Like many business students, Sammy Sung has chosen to beef up his academics while the global economy recovers, but he also wants to build connections with the professional world. Luckily, the Dutch-born accountancy hopeful doesn’t have to look far.

After his first degree in Business Studies at London’s Cass Business School this year, Sung applied to Nyenrode Business Universiteit’s two-year Masters in Accountancy program.

Sung needed to catch up on a few law-related modules, so he has taken up a place on Nyenrode’s one-year pre-Masters course.

The 22-year-old didn’t need much persuading to take up the offer: “Originally, I was struggling to decide whether to stay in the UK to work or continue studying. But a cousin who is a Nyenrode student recommended I look at the school.

“He said: ‘If you can’t decide between studying and working, you should at least apply to Nyenrode to see what they offer.’” Sung recalls.
Sung says that many of his friends were struggling top find work after graduating from university, which made him re-evaluate the job market in the UK.

“It’s very hard for people like me who have zero work experience to enter accountancy or consultancy in London,” he says. “I’ve seen friends looking for work for two years or more who are still unable to find a job.”

Sung then researched Nyenrode on the internet. He came across the Nyenrode school page on BusinessBecause.com and was impressed. “BusinessBecause.com helped me a lot [in terms of getting information on Nyenrode]. It opened my mind,” he says.
Nyenrode is emerging as a “great prospect” for business students according to Sung.

“Over the last couple of years they have built a connection with Harvard… they have all sorts of international speakers coming in.”

But it is the unique structure of the Nyenrode curriculum that won Sung over: “The possibility of working and studying at the same time is so amazing. The way Nyenrode works is that you study at work; meaning you work for four days and you study for one.

“You don’t even pay your school fees because your employer pays for you,” he adds.

But what if you cannot find an employer? “Well, it’ll be a bit more expensive [for you]!” he jokes.

Sung is currently looking for an employer to sponsor his tuition fees. “It won’t be a problem,” he says. “Nyenrode has agreements with Dutch employers. The school is famous for doing this.”

Unlike in the UK, a Masters in the Netherlands takes two years, so Sung expects to graduate in 2013.

“My goal is to work for one of the Big Four (audit firms). It’s surprising as the competition (here in the Netherlands) is so different from the UK. In the Netherlands, I have lots of classmates who started working for the Big Four right after they finished high school!” he says.

He is convinced that he is on the right track. He says: “The feeling I get from Nyenrode is that it’s really professional. People who are sitting there [in front of the class] know what they are talking about!”

The combination of work and study will really help him prepare for the future. “In class you know the words and terms already, so you learn how to apply them and how to deal with problems when you go back to work,” he says. “The one day in the classroom is not like going to school; it’s like going to an evaluation seminar to look at what you’ve just done in four days at work.”

“The philosophy of Nyenrode is that you cannot learn unless you apply,” he says. “You can learn all the stuff in Bachelors and in Masters degrees, but unless you apply it to work it’s not very useful.”

If you've got a GMAT score of 650 or over you can fly to visit the Nyenrode campus for free, to apply for the January sessions click here and for more information about the weekend activities check out this story!