Multicultural awareness and respect for diversity is one of the School’s key values. It is therefore essential for HEC Liège to ensure that all its graduates have seized the opportunity to work in an international atmosphere during their studies, and be adequately prepared to address the challenges of the world of tomorrow in a global context.
Continuously improving the study & work abroad experience
First of all, HEC Liège students have the opportunity to experience an Erasmus study abroad.
To ensure the quality of HEC Liège students’ study abroad experience, we are developing strong links with 150 partner Higher Education institutions all around the world, more than half of this network being internationally accredited institutions (EQUIS, EPAS, AACSB or AMBA). 10% of our partner universities even hold the prestigious triple crown.
Last December, to ensure that all potential Erasmus candidates can learn about our diversified network, HEC Liege has hosted its first virtual International Crossroads: we have organized 10 online info sessions, each one being dedicated to a specific part of the world such as Asia, Scandinavian countries & Baltic states, Spain & Latin America, Austria & Germany, …The objective was to share with our students all promotional material sent out by our partner universities. Students could therefore join the virtual events they wanted to attend, in order to gather information about Erasmus destinations and ask all relevant questions to the IR team members.
The International Relations Department is also organizing a Skills Portfolio Workshop for HEC Liège Master students: « Travel abroad for a Summer School ». Organized over a short period of time (from 10 days to 4 weeks), these summer programs offer a subtle combination of lectures, conferences and visits to companies and/or official institutions, cultural visits, networking events, etc. The combination of several activities enables them to achieve additional skills and be part of a multicultural group for a short – but intense – period of time.
Finally, HEC Liège students have the possibility to do an internship abroad at the end of their Master studies. The Corporate Relations Department is in charge of internships, as well as short abroad field trips activities (3 to 7 days mobility).
Developing strategic alliances
As of today, 14 double degree agreements are active at Master level and include 24 double degree programs, covering all HEC Liège’s Full English master specializations. HEC Liège Students attending a double degree program usually spend one academic year (60 ECTS credits) at HEC Liège and another one (also 60 ECTS credits) at one of our partner Universities in order to receive, at the end of their Master studies, two diplomas.
To internationalize our Bachelor in Economics and Management, a triple degree program has also been established with EM Strasbourg and Universität Hohenheim (Stuttgart):
Students interested in this international track will be able to spend their second year of Bachelor studies attending a double degree at EM Strasbourg. Then, during the third year, should they wish to stress further the multicultural dimension of their studies, students can continue either with another double degree at Hohenheim University (in German) or start an Erasmus abroad experience.
Welcoming international students – at home internationalization
Every year, we aim to provide the school with a strong representation of international students, especially @ Master level: more than 30% of HEC Liège’s Master students come from abroad, whether as exchange (Erasmus incoming) or as full degree-seeking students. 80 different nationalities are represented at school level. This percentage allows an important cultural and academic input, offering a real source of « internationalization @ home » for the whole HEC Liège community.
As previous recruitment campaigns have shown that strategic partnerships are a very efficient tool to recruit high quality degree seeking students, we intensify the already existing partnerships with ENCG Marrakech and Settat in Morocco as well as MEF University in Istanbul, to extend them to other institutions, namely in Pontificia Universidade Catolica do Parana (Brazil) and RANEPA Moscow. The objective of these international agreements is to facilitate the admission of already preselected students from those Universities, as Master degree seeking students at HEC Liège.
Everything that has been advertised in this article show that all HEC Liège students are confronted to diversity and multiculturality from their very first steps at the School, and are thus entitled to choose how international they wish their whole journey with us to be. Accordingly, we ensure that our future graduates are best equipped to work in a multinational environment. As constant surveys show, they highly appreciated this dimension of their HEC Liège curriculum, namely since 30% of our Alumni have decided to work abroad.
Anne GILLET, Head of International Relations
Article paru dans le Spirit of Management n°41 – à lire ici