Olivier van Hardenbroek van Ammerstol does not regret his decision to study Business

 

I think it was the sight of that grey-haired middle-aged man, in the light of the setting sun over the Kuala-Belait river in Brunei Darussalam (Borneo) lovingly inspecting two of his recently acquired 80-tonne, 2x 500 HP steel S-class pilot vessels that got me so inspired. 

 

Thinking back to my high school days at the United World College in Singapore, it's pretty easy for me to remember why I started studying Business. Back home in Brunei Darussalam, where my parents lived and worked, I met an entrepreneur who, to put it simply, borrowed US$2,000,000.00 and built two vessels which he intended to lease to the local oil companies in support of their marine operations. During the holidays, when I would come home from boarding school, a daily ritual evolved where, with a few cold beers in the cool box, he would tell me what he had learnt doing business that day. Struggling to survive at first, that same man now operates a multi-million dollar business throughout the Asia Pacific, in the meantime building his retirement home in his back yard… a disgustingly ostentatious and very cool 111 foot wooden yacht. But I was inspired way before he came even close to the success he has today. 

 

After my International Baccalaureate in Singapore, I left for China to study mandarin for a year. I decided there that I wanted to study International Business in Maastricht, in my home country. Quite a few years later, I am literally a week away from handing in my master's thesis on credit risk, and will soon start my first 'real' day of work as an international management trainee for an international bank in Amsterdam.  So what did I learn about studying Business in the process? 

 

I guess the main requisite for a Business student is curiosity about basic commerce. Studying Business provided me with answers to certain questions. Why does one pair of jeans cost more than another? Why are there so many windmills in the Netherlands? Why do my parents tell me to put money in the bank and not in a hole dug in the back yard? Why do many people buy products they don't need with money they don't have to impress people they don't like?  Answers to these basic questions can be explained by studying Business. 

 

I myself decided to study Finance in particular, mainly for its no-nonsense nature, and I truly found that it provided me with a way of thinking that allowed me to make better sense of the world around me. I have developed tremendously while attempting to structure decisions, create clarity within chaos and reason using both abstract and down-to-earth language. Although I was never the smart kid in school, I decided to study Finance even though it had the reputation of being a rather difficult field of study. Though I had to study a bit harder than most of my friends, it paid off for me very well indeed.

 

I thoroughly enjoyed my university life and in fact ended up taking longer than most of my peers. That's one of the main advantages of studying Business: there are endless opportunities to develop yourself on an academic or personal level beside your direct academic studies. As long as you manage to study reasonably efficiently of course.

In that line of thought, here are some recommendations if you're wondering what might help make your study of Business worthwhile.

 

First of all, have a serious look at the courses and their contents. As a general rule, you will not do well in courses that do not interest you, or at least make your study time a whole lot more frustrating. Preparing for exams on courses that do interest you demands quite enough. 

 

Don't be afraid of exploring your academic interests. You will often hear phrases such as:  "Finance is too hard", "Accounting is for boring people", "Marketing is too vague for me". When the time comes to choose a specific field of study, make sure you base your decision on what you like, not on what others tell you to do. 

 

Get out there, talk to people in the know and get involved. Don't be shy! Organising business seminars, career days, charity events: whatever it is, building or organising something beside your studies can be loads of fun, and extremely useful too. Firms these days don't merely look at your study grades but also at what kind of person you are. The latter is often reflected in what you do with your time outside the classroom.

 

Organise your time well and buy a planner. If you need help, find out what the university offers in this area or ask active students how they manage their time. There is so much to do, and you will regret wasting your time tremendously afterwards. There's nothing worse than having to admit to yourself that you could have passed a course if only you had gotten out of bed and gone to the library, you could have helped organise an event, or joined the party if only you had planned your time well.

 

As for me, I'm glad I studied Business. I enjoyed doing research on human resources strategies for oil companies and on where to find the best stainless steel pipes for heat exchangers, during a five-month, all paid for study project in India. I enjoyed figuring out why Amazon.com went public, and the secret of their success. I, funnily enough, enjoyed writing my thesis on regulatory risk management policies for internationally operating banks. I enjoyed meeting that professor who explained to me why the stock price of a firm today is the best indicator for its price tomorrow. 

 

I aspire to be in the same position as that grey-haired man on his boat some day, building a successful company with my own two hands. A solid knowledge of the workings of the business world, and familiarity with the wants and needs of the hundreds of millions of people in it, might just give me that chance. In the meantime, I plan to thoroughly enjoy the road that leads to it.

  

Olivier is a student at Universiteit Maastricht, The Netherlands