New students of CEMS have already started the semester

The academic year 2014/2015 for new CEMS class at the University of Economics, Prague has been kicked-off by the Block Seminar which was held on September 8-12, 2014. The Block Seminar is a compulsory part of CEMS MIM curriculum.

Based on the very successful concept from last two years, the Block Seminar has been organized again in cooperation with our corporate partner ŠKODA AUTO. An attractive topic Marketing in the automotive industry has been prepared for a group of 29 CEMS students of 18 nationalities coming from 10 different CEMS universities.

The academic part has been supervised by Petr Král, Ph.D., Head of the Department of International Business at the University of Economics, Prague and CEMS teacher of International Marketing course. The diverse team of CEMS teacher Verena Gruber from WU Wien, Thanh Vu Tran, Head of Global Marketing and Tomáš Geist, Specialist for Mobile Platforms in ŠKODA AUTO contributed to the rich programme of the Block Seminar.

The main students task was a cooperation on projects on a given topics, which were chosen by ŠKODA AUTO. Student teams with 4 – 5 members were created at the beginning of the seminar and presented the results of their whole-week effort during the last day of the seminar. A jury of VSE, WU Wien and ŠKODA AUTO representatives decided on the winning team whose members were Ivana Horníková, Cecilia Pennazio, Lorenzo Navurunnage, Felix Schmitt a Radu Trandafir.

The overall impression of this years Block Seminar can be illustrated by the statement of the student of the International Management/CEMS programme at VSE Jana Nováková:

“The Block Seminar in cooperation with ŠKODA AUTO was an unforgettable experience for all 29 participants. There were interesting lectures throughout the week organized and taught by professors from VSE, WU Wien and marketing experts from ŠKODA AUTO. In order to prepare our projects, we were provided with a lot of marketing theory as well as practical knowledge by visiting the ŠKODA museum and factory in Mladá Boleslav. Peak of the seminar was on Friday, when the presentations were due. There were a lot of creative and clever ideas presented. Even though my team did not win, I still have gained a lot of information and knowledge, not to mention the number of new friends. Thanks professors and ŠKODA AUTO representatives for this experience.”

In case of your interest see the photogallery.