NICOLINE DAMSBO ANDERSEN

When I had to choose which program to study, I had a few things in mind:

• I wanted to study a program taught in English, as I find that it only opens doors and creates opportunities.
  I wanted to study within an international field, where my degree was transferable across national borders, during the studies, as well as after.
• For these reasons and because of my fascination of the global supply chain, International Shipping and Trade seemed as a fitting choice, as the industry of shipping is as international as it gets.

Then when I looked into details, I discovered the special structure of the program.

The program includes 2 mandatory features:

1. A semesters exchange at Texas A&M university or Singapore Management University.

2. Furthermore, the program includes an internship in a shipping related company for the last two semesters.

When I was finishing up high school, I was a bit tired of school, which is one of the reasons I believe that a more practical approach to learning is a great choice for me. Furthermore, I noticed how the CBS website describes the program as “specific”. This is definitely true, and you will have classes such as Maritime Economics and Maritime Law, which are special to the program. However, those who hold a bachelor’s degree in International Shipping and Trade will have the same opportunities of masters’ as a lot of other, less specific, programs, like International Business.

So yes it is specific, but you are provided with different directions afterwards.

For me, the most interesting about this program is that we get a lot of relevant information and knowledge about the industry.

Shipping is different from most of the other bachelor studies at CBS in a few ways, like earlier mentioned the exchange and internship but also the structure of our studies.

One of the hardest parts of studying shipping, in relation to other programs at CBS, is that the program is taught in quarters. This means that we have 4 modules of 2 courses at a time, which we conclude with exams 4 times during the year- in October, December, March and June. Naturally, this makes the lectures progress quickly and it will be easier to fall behind according to the curriculum. However, I find it nice to finish courses during the year, so you only have to focus intensively at two courses and exams at a time.

During the first year, I was surprised by a couple of things:

The size of the curriculum
There is a saying that in primary school you read pages, in high school you read chapters and in university you read books.
On average, the curriculum covers 30-40 pages per lecture. This can be a bit time-consuming and challenging at first, if you have never studied in English before, as the language is also academic. But it gets better pretty quickly. In my opinion, the academic content will be hard in any language at first, so learning it in English from the beginning is a great advantage, if you are hoping for an international career.

The number of mathematical courses
Even though it appears quite clear on the website that the program contains 50% mathematical related courses, I found that me and some of my fellow students, were surprised by the amount. Especially the first year contains numerical courses, which builds on high school math, such as microeconomics and statistics. At the end of the day, this is how it is for a lot of programs at CBS, in order to provide students with a base for learning. If you put in an effort, you can get through it.

Individual work
In opposition to a lot of other studies, we have almost no group work in this program. During the first year, it will only be individual exams and we are not given study groups, like in other studies. However, a lot of students choose to get together with others and do exercises for courses such as Microeconomics.