The great thing about facility management is that it is a very broad field of work. After you graduate you have a great deal of options considering what type of organisation you want to work and in what field of facility management you want to apply yourself.

Las Vegas, the city that never sleeps!
Studying abroad was a great experience. I attended the University of Northern Arizona and specialised in hospitality management. Following I managed to get an internship with one of the worlds largest providers of branded casino entertainment, Harrah’s Entertainment. I was with the ‘Rio all Suite Hotel and Casino’, located on the strip in Las Vegas for 5 months and was able to work on the first World Series of Poker tournament hosted by the Rio. This was definitely one of the best experiences ever!

Corus Staal BV
After writing my graduation thesis for Corus Staal BV they offered me a position and I moved to Amsterdam. Currently I work as an accountmanager which is my third position within this company. Corus is a large steel production company formally known as ‘Koninklijke Hoogovens’ and is currently under Indian leadership. In my job I am responsible for the development, realisation, implementation and performance of several facilities services that we provide for our internal customer. Since I am working for such a large company I still have great growth opportunities and therefore the ability to continue my learning curve both national and international.

Furthermore I am currently on the board of IFMA Young, focussed on young professionals within the International FM environment and F-MEX, a foundation focussed on taking FM to a higher level within the Netherlands. Sharing knowledge is a great thing and therefore I am very happy to be supervising a graduation project executed by a very talented student from the Hanze University IFM program at the moment and I hope that many will follow in her footsteps.      

IFM gave me the opportunity to develop myself on a personal and professional level. Prior to my start I was not sure whether that was the right education for me, but after spending 3,5 years I am convinced that I could not have picked a better school. The courses are diverse and at the same time specific into the field of Facility Management, therefore I got to learn the different sides of Facility Management and the correlations among them.

I spent a year abroad which was an amazing experience I will never forget. I went to study Tourism in Macau, China for 5 months, there I met many international and local people, learned a lot and gained a great professional and personal experience also in adapting to a different culture.
The whole trip was a great experience which I will never forget. For me Macau is a place  where you can find many interesting and entertaining places, learn a lot, meet a lot of people, have a great time and get to know another culture!
The rest of my year abroad I spent in Bulgaria where I worked for a company which specialized in student recruitment and worked closely with several international universities. The five months placement helped me to experience the working environment and apply my theoretical knowledge gained so far.

The reason why I chose International Facility Management is because it is a broad subject with many possibilities.
Now I am the first year student and I must say that so far I am satisfied with this study programme.

Until now we have had a deeper look at what FM is from many aspects. With the help of practical studying, working in groups on real life cases, we are learning how a Facility Manager should work to maintain and plan a building. Furthermore, we are learning how to work in a team, design future office and many other interesting things. And I am curious to see what comes next!

Moreover besides the fact that I am already abroad IFM gives me the opportunity to spend one year abroad. During my third year I can spend my exchange semester within partner schools of IFM from all around the world and complete my internship for 6 months, again in abroad. However the nicest thing is that after finishing this study I have the possibility to work almost anywhere I want around the world.

To be honest at the beginning it was a bit hard until I got used to fact that everything around is in Dutch and it was not as easy as it would be at my home country Latvia, but that is something you just have to get used to and it is not difficult. In the Netherlands almost everybody speaks English, people are very friendly and helpful and the Groningen itself is a great place to be, especially for students.

“If you want a degree which gives you a wide range of options on the commercial as well as on the corporate market, International Facility Management is most definitely a suitable programme. I feel that after completing this study you will know the educational concepts, skills and values necessary to successfully enter the employment market in facility management and related professions.”

“My future plans? After my graduation, I want to get my master degree in business administration. Then, before actually starting my career, I would like to go on a world trip. Eventually I will start my own company.”

The reason I have chosen to study “International Facility Management” is the fact that I don’t want to study business only and manage people from behind a desk.  I like to work together with other people and see that my efforts bear fruit. In addition to that, the international classes and the programs taught in English are not very common in Germany, my home country. This degree program offers a wide variety of activities and fields I can specialize in. That was certainly a big plus when I decided to go to the Netherlands. Studying in Holland is slightly different compared to being a student in my home country. The education involves a lot of group work where I work actively on projects with my class mates. So the learning process does not only consist of memorizing literature. Personally, this has been an important factor when I decided to come to the Hanze as well.

The first time wasn’t always easy for me, because the teachers with different cultural backgrounds have different attitudes towards teaching. Finally I think handling these kinds of incidents is also a good preparation for my future life. When you have to deal with people, processes do not always run smoothly. Furthermore I really appreciate the opportunity to study one semester in China next year. This will be a completely new experience for me and I am looking forward to it tremendously. After my study abroad next year, I will do an internship in a company, hopefully again in another country. The Institute of Facility Management has a big international network I can make use of, or I will simply find a company on my own.