The business side of engineering

Saturday January 22nd, 2011 by Giel Op 't Veld

As die-hard engineers, we often forget that the professional life is more than just inventing new technologies. Although the study tour’s main focus is of course on engineering, we would also like to take the opportunity to teach you one or two things about doing business with the Japanese.

Therefore, we are organizing our last preliminary activity with the Brabant Center of Entrepreneurship. On February 11th, there will be a lecture by dr. ir. Just Slakhorst, who has personal experience with starting off from scratch in Japan. He was asked by Philips to set up a research lab and was later involved in billion euro deals. He will share his experiences with us about what it is like to do business in a culture so different from our own.

The activity starts at 12.45 with a lunch preceding the lecture. The exact location will be announced shortly.

A trip to Nippon / Japan Night

Thursday January 6th, 2011 by Giel Op 't Veld

Do you realize that it is only seven more weeks until we board the plane? On February 9th, we are organizing the second to last activity before we leave. It will be a Japan night with Studium Generale and Kinjin.

The evening will start academically with professor Rien T. Segers, director of the Centre for Contemporary Japanese Studies (University of Groningen), as the speaker. He will tell us about the influence Japan has on global politics and economics. Afterwards, Junichi Kanehara, a Japanese student at our university, will share his experiences with the differences between our countries. We end the evening with a quiz hosted by Kinjin, for which you might want to practice here. In short, your knowledge of Japan will be put to the test, with some fun facts thrown in as well!

Link to Studium Generale website

Location: Gaslab
Date: Wednesday, 9 February 2011
Time: 20.00 - 23.00 (door open 19.45)


And yes, you can add this activity to your required SG lectures for ECTS.

Visit to NXP

Friday December 10th, 2010 by Giel Op 't Veld

Last Wednesday, we had our first company excursion of the study tour.
NXP had invited us for a visit right here in the Netherlands, since they have more R&D here than they have in Japan. It was the first and only company visit at home, but it gave us great reference material to be able to compare the Dutch and Japanese way of working later on.

We were invited to the NXP Next Experience Lab on the High Tech Campus. There, we learned about NXP’s latest technology in the field of security, health, mobility and last but not least, sustainability. The demos were numerous and included smart solar panels, applications of near field communication and smart meters, which provided an interesting alternative application to the research that several of our students are conducting for their case study for Cauberg-Huygen.

The next preliminary activity will be on February 9th and will be organized in cooperation with Studium Generale.

Visit by the embassy

Friday November 19th, 2010 by Giel Op 't Veld

Last Tuesday, two representatives of the embassy of Japan visited us to give us a presentation about etiquettes and language. A good thing, since Japanese politeness does not stay at simply bowing. We learned a lot about customs we were not familiar with, like what to do when your phone rings.  The presentation was interactive and also involved some effort from us. The correct postures for greetings and bows were picked up rather quickly. The basic phrases, however, turned out to be a bigger challenge. Even written in our alphabet, their pronunciation takes some practice to say the least. The embassy laughed a little at our attempts, but hopefully we are now able to introduce ourselves. Luckily, according to what we have heard, the Japanese people will at least appreciate the effort. We will upload the presentation as soon as possible so that you can keep practicing at home.

How to behave...

Wednesday November 10th, 2010 by Giel Op 't Veld

To tease you and teach you for our upcoming study tour, there will be some preliminary activities before we leave. Next Tuesday, a representative from the embassy of Japan will come to tell us all about Japanese (business)etiquettes and the language. This is of course very useful in a culture in which correct manners are of the utmost importance.

Location: Auditorium 8
Date: Tuesday the 16th of November
Time: 19.00