You study International Business Administration in Rotterdam for:
- RSM's excellent international reputation, proven by its frequent mentioning in global rankings, such as the Financial Times;
- its track record as an AACSB, EQUIS, and AMBA accredited business school;
- ts maximised return on investment for your career outlook.
Year 1: Discovering business
In the first year of your IBA programme, you will discover the world of business. You and your classmates will explore global business processes in the course Introduction to Business for an overview of the various areas in business: production, marketing, organisation, finance and information processes. Your business knowledge will quickly develop further in courses on organisational behaviour, marketing management, accounting, operations management, economics, business information management, and finance. In the organisational behaviour course, you’ll study consumer behaviour. And the course about operations management highlights primary processes within firms: product development, purchasing, sales, and production. Your research skills and knowledge will also strengthen in courses about quantitative decision methods, mathematics, statistics, and philosophy of science.
Professional development
Throughout the entire bachelor programme, you can follow a professional development track. This track offers training in goal setting, analytical thinking, academic writing, presentation and time management skills. You will need these skills when working in multicultural groups.
Business plan
In the second half of the first year you will be working on a business plan for a real firm. You will work with other students in small groups, and give a final presentation for an audience of colleagues and faculty members at the end of the year. For this, you will need the ability to operate in a team and communicate effectively.
Mentor programme
All first-year students will be assigned to a mentor group consisting of 16 students, supervised by a second-year IBA student. The aim of the mentor programme is to help you to settle into your new study environment.
Year 2: Exploring business
Business courses offered in the second year are leadership and society (dealing with ethics and sustainability), human resource management, innovation management, corporate finance, business law, supply chain management, organisational theory and development, technology management (with students from Delft University of Technology), management accounting, strategy, entrepreneurship, and business simulation. You will also conduct guided research in the research project, which includes methodology and advanced statistics. The professional development track stretches over the entire second year.
Year 3: Broaden your horizon and deepen your passion
In the final year of the programme you have lots of options: you can go in-depth in a field that you’re really interested in by choosing a minor, or broaden your knowledge and experience during an international exchange or an internship at a company. After this you must choose electives to obtain the total of 30 EC as part of this phase of the year.
The second half of the third year offers you a choice of one out of five tracks. The tracks each have their own character: you might focus on structures, or on finances or operations, or it can be more people-oriented, or about entrepreneurship and innovation. You will also follow a course on digital business and advanced research training, which will culminate in your bachelor thesis.
Extracurricular Activities & Events
RSM-STAR Case Society and Case Competitions
RSM’s International Office and RSM’s Study Organisation STAR jointly host the Case Society. In this Society students are trained to solve business cases. As a next step they can be selected for international case competitions, in which teams of four from business schools worldwide compete to solve challenging business cases. Once a year RSM hosts such a competition itself, and throughout the year RSM teams participate in competitions all over the world.