the European Commission or simply a 2/3 majority (instead of unanimity) of member state votes should be able to fine or sanction those that violate the stability criteria.

Additionally, more em-phasis will be put on budget discipline and enforcing aus-terity means in the future. In this context the member states introduced the ‘Treaty on Sta-bility, Coordination and Gov-ernance in the Economic and Monetary Union’, or simply the Fiscal Compact, which builds upon the Maastricht criteria. It has been developed in the con-text of the Sovereign Debt crisis and certainly puts European in-tegration on a new level. Some even consider it to be a natural development in the direction of a joint Europe. And admit-tedly, the new Fiscal Compact makes clear that European of-ficials have learned from what was agreed upon in Maastricht 20 years ago. 20 years is already a long time and there is enough evidence to believe that a lot more will follow.

Author: Hendrik Borgaes Third Year IBE Student

30 THE SCOPE - 02/2012

EconomicAffairs

Now what if some-body tries to trade goods without any money in our

Western society? Does that even work in a world full of financial crises and with peo-ple having their mind set on money? Michael Wigge, a 36-year old author and journalist, accepted the challenge and travelled through all five con-tinents to barter his apple for other goods with the aim to own a house on Hawaii after a period of 6 months. He made a deal with a German TV-channel that would pay for his travel expenses and would also televise his video diary. His job was to travel through the world and report about the

different trading cultures while trading goods until he owned a house on Hawaii, all within a period of 200 days.

Wigge starts off in Mainz, Germany with an apple which was worth 79 cents. He soon trades his ap-ple with a person walking by who gives him cigarettes in exchange for the apple. Wigge then exchanges the cigarettes for a book and so on. Travel-ing around in Germany, he visits a prison and a so-called barter-business to learn more about trading without involv-ing money. Concerning the prison, it becomes clear that prisoners swap little things they own to make life easier. But what are barter-business-

es? Barter-businesses basically accept products as an alterna-tive way of paying. The prod-ucts will then be sold to other businesses in order to acquire the monetary value. Managers who work in such firms mostly have good knowledge of niche markets where they can sell the products at higher prices. Michael Wigge’s next stop is a barter community near the Bodensee in Germany where they also accept another way of paying: People might pay for their groceries in ‘talents’. Ten talents correspond with one labor hour, meaning that a table, for example, that needs four hours of production, can be sold for 40 talents. Basically, this means that people either

When trading in an economic sense, money plays an important role- if not THE most important role. A sufficient amount of money gets you everything, everywhere, at any time. In a world without money, the whole economy would not function the way it does now. It may be that money makes trading easier- dragging your vegetables to the supermarket to get a loaf of bread is not the most convenient way of trading after all. Yet, there are some places in the world where exchanging goods without money is still a common thing: soldiers at war for instance or people who do not own money themselves trade on a daily basis.

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E c o n o m i c A f f a i r s

pay with euros, talents or work for the corresponding number of hours for the seller of the good.

One positive aspect of paying with talents is that it helps smaller local shops to survive big national competitors.

After travelling through Germany and paying quick visits to Austria and Switzer-land, Wigge makes his way to India. He exchanges the goods he brought with him from Switzerland for five ki-lograms of tea, which he then trades for a tuk-tuk (basically a three-wheeled open taxi), which he again swaps for silk. As silk has a higher value in Australia than in India, Wigge decides to continue his journey on the other half of the earth. Before leaving India, how-ever, he visits Asian’s largest slum -Dharavi- as trading is a big part of their daily lives. While walking through the

slum, Wigge meets a woman named Chandarei who has traded plastic bowls in return for second-hand clothes which she then sells for money for 40 years. Watching Chanda-rei, Wigge learns that looking dissatisfied with the offer helps get the best out of the deal.

Having experienced the slum of India, Michael Wigge travels to Australia to trade his valuable silk. Having some problems exchanging the silk, he chooses to pay a short visit to the Principality of Hutt River. Some time ago, an Aus-tralian decided to create his own state because he did not agree with Australian politi-cians. He set up signs at the borderline of his plot (which has the size of Hong Kong), saying that one is now entering the Principality of Hutt River and named himself Prince Leonard. Prince Leonard even declared war on Australia with his army of five soldiers when Australia told him to dissolve the state.

Before leaving Aus-tralia, Wigge exchang-es the Indian silk for a huge crocodile paint-ing made by aborigines.

He then leaves Australia to fly to New Zealand in or-der to trade jade. Wigge needs jade as the American billion-aire Jim Rogers promised to trade some goods if he brings him jade. Finally in possession of jade, Wigge takes the plane to Singapore to attend the meeting with the billionaire. Rogers gives him three ounces of gold and three ounces of sil-ver, in total worth more than 5000 US-dollars, in return for the jade.

Having been in Europe, Asia and Oceania, Africa is next on the list. Tanzania seems to be the country that is best suited for exchanging his goods further. However, as Tanzania is a poor country, trading gold coins turns out to be rather difficult. Fortunately,

32 THE SCOPE - 02/2012

E c o n o m i c A f f a i r s

Wigge meets Hilde, a 50-year old German who migrated to Tanzania 25 years ago. Hilde established her own travel agency and exchanged the gold coins for a travel voucher which is worth 10 000 US-dollars.

Now with the American continent as the only one left and having increased the value of his possessions ten thou-sand times, Michael Wigge travels to Brazil. Arriving in Brazil, Wigge visits a little town called Pomerode, which is also known as the most Ger-man city in Brazil. Pomerode is situated in the South of Bra-zil and was founded in 1860 by German migrants. Funnily enough, the German culture of the 19th century basically stayed in Pomerode until to-day. Moreover, the vast majori-ty of its inhabitants are of Ger-man descent and are bilingual in German and Portuguese.

In this town Wigge trades a 300-year old bible and an ancient sundial he got in Ukraine (where he stopped before leaving for Brazil) for very valuable chinaware and a smartphone.

At last, Michael Wig-ge enters the US, possessing goods worth more than 10 000 US-Dollars. He first stops in New York City, but soon has to admit that people in New York are not very willing to trade. Thus, Michael Wigge decides to visit the burning-man fes-tival in Nevada where visitors

supposedly like to barter. Dur-ing the week of the festival, an artificial village is built in the middle of the desert. Over 50 000 visitors come to the mid-dle of nowhere to watch a 24 meter tall wooden man burn down. The barter community, however, is largely discouraged by the Burning Man Organi-zation.

Instead event par-ticipants are part of a gift community. Wigge, for instance, is offered two mountain bikes while he is there. Equipped with the two bikes and the rest of his possessions, Wigge drives back to San Fran-cisco and Los Angeles where he further barters some of his goods.

Eventually, Wigge leaves the US mainland with the fol-lowing ten possessions: three ounces of gold, a valuable set of chinaware from Brazil, a luxury watch from Porsche, an agreement with a singer to get 25 percent of the revenues of his next song, a painting, two mountain bikes, a disc, a surf-board and a voucher for a one night’s stay in L.A..

Arriving in Hawaii, Wigge calls a local radio sta-tion to ask if he could broad-cast his mission to make peo-ple aware of it. KWXX Radio, the largest radio station of the islands, agrees and a few hours later even the most important newspaper asks to feature an article about him. Through the article which appears on the front page of the local newspa-per, Jarred who is a real-estate

agent wants to help Wigge on his mission. He calls one of his clients who owns a thou-sand square meter piece of land. Meeting with th e client, Wigge exchanges half of his possessions for the lot. More than happy, Wigge finds out about another Hawaiian who builds mobile houses. The man builds houses on pickup trucks to avoid building permissions. Wigge finally trades the rest of his possessions for one of these mobile homes.

So this is it, after travel-ling for 200 days through 14 different countries, Michael Wigge reached his goal of owning a house on Hawaii. On his journey, he learned about different ways of bartering in prison, in the Indian slum or in professional barter com-munities like the one near the Bodensee. Apparently, it is not only the poor people who use bartering as a way of exchang-ing goods, but also people who have the money. Maybe bar-tering is even a way to break free from the pressure of al-ways wanting more and more money. Or maybe, bartering tells us that just owning money is not enough to be happy af-ter all. One example would be a person Wigge met in Portu-gal: He was an older man who had millions of Euros in his bank accounts and who owned everything one can image. Yet, he wanted to exchange goods with Wigge in order to expe-rience something one cannot just buy with money. After all, even in a world with money as an important medium of ex-change, bartering is still a part of today’s world. It may not be

THE SCOPE - 02/2012 33

E c o n o m i c A f f a i r s

practical or even possible to exchange everything without money. However, it is some-thing that lets you meet very interesting people, trains your bargaining skills and maybe even lets your dream become reality.

In the end, Michael Wigge made his dream come true. It was not always easy, but if one keeps trying, a lot of goals are reachable. And if your dream is going to Ha-

waii for a couple weeks as well you may even stay in Wigge’s house in exchange for a new piece of furniture or new wall paint. Furthermore, part of the reasons why he went on this journey was to inspire people to follow their own dreams.

So now it is up to you to take the courage and

follow your dream!

Author: Kathrin WendtSecond Year IB Student

First of all ask yourself the question: How much do I value ethical policies of my future employer? Then the

next question should be: What do I know about ethics? At least for the second question, the SBE should give you a rough understanding. But does your study track include a real ethics course? Of course ethical principals are thought in several courses, but how much do you keep of this? Managers should participate in frauds or unethical behavior. But there are differences to align and to be proactive. How far should managers go? In the last decades, words like corporate social responsibility and corporate envi-ronmental responsibility emerged. Firms should take a more proactive stand instead of just align with laws

and principals. How you value the ethical and social behavior of your future employer is up to you, but it is important to understand the basics.

In its famous 1970s ar-ticle, Nobel Prize winner Milton Friedman clarified that the social responsibility of business is to in-crease its profits. Companies are no experts on charity and envi-ronmental protection and should therefore focus on increase profits for their shareholders, what they are experts in. Shareholders, the legal owners of the company, use their money much more effective for social contributions, because they might be experts in these fields. So if an owner of a charity organization owns share in a com-pany, he makes much more use

of the returns than the company. Therefore it makes intuitively sense to provide shareholders with high returns. Efforts undertaken by the firm to contribute to the society are only long-term strategies leading to increased profits. Firms contribute to social programs because of repu-tation, marketing or PR and conse-quently to increase their profits.

Friedman`s argumentation is hard to disprove, especially the part regarding firms` intentions of contribution. It leads to the conclu-sion that it doesn’t matter which employer to choose, since they all care about their profits only. But Friedman`s logic has some weak parts. First of all he never defines a time frame. Of course you could take efforts which result in in-creased profits and interpret an

Who cares about the ethics? When you start searching for a job, what are the most important criteria for you? As a student you are probably happy to get an internship in a well known company, not only preparing PowerPoint slides and coffee. If the internship is even abroad and it’s paid, everything is fine! But did you ever consider choosing a company due to its corporate culture? What about their ethical policies? Are these things important for you? Would you wish to receive more information about this topic in your study track? Let`s face some ethics questions and see that there are firms not only working for the profit line. And maybe face the questions which value you want to add to the society!

34 THE SCOPE - 02/2012

Association Reports

Our association repre-sents seven Interna-tional Business (IB) and International

Business Economics (IBE) study directions: Management/Organisation - Marketing - Strategy - Information Man-

agement - Supply Chain Man-agement - Entrepreneurship.The board and its active mem-bers organize several academic

about: Welcome to SCOPE | 3MA! We are one of the study associations for students of the School of Business and Economics (SBE) of Maastricht University. One of our main goals is to bridge the gap between students and their future employers. SCOPE | 3MA brings theory into practice and stimulates students to develop themselves by organizing several professional activities. We have a close connection with the Department of Marketing and Supply Chain Management and the Department of Organizations and Strategy of SBE. Thanks to the good relationship between SCOPE | 3MA and the SBE, events of high quality are guaranteed.

intention. But some social and eco-logical efforts are never rewarded and firms simply act out of good intentions.

In terms of Friedman`s logic, there are firms which do not follow their responsibilities. So as the out-door clothing company Patagonia does. Founded by the rock climber Yvon Chouinard in 1972, Patago-nia gives itself an environmental focus instead of a growth target. The company contributes 10% of profits or 1% of sales (whatever is more), to environmental projects. To protect the environment, prod-ucts are made out of ecological friendly products only. On every product is a long warranty up to 10 years, in which Patagonia always tries to repair instead of replace your product. This is a unique ap-proach bearing a lot of effort for the firm.

You are probably much more sensitive to the enforcement of la-

bor right. Unfortunately strong la-bor rights are no standard around the world. We are not talking about right of termination. In some coun-tries employees work under worst health conditions, long time for only a few Euros a day. Firms like Apple outsource their production and responsibility. Of course it is the Apple supplier Foxconn which forces its employees to work long overtimes for a few bucks only to finish the newest Ipod, not Apple! 80 hours per week overtime are known numbers. When the suicide rate became too high, employees were contracted not to harm or kill themselves anymore. With a mark-up record of nearly 100% on their products, Apple is not very sensi-tive on production costs.

How do these behaviors af-fect you? Of course you could ar-gue that they are necessary to make your products cheap. To silence you conscience you say to your-

self: others would do the same or these employees are better off than working for a domestic company. Maybe, but doesn’t this behavior send a certain message to other employees? Doesn’t this behavior put a certain pressure on you as an employee? Next time when looking for a job, maybe ask yourself which company and policies you want to represent and how much employ-ees are valued.

Author: Mike LangenThird Year IB Student

THE SCOPE - 02/2012 35

A s s o c i a t i o n R e p o r t s

and career events throughout the year. These professional events are a perfect opportu-nity for students to show their talent to potential future em-ployers and to experience more of the practical side of their studies. Next to that, SCOPE | 3MA publishes the 3Magazine two times a year. The magazine informs students and compa-nies about interesting topics concerning the business world. SCOPE | 3MA is also a mem-ber of the Marketing Associatie Nederland (MAN). The main objective of this asso-ciation is to create a platform for

all students interested in mar-keting and studying marketing in the Netherlands. The MAN has three main activities: the Nationale Marketing Strijd, the Dutch Marketing Thesis Award

and the Marketing Internship Network. If you are interested in becoming active at SCOPE | 3MA write a mail to info@scope-3ma.nl or visit our web-site for more information.

www.scope-3ma.nl

Contact: info@scope-3ma.nl

Office Phone: (+31) (0) 43 3 88 39 21

Visiting address:SCOPE | 3MA

Tongersestraat 43Room 0.011 & 1.0126211 LM Maastricht

Postal address:SCOPE | 3MA

Maastricht UniversityP.O. Box 616

6200 MD Maastricht

The portfolio we offer consists of interest-ing activities such as guest lectures, work-

shops, career days, conferences, company visits and city trips. We also offer a skills course in form of a two-week excursion to a foreign country, which is offi-cially included in the curriculum of the university. In Skills Period 2 of academic year 2011-2012 we went to Dublin and London for two

weeks to visit well-known orga-nizations like Google, The Bank of England and Impax Asset Management. Moreover, we or-ganize social activities for active members as well as for students in general and publish a mem-bers’ magazine biannually.

If you are interested in becom-ing active at SCOPE | Eco-nomics write an email to info@scope-economics.nl or visit our website for more information.

www.scope-economics.nl

Contact: info@scope-economics.nl

Office Phone:

(+31) (0) 43 3 88 20 34

Visiting address:SCOPE | Economics

Tongersestraat 43Room 1.015

6211 LM Maastricht

Postal address:SCOPE | EconomicsMaastricht University

P.O. Box 6166200 MD Maastricht

SCOPE | Economics, the former IES Network, aims at enhancing the student life next to the curriculum of studying Economics, International Economic Studies, Infonomics or Economic and Financial Research, but of course our activities are open for everybody with a general interest in Economics. Our goal is to organize academic, social and career-enhancing activities that suit the particular interests of our student base.

about:

36 THE SCOPE - 02/2012

A s s o c i a t i o n R e p o r t s

For example in Skills Period 2 of academ-ic year 2011-

2012 we organized a two-week study trip to Hong Kong as part of the faculty ’s curriculum and in close coopera-tion with the Depart-ment of Finance.

All activities of SCOPE | FOCUS are organized by students on a voluntary basis, providing them with an excellent opportunity to acquire hands-on experience, work in a team and communicate with firms in organiz-ing events. Moreover,

the association pub-lishes the INFOCUS magazine on a quarter-ly basis, which covers ‘hot topics’ in the field of finance and account-ing. Beside all this, SCOPE | FOCUS also arranges social events, in order to bring to-gether its approximate-ly 1200 members and a vast number of sup-porting alumni.

If you are interest-ed at becoming active at SCOPE | FOCUS write a mail to info@scope-focus.nl or visit our website for more information.

The financial study association SCOPE | FOCUS represents finance, accounting and controlling students. Our aim is to bridge the gap between theory and practice by organizing activities in cooperation with firms, such as company visits, study trips, workshops, congresses and recruitment events.

about:

www.scope-focus.nl

Contact: info@scope-focus.nl

Office Phone: (+31) (0) 43 3 88 37 79

Visiting address:SCOPE | FOCUSTongersestraat 43

Room 0.012 & 2.0126211 LM Maastricht

Postal address:SCOPE | FOCUS

Maastricht UniversityP.O. Box 616

6200 MD Maastricht

THE SCOPE - 02/2012 37

A s s o c i a t i o n R e p o r t s

SCOPE SCOPE | Vectum also has its own magazine, the PerVectum. It

is published quarterly and provides Econometri-cians in Maastricht with interesting academic ar-ticles and event and study abroad reports. There is the yearly Vectum Congress, an event at which a certain discipline within Econo-metrics is paid some more attention. The day is filled with lectures, a panel dis-cussion and cases. Further-more we organize several in-house days and at least once a year a Business trip to a business capital, where we visit well-known com-panies and organizations.

Additionally, SCOPE | Vectum is part of LOES, the national association for all Econometrics stu-dents, and in cooperation with LOES we offer the LED as a large recruiting event every year. Finally, we provide a platform on this page for companies

to promote open posi-tions and for students to browse through interest-ing companies. Are you studying Econometrics & Operations Research? Get to know SCOPE | Vectum at the (free!) Vectum BBQ on the 4th of September 2012!

www.scope-vectum.nl

Contact: info@scope-vectum.nl

Office Phone: (+31) (0) 43 3 88 39 40

Visiting address:SCOPE | VectumTongersestraat 43

Room 1.0146211 LM Maastricht

Postal address:SCOPE | Vectum

Maastricht UniversityP.O. Box 616

6200 MD Maastricht

about:

SCOPE | Vectum, short for Verenigde Econometristen uit Maastricht, is the study association for all students in the field of Econometrics and Operations Research at SBE. Founded in 1994 SCOPE | Vectum now has about 170 members, including a rising number of foreign students. Our association is actually growing a lot lately because of the increasing flow of first year students. Throughout the year, SCOPE | Vectum organizes a broad range of activities. The range of activities covers academic events, such as research lectures or the Vectum Congress, as well as social events, such as a poker, skiing and the Members Weekend. SCOPE | Vectum works in close cooperation with the department of Quantitative Economics on the evaluation and further development of the study program Econometrics.

38 THE SCOPE - 02/2012

CommitteeReports

On the 3rd of March 2012 we headed out for our SCOPE study trip to Mi-

lan, Italy´s most prominent and absolutely beautiful fashion metropolis. It was early in the morning when we arrived at the Milan Malpensa Airport, where we were already greeted with the warm, sunny weather we all hoped for. A short ride on the train and a short walk and we arrived at our nice hostel located in the north of the city. Then it was time to create the groups for the famous city game and off we went to explore Milan and all its beauty and charisma. Af-ter the city game everyone had some free time until we met in the late afternoon for our group dinner at a lovely, cosy restau-rant near the hostel, where we ate a deli- cious assortment

of Pizzas. Then it was time to head back to the hostel to refresh and revitalize ourselves for the upcoming club-bing event at La Banque, an old bank subsidiary refurbished and redecorated to emerge as an awesome night club. As we expected, the

night was pretty intense and we were therefore grateful that the next day´s activity, visiting the famous Milan Duomo, was scheduled at noon, leaving us enough time to recover. Again, we were lucky that the weather was playing along and we were presented a beautiful view from the roof of the Duomo, where we enjoyed ourselves and made plans for the rest of the day. After having delicious ice cream together, the group split up and everyone had time to en-joy the city on their own.

Monday started quite ear-ly as we had to leave the hostel at 8.30 to make it in time to our first company visit at Dell Mi-lan. There we got a short intro-duction to the company, Dell’s office in Milan and a lively pre-sentation by a very committed sales manager, who was really happy to explain to us how the company works, how it sets it-self apart from competitors and what the culture of the company is like. The presentation was re-ally interactive and he would answer every single question extensively so that most of us felt motivated to engage in a lively discussion. Afterwards, a human resource manager ex-plained internship and job op-portunities at Dell Milan. In the early afternoon, we left Dell and everyone had free time to

go shopping in the city cen-tre, with all its famous flagship stores of the biggest fashion labels in the world. Of course, Abercrombie & Fitch was not to be missed and especially the girls enjoyed the visit, not only because of the handsome staff that greets you at the entrance. In the evening, it was again time for a group dinner, this time at a more fancy restaurant where we got a nice menu with starters, main dish and a yummy des-sert. On our last day, we had our second company visit at CBRE Global Investors, former ING Real Estate Investment Man-agement and the world´s largest commercial real estate services firm with total assets of 7.2 bil-lion dollars (2011) under man-agement. We were picked up at our hostel by a bus sent from the company that took us to a Carrefour shopping centre out-side Milan, which was owned and managed by CBRE. There we got a very interesting and insightful presentation about their business by Italy´s head as-

Year Report: Study-Trip Committee

by Gerrit Stöckmann

about:

The Study Trip Committee

plans city trips to various loca-

tions all around Europe. These

trips usually last 3-4 days and

aim to give students the op-

portunity to get to know a new

city. But besides sightseeing

and having fun there is also

an educational aspects to the

trips. The participants will have

the chance to meet interesting

people in their working envi-

ronment and learn about their

responsibilities at different com-

pany visits.

For Questions:

studytrip@scope-maastricht.nl

set manager followed by Italy´s CFO/COO, who presented a small financial case. Afterwards, we had a tour around the prem-ises and had an extensive lunch together with the staff at one of the restaurants in the shopping centre. In the late afternoon, we finished our visit to the compa-ny and the bus took us back to our hostel and eventually to the airport. We arrived in Maas-tricht at around midnight.

Together with our first study trip to Amsterdam and the study trip to Milan in March our last study trip to Barcelona in June marked the end of aca-demic year 2011-2012. Study Trips are truly unique experi-ences, where lots of stories were born and friendships made.

40 THE SCOPE - 02/2012

C o m m i t t e e R e p o r t s

However, this year the edu-cation com-mittee was

given a few extra tasks, the biggest of which was the complete re-vamp of the SCOPE study material database. The old study material database was still in the name of EFM Academy (SCOPE’s predeces-sor) with many summa-ries outdated and many exam books incomplete. As such students were invited to sell their sum-maries to SCOPE in an effort to gather the best summaries. Though the study material database

has improved signifi-cantly, as can been seen by the vast number of nearly 5000 downloads in 2012 only, there is still major room for improve-ment as not all study tracks are covered and summaries for third year courses are far and few between. The success of the new study material database was not only major achievement the committee obtained.

We are happy to an-nounce that this year we organized and provided more extra tutorials and exam trainings than ever before, in total 42 extra tutorials and 29 exam

trainings as compared to 41 and 21 respectively during the last year. In addition, the Soft Skills Days, which were held in November, resulted in all but one workshop being filled. In fact the demand for certain workshops, like the PowerPoint Training, was so high that they were offered again.

This success can be attributed to the educa-tion committee having a well organized and hard-working academic activi-ties coordinator and ac-tives that are dedicated and always coming up with new ideas.

Year Report: Education Committee

by Carmen Gassmann

With another academic year coming to an end, we as the education committee can safely say our job is done. As in previous years, this year we were responsible for all academic related events on behalf of SCOPE Maastricht such as the organization of extra tutorials, extensive exam trainings, soft skills days and many study choice events - be it the study choice information day for f irst year economics students or the major information day for second year bachelor students.

about: To access our study material database go to www.scope-maastricht.nl and login with your Student ID and the same password you use for EleUM and MyUM. If your membership is valid you will be able to access the study material section. All summaries are written by students for students - so no rights can be derived from them! If you are in possession of high-quality summaries or old exams, offer them to SCOPE - for excellent work we grant a generous financial compensation

For Questions: education@scope-maastricht.nl

THE SCOPE - 02/2012 41

C o m m i t t e e R e p o r t s

by Sonja Ehrengruber & Alex Celer

As the academic year is drawing to a close, it is time to look back and reflect on the social events we have organised. The first half of the year proved to be a great success with many events, and we wanted to continue this through to the second half of the year.

Starting off in period three, our first event was the Neon party at the Il Cavo. The idea behind

this was for everybody to come dressed in white and get paint-ed in fluorescent neon colours, which illuminated the Il Cavo under the black light.

Next up, on the Party-lovers calendar, was Waste your Tuesday at the Nox. This party had a candy theme, whereby we handed out candy and ice pop-sicles to crazy party-goers. This party was a great success and quickly a sell-out, going on until the early hours of the morning.

After all this outrageous partying, it was time to have another movie night! To decide which movie we were going to show, we put the decision down to the students of the SBE by setting up a facebook poll. The poll included 17 movies for ex-ample Hangover 2 and Black swan, but the highest voted movie was The Dark Knight.

Finally, since the boat party last year was such a great success, we decided it would be great to host the Boat party 2012! Tickets for the event were sold out within two days, which forecasted an awesome party. The party started at 8pm with every guest receiving a compli-mentary drink and a sailor hat to fit with the theme. The boat departed at 9pm and set sail along the Maas to Belgium and returned to the docks at 1am.

The atmosphere was great and the feedback received was very positive so keep your eyes peeled for the Boat party 2013!

Overall, the social com-mittee had great year organising all the events for the students of the SBE and we hope to see you all again next year! Don’t forget the Foundation event on 20th June at the SBE, which is in cooperation with all the scope committees. WHOOP WHOOP!

Year Report: Social Committee

about: Socializing is an important part of student life. It is not all about drinking, but getting to know your fellow students and having a good time. The Social Committee of SCOPE Maastricht organizes block parties and social events, such as the ‘Waste your Tuesday’, Pub Quizzes, the traffic light parties, the Winterball or the Boat Party. The committee also organizes fun activities for the active members, so dinners, barbecues etc.

For Questions: events@scope-maastricht.nl

42 THE SCOPE - 02/2012

CommitteeReports

And off we go! On time we left Maastricht on the 12th of May 2012 to ex-perience THE legendary

trip to Budapest. Naturally, as we en-tered the bus that took us to the air-port in Cologne, each and every single one of us had some expectations for the upcoming week that we were al-most sure would be surpassed. And that is what happened…

Germanwings had the honour to take 34 SBE students to the beautiful capital city of Hungary. Shortly after arrival, we were ready to officially start - what we know to do best - drinking and partying! With the whole group we began our march towards the well known bar Szimpla. The night with the group in the Szimpla was indeed very amusing as we had the chance to get to know each other a little better while having drinks and dancing. It ended not too late as everyone seemed to be tired and knew that a long day was awaiting us tomorrow.

The city game it was - that was waiting for us on Saturday morning at 10 o’clock in the breakfast

lounge. The group of 34 was split into six small sized groups, who were to spend the day together to ex-plore Budapest town with the

famous city game. The lovely weather was underlining the excitement - although one might complain that it was a little too hot - and we were all prepared to WIN this game. The city game was undoubtedly an optimal and fun way of exploring a previously unknown city. We were

able to see all major attractions, in-cluding the Parliament and the Castle Hill, and the most beautiful districts in one single day.

On Sunday we mainly recov-ered from our excessive partying the night before and tried to save some energy for our upcoming trip to Vi-enna the next morning. Most of us skipped breakfast in order to get at least a few more minutes of sleep be-fore heading to our first company visit, the Central Bank of Hungary. In our fancy suits, freshly polished shoes and high heels and equipped with a coffee to go, we could have gone directly to Wall Street. We were given a presen-tation on financial stability by former UM graduates. For those who already had finished the Finance course, it was quite interesting, however, some of the first year students were rather a little bit overchallenged. Just a few hours later we met again for dinner. We went to a restaurant that offered only traditional Hungarian food. Af-ter dinner most of us went directly to the hotel because we had to get up at around 5 o’clock the next morning.

Yaaawwwwn! We all got up bright and early on Monday to take the 6 o‘clock train to Vienna. After 3 hours on the train we arrived in the beautiful Austrian capital and ex-plored the city by foot. This way ev-eryone could range over the city at their own pace. In the evening we all met at the famous ”Figlmüller” to eat Wiener Schnitzel, the renowned spe-cialty of Vienna. Here we all had the chance to enjoy a nice meal together and exchange stories about our Vi-enna adventures.

With huge expectations to our second company visit the Tuesday be-

gan quite early as well. The visit at PwC, which lasted for around two hours, was very informative and fully met our expec-tations. We got to meet employees from a variety of departments, i.e. au-diting, consulting, tax advisory, legal and human resources. The employees informed us primarily about their dai-ly tasks and duties. In addition, they answered a huge amount of questions raised by the students ranging from employee career paths to detailed questions regarding the challenges in the audit industry. In the afternoon, most students went to the famous Szechenyi Baths to relax and enjoy the sunny and warm weather. This thermal bath with its long history is located in a huge historic building with hot and cold baths inside and outside. The day ended with a dinner at the Hard Rock Café Budapest and a long walk next to the Danube, where we enjoyed Budapest by night.

On Wednesday the whole group went to the top of the Gellert Hegy, a hill overlooking Budapest, and we were exposed to a magnifi-cent, photo worthy view, showcasing the entire city framed by the Danube. Before exploiting Budapest’s amaz-ing yet inexpensive nightlife, we met up with our partner study association FAKT from Corvinus University of Budapest. Not only did we have some nice Italian food but we also enjoyed ourselves while having lots of wine and cocktails. The night ended in the Moulin Rouge, a well-known, more elegant club in Budapest.

On Thursday, we visited the beautiful and impressive Corvinus University of Budapest and had the

Year Report: Foreig-Trip Committee

by Mariam Osouli & Philip Rangelow

Year Report: Foreig-Trip Committee

opportunity to visit some of the lecture halls, study association

rooms as well as the library. Later in the afternoon the group enjoyed

a cruise on the Danube and learned about the different historical and sce-

nic backgrounds of the two parts of Budapest, Buda and Pest, which are separated by the Danube. The highlight of the cruise was the one-hour stay on Margaret Island, a 2.5 km long island in the middle of the Danube. We ex-plored the island by bike. It was a lot of fun, especially when the different groups met each other and started little races all over the island! Even though we had a long day, we still went out for partying also this night in a club play-ing music like the good old ‘Alla’ does, so fun was pre-programmed!

Our very last day ended with a company visit at the Research and De-velopment Centre of Ericsson. After a frictionless flight to Cologne airport and a smooth bus ride to Maastricht, our wonderful trip came to an end! Even though we were tired due to all the sightseeing and partying, every-one was sad to be back home and to continue the daily routine of student life (which approached week 6…!). We all agreed upon the fact that this foreign trip was an amazing expe-rience, which lead to many shared memories and new-formed friend-ships! We were all already looking forward to the upcoming Preuverij drinks and the “Reunion”- meeting to have some drinks together and talk about the good old times in Bu-dapest!

about: The Foreign Trip Committee plans a one-week trip to Europe or other continents. The goal is to enrich the student’s life with combined academic and social activities. We want to give students the opportunity to get to know a new country and culture and visit companies to broaden their insight into the business world. Students can get to know their possibilities within the working field and find out more about their future job interests. For Questions: foreigntrip@scope-maastricht.nl

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EconomicAffairs

Please tell us something about your personal and academic background

I am Martijn van Cauteren, born in Venlo in 1987. I was raised in Beesel, a small village in Limburg, and followed secondary education at B.C. Broekhin in Roermond.

In 2005/2006 I enrolled in the Bachelor of Economics program at SBE. Next to Strategy I majored in Supply Chain Management. During that time a friend from my Student Association KoKo invited me to join the 3MA Maastricht Consultancy Day 2007 as External Affairs commissioner. Although I realized that this would be a time- and energy-consuming task, I made one of the better decisions in my life by joining the study association 3MA. Not only did we have a blast with the board and active members in that year, the experience from or-ganizing such an event contributed significantly to my personal and professional development. After-wards, I joined the 3MA Congress 2008 and the board of 2008/2009 (second half ) and 2009/2010 (first half ) as External Affairs com-missioner. Meanwhile the Supply Chain Management courses got

me really interested resulting into my application for the Supply Chain Man-agement track of the International Business Master, which I com-pleted successfully in March 2011. Halfway through my Master studies I participated in the Talent-Quest business course. This collective business course was organized to represent four companies, including SABIC. Through the

business course I already got a good first impression of the company and led to an interview for a graduation project at the SABIC Supply Chain Europe department. Currently, 4 out of 24 participants in the busi-ness course project are working at SABIC. The successful graduation project was my ticket in to SABIC, where I am currently employed.

What is your role at SABIC in Sit-tard?

Polymers is one of six busi-ness units within SABIC. I am em-ployed at the Polymer Supply Chain Europe department and, more specifically, in the Supply Chain Improvements team. As a Supply Chain Engineer I am, together with a team of seven colleagues, leading and/or taking part in a number of improvement projects related to our Supply Chain. These projects vary from Supply Network Design stud-ies and implementations to ERP system optimizations to on-site lo-gistics improvement projects.

What is your current project you are working at?

One of our major projects at this moment is the development of a new warehouse in Tallinn, Estonia in collaboration with a third party logistics provider. This warehouse will operate next to our existing warehouses, to which we import material from Saudi Arabia in or-der to serve the Russian and former CIS market.

What experiences have you made at SABIC and how would you describe the working environment?

In my past two years I have had the opportunity to learn a lot, both within the department in Sit-tard, but also during various ac-tivities elsewhere. I have visited our major production sites in Geleen, Gelsenkirchen and Bergen op Zoom, partly during a very inter-esting four-day course in which we learned what polymers are all about, how they are made and where they end up. Furthermore, I have been able to travel quite a bit already. I have been to the Baltic States for a week when we were working on our business case. Later, we went for another week to Tallinn in order to select an adequate service provider and we visited Moscow for a week, in order to gather market specific logistics intelligence.

Of course there is much more to traveling, such as collaborating on projects with our Saudi col-leagues in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, via the various telecommunication technologies available today. Last but not least, there are many expe-rienced colleagues around, who all have a lot of knowledge and experi-ence to share. Some of them have been working for 20, 30 or even 40 years within SABIC in the field of Supply Chain Management.

At SABIC there is a diversi-fied and open culture with people representing many nationalities, backgrounds and interests. Due to the international market and the large scale of production applicable to our industry you get in touch with warehouses, sales offices and

About SABIC An interview with two SBE alumniInterview with Martijn van Cauteren

Martijn van cauteren, Supply chain Engineer

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colleagues located throughout Eu-rope. Working at SABIC means that you are expected to ‘get the job done’ at the end of the day, but meanwhile develop yourself, work on your future and socialize with colleagues and be part of a fun de-partment.

Looking back at your time at SBE, how well did the study programs really prepare you for business life?

I was surprised how many of the aspects of the SBE study pro-grams you will actually apply later on when you start working. Both, course content as well as general concepts, such as working in teams, the tech-niques of approaching problems via the PBL system and discussion leadership skills are very valuable in a business setting. After the first one or two study periods students often discuss the famous 7-jump in a con-descending way. However, there are many aspects and concepts at the root of the 7-jump, which will turn out useful later on.

What advice would you give students who are starting at SBE this year?

Studying at Maastricht al-ready gives you quite some advantag-es when you start applying for a job in a few years time: The study period abroad, the problem-based learning system and all the many presenta-tions you are about to perform. Do not underestimate their value! Addi-tional activities, whether it is within a Student Association, a Study As-sociation or something completely else, will add a lot to you as a person and as a professional. Last but not least, make sure you do not forget to enjoy the student life Maastricht has to offer!

How exactly did you find your way to SABIC?

As described, I got into con-tact with SABIC via the Talent-Quest business course followed by a graduation project. A graduation project within a company is not something the SBE promotes ac-

tively, but in my opinion it adds value to a thesis and provides you with an excellent opportunity to gain work-ing experience.

Finding your way to SABIC is a bit harder compared to finding your way to other companies due to the ‘B2B’ nature of the business. Also, SABIC is a relatively young company, which only took over part of the well-known DSM in 2002. SABIC however has a lot to offer for young and ambitious graduates, comparable to other multinationals in the Netherlands and abroad.

What kind of academic qualifications and skills are necessary to work for SABIC?

As with all large companies there are many qualifications and skills, which will aid you during a career at SABIC. Some skills are job related, some are related to the re-gion where you will be employed and others depend on your ambitions. However, considering the diverse

culture and the multi-national aspect of our work at SABIC it is definitely important to develop adequate so-cial skills and proper knowledge of the English language. Most impor-tant however will be the eagerness to learn, develop and work together with others in order to contribute to the company, its image, professional-ism and results.

What are your future career plans? Considering the great plea-

sure I have in working within the Supply Chain Europe Department I would like to follow up on my career within this field of business. How-ever, SABIC allows employees to switch jobs frequently, enabling one to experience different jobs and re-sponsibilities. SABIC is definitely a great example of a company, which allows you to pursue an extensive career, both, across departments or specifically within a field of interest. Who knows where I will end up?! (laughs)

The Saudi Basic Industries Corporation, headquartered in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of chemicals, fertilizers, plastics and metals. SABIC supplies these materials to other companies, who use them to make products on which the world has come to depend. In Europe SABIC employs over 6,000 professionals and is running six world-scale production sites and four technology & innovation centers. Being present in almost every European country, major locations can be found in Teesside (UK), Cartagena (Spain), Gelsenkirchen (Germany), Sittard-Geleen (The Netherlands), Bergen op Zoom (The Netherlands) and Genk (Belgium).

The essence of SABIC is about powering ambition: Through what we do and how we do it, we power the ambitions of our customers, the society in which we operate, our business partners and our employees. Our focus lays on our customers’ success at the heart of what we do, grounded in a deep understanding of what customers want and what we can offer them. To achieve this we strongly invest in our most important asset – our employees.

SABIC is proud sponsor of SCOPE Maastricht as of 2012. Find more information online.

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Please tell us something about your personal and academic background

My name is Sjoerd Zuidema. Being 32 years of age, I live in Stein with my wife and two kids. I have earned a Bachelor degree in Busi-ness Economics and a Master de-gree in Business Administration. During my professional career I started my MBA at the School of Business and Economics and I graduated in July 2009.

What is your role at SABIC in Sit-tard?

I occupy the position of the Customer Service Manager in the European Supply Chain Manage-ment Team and, as such, account-able for the customer service strat-egy definition and implementation in a professional, cost effective and safe way. As CS Manager I manage the Customer Service department including 6 direct reports and about 45 indirect reports. The geographic scope of Supply Chain Polymers Europe consists of 4 manufactur-ing sites, 20 production plants and 8 polymer hubs across Europe.

What experiences have you made at SABIC and how would describe the

working environment? I have been working at SAB-

IC since 2002, when I started at the Accounts Receivable department. After 9 months I was asked to join a project where the European sales and distribution flows of materials produced in KSA where integrated into the European organization and ERP system. In this project I learned a lot about project management and knowledge systems. Afterwards, I joined the Systems & Projects de-partment within Finance, where we worked on a lot company-wide projects with a primary focus on improving our processes in SAP. It was also in this role when I expe-rienced my first line management responsibilities as Manager Systems & Projects. Working in projects brought me into contact with a lot of other departments and processes, such as Supply Chain Management.

From Finance I moved to Supply Chain Management in 2008 and started to work as a Demand Chain Coordinator. A Demand Chain Coordinator acts as a link-ing pin and gatekeeper on behalf of SCM towards Business Man-agement, Sales, Technical Market-ing, Production, Site Logistics, and

Control. Backbone of the coordina-tion activities is building a demand plan that reflects actual and realistic customer demand as the main input in order to design a production plan and to investigate logistics capaci-ties.

After 9 months I was of-fered the opportunity to work as a Demand Manager, where I had line management responsibilities over a small group of Demand Chain Coordinators next to my own op-erational responsibilities as a fel-low Demand Chain Coordinator. For the position of Demand Chain Coordinator SABIC also recruits young academics. This would be their first or second step in their ca-reer. In my opinion the role of De-mand Chain Coordinator is ideal to experience the operations in detail and also to gain a broad perspective on SABIC and the different func-tions in the organization.

In January 2012 I changed to the position of Manager Customer Service. The Customer Service de-partment consists of around 50 col-leagues, where it is my responsibil-ity to make sure we all are heading into the same direction, which is to maximize customer satisfaction against competitive costs.

What are your future career plans?I have experienced many dif-

ferent positions in the 10 years I have been working at SABIC and these positions offered many op-portunities to climb upwards on the professional ladder. SABIC has a ‘no-nonsense’ culture in which hard work, pro-activity, enthusi-asm and ambition gives you ample opportunities to make interesting career steps and to gradually move towards positions that hold larger responsibilities. Let’s see what the future holds.

Sjoerd Zuidema, customer Service Manager

Interview with Sjoerd Zuidema