Period 4 at Maastricht University – summary

Saturday, 28^th April 2012 – University – permalink

In February I started my second semester at Maastricht University. The difference to the previous time spent there was, that I was no longer an Erasmus exchange student, but I got accepted as regular master student into studyprogramme called Infonomics.

Garden next to the SBE, source: my picture

The fact, that I changed my student status didn't change much in the reality. As I described before nobody at SBE makes difference between exchange and regular master students. You have the same workload and duties. Therefore it was just another period, new courses and new people. I decided to go for Infonomics master programme. Even thought there were only 4 students who started this programme in September, I didn't have any course with them this time. But I met my new fellow Infonomics masters – we were 4 again. We had ICT, Innovation and Economic performance course together as this one is a compulsory for our programme. For the elective course I was the only Infonomics student who decided to enrol in Information Economics the rest 7 students went for IT project management. I am glad that I decided that way, finally I got was I was missing – a bit of math again. Well, I was really excited about the new period. Even if the student status change is basically only some paperwork it meant a lot to me. Especially because about a year ago, it didn't come to my mind that I would ever become a regular master student abroad. Isn't it awesome?

ICT, Innovation and Economic Performance

Let's start the evaluation with the course that is a building block for Infonomics master programme. The second building block called Information product, information market and info systems, I already passed in September. The course coordinator is Dr. Huub Meijers, but he shares the tutoring with Mark Vluggen. We only had Dr. Huub once the rest of the meetings we had with Mark. Both of them are Dutch, so I finally had a Dutch tutor in Netherlands The course started with more market oriented approach to innovation and IT technology and later on we focused more on the effects at the firm level. We had to replicate some paper about growth accounting in groups, we had to present one topic – basically leading the whole tutorial and instead of and written exam we had to write a review of a academic working paper. My only complain about the course was lack of quantitative tools taught. The rest was fine, we had to read papers and understand them, we discussed recent findings and the course was not evaluation of your memory. And I would also recommend it for exchange students. We actually had one among us at the beginning, but unfortunately he changed his mind, so we were only 4 students there. Small group is fine, but this is just too small, as for a few times somebody was missing and we were only 3 there.

Information Economics

After Microeconomics master course in September, this was my next course where I needed some mathematical skills. Well, just a bit of them. I mean the content of the course was based more on models than just talking. I met 3 people I already knew from the previous 2 periods, which was awesome and in addition to that Filipa, who I met during the Master Introduction Day in February, was there. Cool Our tutor Morimitsu Kurino was Japanese, but he obtained his education in economics in the USA. He was nice guy, but sometimes a bit confused and we were following a book Contract theory by , which was not a very comprehensive and a bit silent about some steps. As a result, some concepts remained unclear and I was not sure whether I really understand it. When I asked others, I didn't get a clear answer. The grade was based on "problem sets" we had for homework, participation, presentation and final exam based on the exercises from problem sets. Therefore if you attended the classes, passing the final exam should not have been an issue. But even though I didn't miss any tutorial and made good notes from them, I was not able to get 100% in the final exam. I went to Mori to see what I did wrong and I actually made a mistake in a concept that I thought I understood. Well, confusion again. The felling of the whole course is kind of bittersweet. A bit similar to Antitrust economics I had in the second period. The topic is interesting, but the way it's done should be improved. And again, I was not the only one thinking exactly the same.

Looking back at the calendar of February and March, I realize that I didn't travel. I could use the weather conditions for an excuse, but that would not be fair. Hopefully I will manage to change this in the next period. At least I kept I passed both of the courses quite well, so I have only 2 courses to go and then the master thesis. Concerning other student life I just kept attending salsa lectures and we had some BBQ, Wiii night and game afternoon. I should not forget to mention the best Carnival in Maastricht!. So far looking good