USA 2013 - International Workshop
Two weeks of intense intercultural branding, experiencing and business gaming.
That's what I'm going for.
More than 30 people from KHLeuven University College applied with a motiviation letter. Mine, which you can read down here, enabled me to end up within the last ten. Unfortunately only six people are allowed to go. Therefore I will have an interview with the responsible professor somewhere this week. #USA2013!
MOTIVATION LETTER : THIBAULT SCHROVEN - INTERNATIONAL WORKSHOP
After
seeing the presentation concerning the business game and exchange in the United
States of America, I knew right away I was going to apply for the program. It
just sounds so great and instructive that I can’t imagine someone not wanting
to experience a two-week exchange with students from across the globe! I
would be honored if I would be given the chance to represent our country and
college abroad. Also, I am convinced that I will learn a lot during these two
weeks. Not only about business and management but also about the United States,
the American culture and lifestyle and the ideas, habits and experiences of
students from other nationalities competing with us during this International
Workshop.
Thibault
Schroven: who am I?
I am a
22-year old student of Advanced Business Management, majoring in Marketing
Communication (BABM). Last year, I graduated as a Bachelor in Marketing, also
at the KHLeuven. During my previous years here, I have already represented our
college in Finland, during the International Marketing Week in Lahti (2011), in
the Netherlands, where our team was one of the finalists of the HBO
Talentenprijs in Groningen (2012) and in France, during my Erasmus semester at
the ESC Rennes in Brittany (2011). All these times I had the pleasure to
represent our college and meet new people from all over the world. I think
these experiences might qualify myself as an ‘Experienced (International)
Business Game Participant’.
But it is
not only thanks to the KHLeuven that I am internationally oriented. When I was
only 16, I spent a semester as an exchange student with AFS Intercultural
Programs in Austria and after my high school I went on another exchange to
Argentina, where I lived for 10 months and learned Spanish.
Why I
believe I deserve a place in the KHLeuven – USA team
I can be
clear about the fact that for me, there is no issue to start talking with total
strangers and to learn to live and work together with them. I enjoy facing the
unknown, taking on new challenges and hoping for the best, which usually means
living and feeling an extraordinary experience which enriches me as a student
and as a person.
Whenever I
am around a group of people, I easily adapt myself to their culture and way of
living, without forgetting where I am from or who I am. I will easily connect
to them and I am convinced that if I would be on board of the plane which is
going to bring the KHLeuven students to the USA, all the participants won’t
easily forget about “the Belgians”. I will ensure that by the end of our
two-week trip, they will know all about our chocolate, beer, governmental
system and our importance, as capital of Europe, for the European Union and the
world itself.
Thanks to
my previous experiences with (international) business games, I am already aware
of how these work and where I need to pay attention. I am not only willing to
go to the USA to represent our college, I want to go and perform the best I can
in order to win this competition!
3 Positive points of myself
As stated
before I am an active, motivated an life enjoying young man from
Sint-Katelijne-Waver during the beginning of my years of maturity. My greatest
motivation is my will to absorb (intercultural) business experiences and
meeting new, interesting, open and broadminded people with different
backgrounds than my own. In order to reach my goal, I enjoy using different
languages and ways of living that I don’t always, but every day a bit more,
master well. As stated before, I am very proud of being a Belgian and I am
super motivated to perform well in a multi-cultural environment. We are living
in a globalizing world but it is my opinion that we must never forget, nor
neglect, where we are from.
Secondly I
am very well at performing in groups. I have been active in the boy scouts and
now I am a volunteer for AFS, which implicates organizing weekends for
youngsters and work together with others to make these events the best. Another
of my positive points is my multilingualism. Broadly taken I speak five
languages: Dutch, French, Spanish, English and German. This means that
I’ll be able to speak to a lot of the students in their own language which will
facilitate our communication and enable us to get to know each other faster in
order to work better during the group work.
2 Negative points of myself
One of my
negative points is that sometimes I can be very impatient. When I work, I want
to work effectively and efficiently and for me there’s no time to fool around.
I want to finish the job as soon and as good as possible.
Secondly I
find it hard to critically evaluate myself. I have no problem with judging and
evaluating the performances of other people, but sometimes I catch myself on
critically evaluating co-students for doing things I do as well.
Ideas
for a Belgian evening
One of my
ideas would be to teach one verse of our Belgian national anthem (both in Flemish
and French) to our fellow students. I would hand them out the lyrics and teach
it to them. This will probably lead to funny and weird expressions on the faces
of co-students, but will be very entertaining for us all.
A second
idea would be to present Belgian specialties, like our fries, chocolate, beer,
the Atomium, Bruges, Manneken Pis,.., etc. by playing the world famous game of
Pictionary.
I would be
very delighted if I would be allowed to travel to the USA, a country I don’t
know yet, and participate to this International Workshop. It would be the
perfect opportunity to see if, after four years of KHLeuven, I am able to work
professionally with a team of people whom I’ve never met and ensure that my
knowledge helps to improve the final result of our team. Obviously I hope that
this letter was able to convince you of my motivation to be a part of this trip
to represent KHLeuven and Belgium in a foreign country. I sincerely hope to get
to know the USA in a different way in 2012 because I am sure that this unique
experience will certainly help me in my future career. As I state on my weblog
(thibaultintheworld.blogspot.com):Experiences are the key to
success.
Yours
faithfully
Thibault
Schroven
Marketing
Communication (BABM)
Advanced
Business Management
