Doing Business in Europe Summer Program in the Netherlands – The last 15 days spent in Groningen were amazing, adapting to new surroundings and people was a bit difficult at first however the transition into comfort was easier then I expected. I have acquired significant amount of knowledge since the beginning of my stay ranging from European business all the way to how to ride a bike, which is something I thought I would not be comfortable with but after about two days it began to be one of my favorite things about this place.

The school I go to is called Hanze University of Applied Sciences. In one of our first classes we were put into groups to work with during our stay here all of us being from different schools and have different concentrations. It’s interesting to see the different skills everyone has to bring for the group and to experience the diversity. Our days are long and busy we are in class from usually from 8:30am- 5:30pm Monday to Friday, we do weekly presentations reflecting on our business excursions. Our first excursion was a visit to Grolsch, Grolsch is a Dutch brewery, they serve internationally and are very successful, we were able to meet and discuss their techniques with their International Marketing Manager. The second excursion was Groningen Seaports where we met with their director and was given a tour around the port on a boat.

The last excursion was a trip to Amsterdam to Philips HQ for this excursion three groups from the entire summer school were chosen to present a pitch they created for the company trying to increase the amount of electric shaver users. We also met with a number of their Senior Consumer Marketing Directors. All of our excursions were extremely intuitive and beneficial. Being able to have the insight of multinational corporations, learn about their techniques and given the opportunity to network with employees within those corporations was amazing. I met so many friends through my program, housing and being out in the city. I’m so thankful for the friends I made and will most definitely be meeting up with them in the future. I also plan to come back to Groningen for a longer stay; everything about this place is amazing. The culture is very laid back and enjoyable nobody is judgmental and everything is meant to be “normal”. Having an understanding of all of this, seeing so much diversity and gaining this experience really had an impact on me and I couldn’t be more thankful NSCC chose me to be able to participate in the Doing Business in Europe Program (The Netherlands).

 (This picture was taken at Philips during our networking session. These are the 5 girls representing NSCC!)

Jordan Verhagen

Business Administration – Marketing

NSCC Waterfront Campus