JULIE EXNER

For a long time I have known that CBS was the university I wanted to attend. I only chose the specific program about half a year before getting into CBS. My final choice was International Business even though I didn’t have the GPA for quota 1. In the first place I didn’t want to apply for IB as a lot of people told me things about the social life on IB was horrible. The rumours were that people only thought about themselves, good grades and a nice study job. This is however not my experience AT ALL. I would really like to stress the fact that I have never met so many ambitious and talented people who also have the energy and lust to help their fellow students. From the first day of the intro week I was assured that IB is a place for many different types of people.

When I started at IB I was used to being one of the best students in my class, but university is definitely way more challenging than anything else I have tried. To be honest I was quite surprised of the level of the education and I have to study in another way than before in order to understand what we are learning. Furthermore, it is quite different to study with so many people who are as ambitious as yourself and really care about their studies.

IB is quite an individual study program where you don’t have study groups (unless you make one) and you don’t really have group exams. We have quite a lot of sit in exams of 4 hours, some with limited aids. I find those with limited aids the most challenging as we at IB only have 7-8 weeks of a course because we have a quarter structure. Though, I’m very happy with the quarter structure as you only have 2 courses each quarter and we don’t have that many classes a week which makes it possible to have study job etc.

It has been quite difficult for me to balance between the studies, my job and friends. Sometimes I have definitely prioritized my job and friends before school which has resulted in some VERY stressful exam periods. I would say that it is essential to think about what you want to achieve from your studies and how you want to balance your study/work/social life.

I was pretty convinced that the professional aspect would be a bigger part of my time at CBS than the social, but I was wrong. One of the main reasons why I believe IB is the best program for me is because of the people I study with. There are plenty of opportunities to meet people regardless of class. We have different events both social and professional – and often a combination.