CBS: From Student to Entrepreneur, or Model Danish University
Recently, the topic of education abroad has become increasingly popular in Habré. And since members of the community are interested in such things, they must have access to information about various options and experiences. My own history of temporary emigration to Denmark quite falls into this category. However, today I would like to be distinguished by intelligence and wit from previous materials and instead of stories about the formalities of admission to a foreign alma mater (which, however, will be revealed in the following parts with readers' interest), give an example of what seems to me a very attractive modern model. university. So if among other things you want to hear about a democratic education, student business incubator and a very extensive IT infrastructure, then welcome to the cat.
Disclaimer: The material, of course, is not advertising (although if someone wants to do - please contact). It's just that my, albeit small, but interesting experience of getting to know Copenhagen Business School inspires me to think about what a modern university should (or at least can be).
')
Copenhagen Business School, better known in Scandinavia, as CBS (I apologize in advance for Anglicism, but the Copenhagen Business School somehow does not sound) is one of the largest universities in the Danish kingdom, one of the 30 best European business schools. However, formally calling itself a business school, it is positioned rather as a business university, offering extremely diverse programs, ranging from banal management and finance to international business political science, intercultural business communications and IT management . As a result, about 20,000 students attend classes, about 15-20% of whom are foreigners.
But these are all formalities. What surprises me so far most of all is the way in which, in my opinion, the key things for any modern university are subtly combined in CBS: knowledge, community and infrastructure. And if the role of knowledge, as part of this triad, is quite obvious and is to some extent present in Russian universities, then as far as the community and infrastructure is concerned - to my domestic experience (I graduated from PG Demidov Yaroslavl State University) what to cling to. Meanwhile, the community around the university helps to integrate students into the professional environment and helps them gain additional knowledge, skills and opportunities. A sufficiently developed infrastructure, in turn, allows us to link knowledge and community into a single communicative system, thereby ensuring the synergy of their interaction.
And if the triple construction described above seems to you to be not without a certain meaning, then I suggest digging more deeply and see how these parts of the educational process manage to help CBS students become entrepreneurs (a recent study revealed a fairly large proportion of graduates who find themselves in their own business).
The system of education at Copenhagen Business School (at least in terms of master's training) is not far from the typically European one, which, however, means its obvious and noticeable difference from the Russian one. Much emphasis is placed on self-education, since the classroom with the teacher is given no more than 10-12 hours a week (my, for example, lectures, although stretched for 4 days, but last no more than 2-3 hours).
The rest of the time, most Danish masters devote to reading relevant literature, the volume of which varies from program to program, but according to my estimates it is 150-300 pages per week. It is difficult to judge all the streams, but in my program (management of innovations and business development; formerly management of technological innovations) the main part of the course consists of scientific articles from the world's leading journals. It is understood that this ensures the relevance of the knowledge gained, as well as educates in the students a scientific (analytical) view of the world and criticality to the perceived information. In this case, reading on a particular topic occurs before the lecture, the purpose of which, therefore, is to discuss, systematize and supplement the reading.
It is not surprising that in such conditions the role of the teacher turns out to be significantly different from the domestic practice. Here he acts not as a carrier of absolute truth, of immutable authority or something like that, but as a mediator of discussion, with the ability to direct students' thinking process in the direction necessary for them to understand the theoretical foundations and the ability to put them into practice. By the way, my lectures and articles are distinguished by a significant level of binding to the real world, since in most cases specific mechanisms are proposed for managing certain business processes. As for familiar to the pain classifications, principles, characteristics, definitions, and similar "dead" theoretical constructs, then here they are, if present, then in significantly smaller amounts.
The specificity of the educational system is also manifested in the exams, each of which is practically different from the others. In particular, in this semester, I am waiting for an essay on "Entrepreneurship", answers to theoretical questions using the example of a real company on "Innovations and knowledge" and a group on "Product Development and Project Management" as examinations. In other words, the sad learning of the theory, apparently, does not expect me. However, this also does not mean a simpler life, for it is often more difficult to tie theory to practice than to learn only one theory. However, the goal is clear - CBS is important not so much my encyclopedic knowledge, as practical skills, tied to an understanding of the underlying theoretical concepts.
And all this educational diversity is complemented by a completely democratic system of communication between functionaries, teachers and students. And although the most obvious sign of it is probably the very free style of clothing of all three stated groups, it manifests itself in another: it is customary to call everyone by name, objections during the lecture are not only not punished, but encouraged, teachers are always available by email or in the university's internal network.
In other words, there is a persistent feeling that all interested parties act at the same time and imagine why they need it.
Now about the community, by which I mean the diversity of people and organizations, regularly interacting with the university and students in a number of areas related to the educational industry.
I must say that social life in CBS is in full swing. At the university there are (and partially funded by them) about 20 student organizations of the most diverse orientation: from the club of wine lovers to the business incubator. Naturally, all in self-government and cost accounting. Recruitment into society occurs, as a rule, at the beginning of the semesters and is accompanied by large-scale presentation events, the purpose of which, it must be assumed, is to lure the most talented and promising students (especially since there are competing communities of related subjects). As a result, the majority of students are more or less integrated in addition to direct learning in public (semi-professional) life with the consequent possibilities of applying certain knowledge in practice, as well as the prospect of developing a network of contacts (networking), which, according to Danes It helps a lot with further employment.
However, the community is not limited to the public theme: some are engaged in real business. For example, the student union directs canteens on campuses belonging to the university, where you can eat quite a bit (by Danish standards). Another group of students is in charge of a network of printers scattered throughout the buildings, carrying out remote printing of documents at prices that are 4 times less than those charged by the service directly organized by the university. Honestly, such a fruitful competition of a student startup with a headline, in fact, an organization looks impressive.
I want to tell about the business incubator separately. Called Copenhagen School of Entrepreneurship, he assumes several functions. Firstly, the group of incubator experts provides (free of charge) services for the validation and development of business ideas that students have (I haven’t been interested in the legal side of the issue yet) and generally position myself as a personal advisor in start-up initiatives. Secondly, some especially attracted ideas are given a small amount of funding in the amount of 20 thousand DKK (about 100 thousand rubles) and provided with office space and access to the university infrastructure and equipment. However, the investment is not direct - the incubator simply pays the startup bills. Thirdly, the School of Entrepreneurship organizes a number of public events, including Friday start-ups with free food and beer and a small number of entrepreneurs already held, as well as very regular meetings and seminars with venture investors, innovators and other interesting people who have, o than ask, and there is something to learn. In other words, the incubator is trying to integrate students into the local business community to satisfy mutual interest. Students get access to the right people and the right information, while the invited experts are either satisfied with the opportunity to speak in front of a grateful audience, or are looking for new ideas and new teams. Anyway, judging by the history of the incubator, he has already managed to release some interesting projects.
Another interesting feature of the community around CBS is a lot of attention from the real business. Former graduates and invited leaders often share experiences during lectures and other educational activities. For example, the introductory week on my program was marked by the emergence of a co-founder of the fairly successful Podio service, as well as a lecture by the top manager of the largest company in Denmark - Maersk. But various companies (including world-famous ones) are particularly active in participating in career events, publishing vacancies on the university’s internal network, and also organizing official receptions several times a month. An interesting detail: for most of the CBS campus, most audiences are named after the world's largest and Danish companies. I don’t know if they consider this to be a kind of advertisement and whether they pay for such services, but it’s interesting, you know, to learn from the business of the Boston Consulting Group or British American Tabacco.
Thus, in addition to the direct and therefore banal educational process, CBS students manage to gain access to a very fruitful social environment conducive to finding and using the most diverse possibilities.
Perhaps everything described above would not have looked so attractive if it had not been linked into a single communicative system through an appropriate infrastructure.
CBS has a unified system of access to most educational and other types of resources. Thus, in the educational process an Internet platform is used, allowing the student to have everything they need in one place. The system tracks current courses, various educational announcements appear there, and teachers upload slides and other information to the servers and have the opportunity to communicate with students through thematic forums. A separate application - the calendar - suggests the schedule and location of all classes and is synchronized with iCal, Google Calendar and similar programs. Coordination of events through Facebook is very important. Finally, there is an internal university portal where you can find almost everything you need: from ads for selling a bicycle or renting an apartment to the forms of documents required for registering for the exam. A special highlight of the portal is the internal database of vacancies that is accessible only to students and is directly updated by companies interested in young personnel, such as Microsoft, Danske Bank and other similar ones.
The library at CBS is also impressive, not used to the luxury of a seasoned Russian student. Most of the materials are digitized and therefore available from home computers through a single account. Naturally, there is access to the world's leading scientific journals and databases. Ordering rare books is carried out in a few clicks and translates into one single trip to the library. However, it is always crowded there, because on three floors there are study places, computer classes and separate study rooms, behind which Danish and foreign students gnaw the granite of science, without departing, as they say, from the cash register. Scanning with the subsequent sending by email is free. Copying - at fairly low prices (hello to the Yaroslavl Scientific Library).
As for the audience, there is no frills here, but there is everything you need, like projectors with screens, outlets under each table, remotely controlled lighting and blinds. I think you should not even mention the high-speed wi-fi in all buildings of the university. In other words, the infrastructure is sufficient to ensure a solid level of comfort for all participants in the educational process.
I don’t know if there is something similar to the one described above in Russia - I have been to only a few provincial universities - but to be honest, CBS seemed to me to be quite an attractive model of a modern university, focused not only on knowledge, but also on the integration of students into the professional community, but also has a very modern and quite a stable infrastructure. I think that behind this model there is a future, and I want to believe that it will someday come to Russia too.
PS If the topic of learning, living or working in Denmark seems interesting to the Habra community, I will be happy to tell my story and share a few life hacks.
And thanks for the invite!
Photo sources: cbs.dk, facebook.com, information.dk
Disclaimer: The material, of course, is not advertising (although if someone wants to do - please contact). It's just that my, albeit small, but interesting experience of getting to know Copenhagen Business School inspires me to think about what a modern university should (or at least can be).
')
Copenhagen Business School, better known in Scandinavia, as CBS (I apologize in advance for Anglicism, but the Copenhagen Business School somehow does not sound) is one of the largest universities in the Danish kingdom, one of the 30 best European business schools. However, formally calling itself a business school, it is positioned rather as a business university, offering extremely diverse programs, ranging from banal management and finance to international business political science, intercultural business communications and IT management . As a result, about 20,000 students attend classes, about 15-20% of whom are foreigners.
But these are all formalities. What surprises me so far most of all is the way in which, in my opinion, the key things for any modern university are subtly combined in CBS: knowledge, community and infrastructure. And if the role of knowledge, as part of this triad, is quite obvious and is to some extent present in Russian universities, then as far as the community and infrastructure is concerned - to my domestic experience (I graduated from PG Demidov Yaroslavl State University) what to cling to. Meanwhile, the community around the university helps to integrate students into the professional environment and helps them gain additional knowledge, skills and opportunities. A sufficiently developed infrastructure, in turn, allows us to link knowledge and community into a single communicative system, thereby ensuring the synergy of their interaction.
And if the triple construction described above seems to you to be not without a certain meaning, then I suggest digging more deeply and see how these parts of the educational process manage to help CBS students become entrepreneurs (a recent study revealed a fairly large proportion of graduates who find themselves in their own business).
Knowledge
The system of education at Copenhagen Business School (at least in terms of master's training) is not far from the typically European one, which, however, means its obvious and noticeable difference from the Russian one. Much emphasis is placed on self-education, since the classroom with the teacher is given no more than 10-12 hours a week (my, for example, lectures, although stretched for 4 days, but last no more than 2-3 hours).
The rest of the time, most Danish masters devote to reading relevant literature, the volume of which varies from program to program, but according to my estimates it is 150-300 pages per week. It is difficult to judge all the streams, but in my program (management of innovations and business development; formerly management of technological innovations) the main part of the course consists of scientific articles from the world's leading journals. It is understood that this ensures the relevance of the knowledge gained, as well as educates in the students a scientific (analytical) view of the world and criticality to the perceived information. In this case, reading on a particular topic occurs before the lecture, the purpose of which, therefore, is to discuss, systematize and supplement the reading.
It is not surprising that in such conditions the role of the teacher turns out to be significantly different from the domestic practice. Here he acts not as a carrier of absolute truth, of immutable authority or something like that, but as a mediator of discussion, with the ability to direct students' thinking process in the direction necessary for them to understand the theoretical foundations and the ability to put them into practice. By the way, my lectures and articles are distinguished by a significant level of binding to the real world, since in most cases specific mechanisms are proposed for managing certain business processes. As for familiar to the pain classifications, principles, characteristics, definitions, and similar "dead" theoretical constructs, then here they are, if present, then in significantly smaller amounts.
The specificity of the educational system is also manifested in the exams, each of which is practically different from the others. In particular, in this semester, I am waiting for an essay on "Entrepreneurship", answers to theoretical questions using the example of a real company on "Innovations and knowledge" and a group on "Product Development and Project Management" as examinations. In other words, the sad learning of the theory, apparently, does not expect me. However, this also does not mean a simpler life, for it is often more difficult to tie theory to practice than to learn only one theory. However, the goal is clear - CBS is important not so much my encyclopedic knowledge, as practical skills, tied to an understanding of the underlying theoretical concepts.
And all this educational diversity is complemented by a completely democratic system of communication between functionaries, teachers and students. And although the most obvious sign of it is probably the very free style of clothing of all three stated groups, it manifests itself in another: it is customary to call everyone by name, objections during the lecture are not only not punished, but encouraged, teachers are always available by email or in the university's internal network.
In other words, there is a persistent feeling that all interested parties act at the same time and imagine why they need it.
Community
Now about the community, by which I mean the diversity of people and organizations, regularly interacting with the university and students in a number of areas related to the educational industry.
I must say that social life in CBS is in full swing. At the university there are (and partially funded by them) about 20 student organizations of the most diverse orientation: from the club of wine lovers to the business incubator. Naturally, all in self-government and cost accounting. Recruitment into society occurs, as a rule, at the beginning of the semesters and is accompanied by large-scale presentation events, the purpose of which, it must be assumed, is to lure the most talented and promising students (especially since there are competing communities of related subjects). As a result, the majority of students are more or less integrated in addition to direct learning in public (semi-professional) life with the consequent possibilities of applying certain knowledge in practice, as well as the prospect of developing a network of contacts (networking), which, according to Danes It helps a lot with further employment.
However, the community is not limited to the public theme: some are engaged in real business. For example, the student union directs canteens on campuses belonging to the university, where you can eat quite a bit (by Danish standards). Another group of students is in charge of a network of printers scattered throughout the buildings, carrying out remote printing of documents at prices that are 4 times less than those charged by the service directly organized by the university. Honestly, such a fruitful competition of a student startup with a headline, in fact, an organization looks impressive.
I want to tell about the business incubator separately. Called Copenhagen School of Entrepreneurship, he assumes several functions. Firstly, the group of incubator experts provides (free of charge) services for the validation and development of business ideas that students have (I haven’t been interested in the legal side of the issue yet) and generally position myself as a personal advisor in start-up initiatives. Secondly, some especially attracted ideas are given a small amount of funding in the amount of 20 thousand DKK (about 100 thousand rubles) and provided with office space and access to the university infrastructure and equipment. However, the investment is not direct - the incubator simply pays the startup bills. Thirdly, the School of Entrepreneurship organizes a number of public events, including Friday start-ups with free food and beer and a small number of entrepreneurs already held, as well as very regular meetings and seminars with venture investors, innovators and other interesting people who have, o than ask, and there is something to learn. In other words, the incubator is trying to integrate students into the local business community to satisfy mutual interest. Students get access to the right people and the right information, while the invited experts are either satisfied with the opportunity to speak in front of a grateful audience, or are looking for new ideas and new teams. Anyway, judging by the history of the incubator, he has already managed to release some interesting projects.
Another interesting feature of the community around CBS is a lot of attention from the real business. Former graduates and invited leaders often share experiences during lectures and other educational activities. For example, the introductory week on my program was marked by the emergence of a co-founder of the fairly successful Podio service, as well as a lecture by the top manager of the largest company in Denmark - Maersk. But various companies (including world-famous ones) are particularly active in participating in career events, publishing vacancies on the university’s internal network, and also organizing official receptions several times a month. An interesting detail: for most of the CBS campus, most audiences are named after the world's largest and Danish companies. I don’t know if they consider this to be a kind of advertisement and whether they pay for such services, but it’s interesting, you know, to learn from the business of the Boston Consulting Group or British American Tabacco.
Thus, in addition to the direct and therefore banal educational process, CBS students manage to gain access to a very fruitful social environment conducive to finding and using the most diverse possibilities.
Infrastructure
Perhaps everything described above would not have looked so attractive if it had not been linked into a single communicative system through an appropriate infrastructure.
CBS has a unified system of access to most educational and other types of resources. Thus, in the educational process an Internet platform is used, allowing the student to have everything they need in one place. The system tracks current courses, various educational announcements appear there, and teachers upload slides and other information to the servers and have the opportunity to communicate with students through thematic forums. A separate application - the calendar - suggests the schedule and location of all classes and is synchronized with iCal, Google Calendar and similar programs. Coordination of events through Facebook is very important. Finally, there is an internal university portal where you can find almost everything you need: from ads for selling a bicycle or renting an apartment to the forms of documents required for registering for the exam. A special highlight of the portal is the internal database of vacancies that is accessible only to students and is directly updated by companies interested in young personnel, such as Microsoft, Danske Bank and other similar ones.
The library at CBS is also impressive, not used to the luxury of a seasoned Russian student. Most of the materials are digitized and therefore available from home computers through a single account. Naturally, there is access to the world's leading scientific journals and databases. Ordering rare books is carried out in a few clicks and translates into one single trip to the library. However, it is always crowded there, because on three floors there are study places, computer classes and separate study rooms, behind which Danish and foreign students gnaw the granite of science, without departing, as they say, from the cash register. Scanning with the subsequent sending by email is free. Copying - at fairly low prices (hello to the Yaroslavl Scientific Library).
As for the audience, there is no frills here, but there is everything you need, like projectors with screens, outlets under each table, remotely controlled lighting and blinds. I think you should not even mention the high-speed wi-fi in all buildings of the university. In other words, the infrastructure is sufficient to ensure a solid level of comfort for all participants in the educational process.
Instead of an afterword
I don’t know if there is something similar to the one described above in Russia - I have been to only a few provincial universities - but to be honest, CBS seemed to me to be quite an attractive model of a modern university, focused not only on knowledge, but also on the integration of students into the professional community, but also has a very modern and quite a stable infrastructure. I think that behind this model there is a future, and I want to believe that it will someday come to Russia too.
PS If the topic of learning, living or working in Denmark seems interesting to the Habra community, I will be happy to tell my story and share a few life hacks.
And thanks for the invite!
Photo sources: cbs.dk, facebook.com, information.dk
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/151980/
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