Lea Ursula Kneubuehler, University of St. Gallen (Switzerland)
About Switzerland
I was born and raised in a city called Thun which is also called “the gate to the alps”. Therefore, skiing and hiking have been a big part of my life since childhood. As we have four different seasons in Switzerland – Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter – you will find that the landscape looks very different in each of those seasons.
Switzerland is a multi-lingual country with four national languages. The predominant language, which is mainly spoken in Northern Switzerland, is German. Roughly 23% of the population has French as mother tongue and, around 8% speak Italian as their first language. A minority of less than 1% speak Rhaeto-Romanic as their mother tongue. There is a variety of traditional festivities in each region. For example, the Carnival of Basel takes place annually between February and March has been celebrated since centuries and ranks amongst the top local festivities in Europe.
If you visit Switzerland, you should definitively visit some of the major cities such as Berne, Zurich, Lucerne, Basel, St. Gallen, Geneva, and Lugano to experience the diversity of this small country. In addition, to experience the Swiss nature, the most famous mountains, the Matterhorn (inspiration to the shape of Toblerone chocolate), Jungfraujoch, Pilatus or Säntis, are worth a visit. After hiking, the most relaxing thing you can do is to take a bath in one of the neighboring lakes or to eat a typical dish at a mountaintop restaurant.
Most of the Swiss dishes, such as “Fondue” and “Raclette”, are cheese-based dishes, which you normally eat with bread and potatoes. The public transportation system takes you to all the famous places in Switzerland and allows a time-efficient and scenic journey within the country.
About School
The University of St. Gallen is one of Europe’s leading business universities, located in Eastern Switzerland. St. Gallen is a city of around 75,000 inhabitants and is located in-between the Appenzell Alps and the Lake of Constance. Its proximity to those scenic places and Zurich, the largest city in Switzerland, make it an optimal location for studying. The University of St. Gallen offers five Bachelor programs – Business Administration, Economics, International Affairs, Law, and Law & Economics – and a total of 13 Master programs. Additionally, it offers the CEMS Master in International Management double degree program as well as a double degree program with partnering institutions. Lastly, also doctoral programs can be pursued in diverse fields.
What makes the University of St. Gallen unique to me are two things. Firstly, St. Gallen follows a truly practical approach, which offers a high exposure towards companies of all sizes and fields and ensures the practicability of the learnings. Secondly, St. Gallen offers a unique student life experience, which is enriched by more than 100 student associations.
The variety of courses, from which you can choose, is very broad. The university follows an integrative approach and offers not only courses in the above-mentioned fields, but also elective courses in the fields of psychology, philosophy, history, and other social sciences to ensure a holistic education. Some of the courses which I took during my master program include “Technology Entrepreneurship”, “Business Engineering”, “Digital Nudging”, “Big Data”, “Business Model Innovation”, and “Global Strategic Management”.
Most students in St. Gallen live in shared apartments. There is no housing on campus but as St. Gallen is much smaller than Singapore, you can reach the university within 20 minutes no matter where you live in the city.
The University of St. Gallen has reached out to NUS Business School to collaborate in the Asian Culture Transfer 2018 (ACT). This programme has been conducted by the University of St. Gallen for the last 20 years. The aim of the programme is to provide international encounters of students from all over the world to foster students’ cultural competencies based on 3 pillars: politics, economy and nature.
This July, we have a team of 20 NUS Business students embarking on the ACT for the first time since its inception. We look forward to a great working relationship with St Gallens!