Volume 11, Number 3, 2002
Budding entrepreneurs, marketers and managers who want a first-class education in the international marketplace and are intrigued by Scandinavia can spend a semester at the Jönköping International Business School (JIBS) in Sweden, through an exchange program with UD. At JIBS, as the University's Center for International Studies web site says, students "can take business courses in English by day and gaze up at the northern lights by night."
More information is available at the JIBS web site, [http://www.ihh.hj.se/eng/].
Laura McGinnis, BE 2002, now a sales representative for Travelocity.com, discusses her semester in Sweden.
Q: Do you feel your semester at JIBS was a valuable experience?
A: My semester in Sweden was the most enlightening experience of my University career.
Aside from classes taught by world-renowned experts in their field, who were more often than not the authors of the books studied, I was taking classes with some of the brightest business minds in the world. The students who attend JIBS come from all over the world to study at Europe's premier institution for entrepreneurial studies.
I shared ideas and experiences with people from Japan to Germany, Nigeria to Lithuania, Mexico to Norway. I can think of no other place on Earth where you can huddle over an English newspaper and argue over the price of tea in China with a Bosnian who works for the Green Party in the Netherlands.
Living in Jönköping itself was an incredible experience. Swedes have extremely liberal laws when it comes to the land. As long as you do not destroy the environment, you can camp in a park, fish without a license or hike through a forest. This kind of liberty and freedom of the land gives Swedes a distinctly different outlook on life than Americans.
Q: Would you recommend the exchange program to B&E undergraduates?
A: I would definitely recommend JIBS to a junior (spring semester) or senior (fall semester). An exchange program gives you the freedom and ability to completely immerse yourself in a foreign culture. In the case of the JIBS exchange, its high international population--more than 10 percent of the student body--means multicultural immersion. The reason I recommend these semesters is because the course load and experience is at a graduate level, and seniors who are nearing graduation will benefit most from it.
Studying at JIBS is [also] about learning from and experiencing different people and cultures. Whether you are having fika (coffee break) with friends, shopping in Copenhagen or lying on the beach at Lake Vättern, there is a lot to enjoy.
Q: Could you describe your life there?
A: I had classes three to four days a week and spent my free time with friends in the community recreation center, Sockertoppen, featuring men's and women's sauna, pool table, kitchen, lounge and disco; in town at one of the many great cafés and restaurants; or hiking in the large park that was part of a housing complex called Råslätt. On weekends, it was not uncommon to take a trip to Göteborg (Gothenburg), Stockholm, Malmö, Copenhagen, Finland, Norway or mainland Europe.
The most unforgettable were the people at JIBS. I met many of my closest friends during my six months in Sweden, and many of us still keep in touch regularly.