Management

This public information is part of VUB’s quality assurance system and was ratified by the Academic Council on 04/09/2023.

Strengths of the programme

• Effective management: The course council effectively involves students and the professional field in all its processes. They accurately identify areas needing attention and take appropriate steps to address them.
• Versatile management training: The programme provides a comprehensive foundation in management topics, specifically for students without an academic and/or business-oriented background.
• Dedicated teaching team: The team of lecturers is passionately and enthusiastically committed to the curriculum and its students.
• Practice-oriented and academic curriculum: The programme responds to the needs of the job market. The focus is on practice-oriented learning on an academic level.
• Cultural diversity: The programme attracts students from various countries, which gives the curriculum an international character. Students point out that they appreciate this diversity, as it strengthens their international competencies and prepares them for a globalising job market.

Opportunities

• The bridging programme should effectively eliminate knowledge gaps among students, in particular by adding academic knowledge of business economics and research methodology in the curriculum.
• The information provided to students could be more extensive. It should include prerequisites, workload and outcomes, but also information on housing, budgeting, and other non-academic circumstances. This added layer of guidance can significantly enhance students' experience and prevent students quitting the programme prematurely.
• The programme could take a more proactive approach in capitalizing on opportunities to highlight its activities and accomplishments to both students and external stakeholders.
• The programme gives students the opportunity to master skills in interculturality, sustainability, cutting-edge technology, and (ethical) entrepreneurship. These topics should be more visibly emphasised within the curriculum. Furthermore, their explicit inclusion in the learning objectives can enhance the evaluation of student progress in these critical competencies.
• The course council could efficiently boost networking opportunities for students and their representatives, enriching the connections within the learning community.

Current developments

• The bridging programme has recently increased the size of statistics and academic writing modules in the curriculum.
• To ensure prospective students have a clear understanding of the foundational knowledge necessary for the course, the programme has reinforced its admission’s and exemption’s policy. The impacts of this change will be meticulously evaluated in the upcoming years.
• In order to offer flexibility to students, to spread their studies over multiple years, optimal study trajectories have been devised and made publicly available on the website.
• A coordinator has been appointed to oversee the structuring and mentoring processes involving the master theses. This coordinator assembled a team to benchmark their approach against other faculty programmes. As one of the results, the programme now allows students to co-author their master's thesis with a fellow student.

Where do we get this information from?  

As institution we routinely ask our students to give their honest opinion about the study programme during their academic career. We also consult our professors and assistants and gauge the expectations in the future field of work. We receive structured feedback from our former students and compare our programmes with others at home and abroad. Through a Peer Review every six years an expert panel endorses the programme’s assets and can recommend some actions. Lastly, the Education Quality Council takes a formal decision about the quality and functioning of a programme.

Quality Cycle

Each programme follows a six-year quality cycle. The timeline below shows the schedule for this particular programme.