Internships allow you to gain actual experience in a company by working on current projects or assignments. At the end, you are required to write a self-reflective evaluation report.

Key facts

• Duration: min. 3 weeks (90 hours) during summer or during the academic year
• Programmes: Applied economics: Business Economics, Financial Business Engineering, Economic Policy, Business Engineering: Management Information Systems (3 credits) Social and Economic Sciences and Cultural Management (6 credits)
  

Voluntary internship

If your curriculum does not entail an internship, you can always decide to do a voluntary one. In this case:

• you do not earn credits, nor do you receive guidance from an faculty supervisor. However, the student is insured by the University of Antwerp.
• there are no requirements with regards to content and you are not expected to hand in a report. 
• this is also possible during the summer after graduation (until the end of September).
  
• you have to be able to combine the internship with your classes at all times.

In a consulting project, you learn to analyse an real-life corporate issue. At the end, you present specific recommendations in a report.

Key facts

• Duration: 4 weeks full-time (min. 150-180 hours) during summer or during the academic year.
• Programmes: Applied economics: Business Economics, Economic Policy, Financial Business Engineering, Business Engineering: Management Information Systems (6 credits)
  

If you decide to do practice-oriented Master's thesis, you independently analyse an organisational issue and formulate realistic management recommendations in an academic report. The practice-oriented Master's thesis gives you the opportunity to work with a company or organisation for a longer period of time. 

Key facts

• Duration: 12 weeks full-time (min. 360-450 hours)
• Timing: during the academic year (October - May)
• Programmes: Applied economics: Business Economics, Economic Policy, Financial Business Engineering, Business Engineering: Management Information Systems, Organisation and Management, Social and Economic Sciences and Culture Management (15 credits)
  

In the 'Ethical and Sustainable Business' courses, you learn to make the strategy of companies and organisations more sustainable in collaboration with EY. After being confronted with real-life cases, you'll formulate recommendations in order to realise a sustainable business model. Finally, you pitch your case for the other students and consultants in the EY innovation center ‘Wavespace’.

If you follow the 'Data mining'-courses, a data science challenge using real-life datasets will be organised for you and your fellow students.

During some courses you visit Belgian companies such as:

• The headquarters of AXA Belgium
• EY wavespace™ Antwerp
• The backstage of the Nespresso Boutique Antwerp

In other courses, business professionals will present actual cases during guest lectures. Some examples:

• Dr. Markus Broich, Vice president Political Affairs Airbus SE, on 'Selling your business interest in a political environment', in the course 'Strategy, Structure and Management of the Multinational Enterprise'
• Sofie De Cnudde, Machine Learning Scientist at ASOS.com (London), in the course 'Case Studies and Trends in Data Sience'
• Vinayak Javaly, Data scientist at Lenddo EFL (New York),  in the course 'Data Engineering'
• Peter Claes, Director Media and Production of VRT (Flemish Broadcasting Organisation), on 'Challenges in Social Profit Marketing', in the course 'Current Topics in Marketing'
• Tony Van Gestel, Director Risk Models, Quantification and Defaults at Dexia (Belgium), and CEO Dexia Netherlands, in the course 'Case Studies and Trends in Data Sience'
• and many more!

Also some of your course leaders play an important role in different companies:

• Prof. dr. Hans Verboven ('Ethical and Sustainable Business') is the founder and CEO of Sustacon.
• Erwin Knuyt ('Business-to-Business marketing') is Managing Director at The Skein Company.
• dr. Dieter Devlaminck ('Data Engineering') is Chief Technology Officer at UAntwerp spinoff Predicube.
  
• Prof. dr. Peter Verhezen ('Strategic Manamement') worked as senior advisor corporate governance for the Worldbank group in Asia-Pacific. He is owner of Verhezen & Associates, a consulting firm focusing on governance, risk management and international strategies.​