“We’re celebrating a milestone in the history of RSM,” said Dean Steef van de Velde at the event. Other schools and faculties at EUR were already offering honours programmes specific to their respective field, and EUR offers university-wide honours programmes too. “These are pretty popular among RSM students so we launched our own honours programme,” he said.
Entrepreneurship
Following the Dutch government’s initiative to increase the academic offerings for bright and talented students, the RSM Honours Programme is an extracurricular programme with a workload of 15 ECTS. This is on top of students’ regular second-year courses, and the honours programme requires a grade of 7.5 or higher.
The three-trimester, English-taught honours programme is a challenging mix of input from academia and business with strong ties to the outside world. The truly disciplinary business programme focuses on some of the key areas in business: entrepreneurship, innovation, growth and collaboration.
Learning from Silicon Valley
As part of the RSM Honours Programme, the highly skilled bachelor students frequently left campus to apply, test and sharpen their knowledge during visits to the Erasmus Centre for Entrepreneurship (ECE), the European Space Agency (ESA) in Noordwijk, and a study trip to Silicon Valley. Dean Van de Velde: “This is what we want at EUR: you being a ‘thinker and a doer.” By making the connection between theory and practice, the exceptional honours students were challenged to enter the world of technology and business creation.
Unique experiences
Dr Wim Hulsink, academic director of the honours programme, made an impressive presentation about the bachelor students’ journey in this first run of the honours programme. He recapped moments such as the unique experiences in Silicon Valley, the demanding deadlines, and the co-operation between students from RSM’s two bachelor programmes (Bedrijfskunde and International Business Administration). To conclude the celebration, he handed out certificates and the dean’s recommendation statements to the BSc honours students.
