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K7 Bulletin - Tuesday 7. February 2012

News

NHHS’ Secret

When asking international students about their attitude towards NHH Groups, there is 99,9% probability that the answer will be “They are awesome!” Elina Kaykova ek@k7bulletin.no

No doubt, they actually are. However, it is also likely that the continuation of their answer will not be as positive... I’ve heard many times when students compared getting into NHH Groups with knocking on the locked doors when all the attempts are just vain. Is it really the case? I am not sure.

Finding out the truth

In order to find out whether NHH Groups are actually closed off and not willing to embrace international students, we decided to carry out a survey. To do so, we contacted 20 leaders (15 replied) of different NHH Groups (both NHHS and NHHI) and asked them three simple questions: • Are there any international students in the Group? If yes, how many? • If not, what are the main reasons for not accepting international students? • How can the Group benefit from accepting international students?

The summary of the answers on the first question is illustrated below:

What can be concluded from the responses is that six out of fifteen groups that participated in the survey either have no international students or from one to five. Two other groups accepted from six to ten international students each and, finally, there is one very international-friendly group that has more than ten non-Norwegian students. Well, from this statistic it definitely seems that there are plenty of opportunities to step into one of the NHH communities. But what’s wrong with those six groups, and other groups not included in the statistic with no international members? Perhaps the problem is not these groups in particular, but a greater issue. To find out, a second question comes to mind: why don’t you, guys, want to be so kind and to accept international students? If you start to think on this question on your own, the first reason that comes to mind is language. But in Norway, especially at NHH, where the majority of students (including Norwegian students) speak perfect English, this reason can’t be the only one. Let’s see what we got here from the leaders’ responses: All of the six leaders of the groups in which the number of international students appears “zilch” responded that the language barrier is the first and foremost reason. Sure, strong NHH

Student Union traditions require all the members to be a family, share the same spirit and just have some latent ties that are very hard to come by if you speak different languages. But we are in the 21st century now, aren’t we? Globalization, integration, boundaries dissolving and breaking away… It seems that the language barrier should be the last reason to mention, but let’s take the responses as it is. Next: the period of stay. Four out of six leaders said that as the majority of international students stay in Norway just for one semester, they can’t become “a real” Group member. This reason seems to be more viable (especially, for some sport groups). But what about non-sport spheres? One semester is not one month and a lot of brilliant ideas can be generated and brainstormed during almost half a year, can’t they? Now comes a very interesting one. Two leaders said that they don’t have international students simply because…. there were no applications from them! So, careful “market” analysis is required – keep an eye on it! And finally, one of the leaders mentioned tough competition. Here it is the question of group values and targets that is important: should they give a spot to an international or to a local student? Tough decision, but no one is to blame.

Synergy effect

Now, let’s consider the situation that an international students is accepted to the

NHH Group. Great! Congrats! Now the question: what can he/she bring to this group, how can it benefit? What leaders say is that international teammates enable Norwegian members to get in touch with foreign students (otherwise, they hardly do it), meet different types of people (rather than just NHH-colleagues) and thus find a lot of new friends from all over the world as well as the important practice of foreign languages. It is a social aspect. Another crucial reason is that international students will bring in new perspectives and help to differentiate viewpoints in the groups working dynamics; this will serve to boost creativity levels which will definitely help the group to prosper.

Final remarks

So, as this small research shows, there are plenty of opportunities for international students. And this is just the beginning. NHHS leader, Saliba Andreas Korkunc, claims that every year more and more international students become a part of NHH Groups, and not just a part, but real members of this amazing community, bringing brand new, state-of-the-art ideas. So how do you succeed? Just stay positive, be full of emotions, desire to work and, of course, have a non-stop willingness to learn! Opportunities are everywhere, just slow down a bit and…. pick up one that is waiting for you! Special thanks to all the leaders who responded and provided a lot of

5 in the hallway Foto: Daniel Bernstein

Foto: Mikhail Smirnov

Could you give some advice for those who want to get in the NHHS group? What is the secret of success?

Moritz Natmessnig

(Austria) Profileringsutvalget (Promotion Committee)

Natalia Drozdova

(Russia), Grafisk NHHS, International Committee

Luke Whyte

Már Kristjónsson

Elliott Formal

If you are invited for the interview the most important thing is to stay calm and don’t panic. Don’t pretend to be someone else, just be yourself! Show your interest for the group and especially their work! And why not to give the interviewer some feedback about your expectations?!

First and foremost, just be sure that you are really interested in this particular Group and their values are the same as yours! Don’t try to pretend to be somebody else on the interview, be yourself and just enjoy the process.

Just find the society you KNOW you belong to, be honest and you’ll be on. Otherwise, you picked the wrong group!

First, be passionate to what the group is doing. Groups can be reluctant to accept people who don’t speak Norwegian, so find out which groups accepted nonNorwegian speaking people in the past. Talk with foreign students, ask your Norwegian friends about the atmosphere in a group you’re interested in - that is the best way of finding the right group.

The most important thing here is a social aspect! Don’t be reserved or shy, just show everybody that you are a perfect teammate, enthusiastic and outgoing. Remember, no matter how difficult it is to break through – YOU can manage it!

(Australia), NHH Crew

(Iceland), Teknisk Gruppe, NHHI Motbakke

(USA), NHHI Tennis