How does a typical SBE course look?
June 2022 — By Javier Báez García
Hi everyone! I hope you are as excited as we were in the last stretch before starting our master programmes at UM! Excitement, however, comes hand in hand with nerves. And that is completely normal! Today, we will try to ease those nerves a bit more by giving you a small insight into what a course will look like!
The purpose of this blog is threefold: (1) Discuss the course registration stage; (2) give insights on the general structure of a normal course; and (3) discuss the most common assessment methods.
Course Registration
Generally speaking, the faculty will automatically register your courses for the first period. However, I remember when I started… and knowing that the rest of the courses were not yet booked, made me feel nervous and uncertain. Therefore, let’s fix that! Today we will show you how to quickly know (1) which courses you need to register to; and (2) how to do it! (You won’t need to do this until September so it’s a good idea to save this blog!)
You only need two links:
(A) SBE Master Curriculum: https://www.maastrichtuniversity.nl/education/master
Here you can find all the masters offered in SBE. Simply click in your master (and specialisation if applicable). Once you are there, on the left side of the page you will find on the blue dropdown menu the option: Courses & Curriculum. That is where you need to go! There you will see something like this:
For instance, this is from the IB Master, on Organisation: Management, Change and Consultancy. There you will be able to see which specific courses you need to have in each period.
Once you are aware of which courses you are required to take, and when to take them, we go to the link number 2.
(B) Student Portal: https://studentportal.maastrichtuniversity.nl/
You probably already have access to it. To log in, you simply need your student number (the one starting with i), and your password (if you have problems accessing, contact ICT Services).
Once you are there, simply apply the following:
My Courses > Current Courses > Add/Remove Course > (De) Register a course > Program Study (select the one you register yourself) > 2022–23 Period 1 > continue > Registration cart > Select the courses you need on that period based on the curriculum you saw before. Repeat with every period until you are registered for all of them!
By now, you already know what courses you need and how to register. (If not, because you have a different scheduling track i.e., IB Double Track, contact the study advisor, they will help you to schedule everything!). So now let’s check how a course looks like!
The Course
The keyword whenever we discuss how a course looks like in UM is: PBL! (Problem Based Learning). Essentially, this means that your learning process will be based on discussing what you are studying! If you are able to explain a topic to people, and actually discuss around it, you will have actually learned it. Therefore, the contact hours will be divided in both: 1. Tutorials, and 2. Lectures.
In the Lectures (for those courses that need a higher foundational aspect) you will be provided with the underlying theories and substantive aspects of the course. This doesn’t take place in every course! For instance, I have only seen it in courses that had a technical aspect such as: Data Analytics, and Business Intelligence Case Studies. There we needed a higher foundation of both statistics and R skills.
The tutorials however, are the primary educational channel in UM. In some courses, it will be the only one (as mentioned before, not all courses have lectures!). During tutorials, you will discuss the course material (academic articles, books…) with fellow students on both the theoretical and the practical side by analyzing real-life cases. This is your chance to shine! Bring to the table what you have understood, as well as that which you haven’t! Make a mistake. In many occasions we remember something better through discussing issues, when we were mistaken about it first!
During the opening session, the course coordinator will tell you more about the major aspects, from the course structure to the different activities planned. However, you will find all the details in the course syllabus. Keep in mind that preparing for a PBL tutorial session usually requires 8–10 hours of self-study (yes, it is a lot… but it’s your master after all!).
Generally speaking, you will have two tutorials weekly (and when lectures are applicable, that might be added extra), throughout seven weeks. Afterwards (or throughout that time, based on the assessment method), you will have your deadlines!
Assessment
Maastricht University uses a wide variety of approaches: not only classic exams (during the eighth week of the period, also called Exam week), but also group projects, individual papers, presentations, and facilitations. Usually, there is a combination of these methods and each is weighted differently depending on the course. Therefore, it is likely that all your deadlines are not at the end of the course, but throughout. Take this into account, since it can get very hectic!
If something goes wrong, and you fail a course, don’t worry! We all have been there. Simply wait for the next period to finish. The week after the exam week of that period, you will have the chance to resit the course that you failed, in the preceding period.
I hope this blog gave you a better overview of how your uni-life will look like at UM! As usual, if you have any questions feel free to send me a PM, we would be happy to help you!
Best,
Javier Báez García
