Dear reader,

All of my previous academic career years I have been studying in a small town called Leuven not that far from Brussels. I use the words “small” and “town” not for the bad reasons but just to draw an image of a small and cosy town where I spent ten years of my life. An other way to describe the city to you, would be by mentioning that Leuven counts almost 100,000 inhabitants and that the diameter of its centre is approx. 2km. So even if the public transportation was on strike, one could cross the centre in just 15 minutes by foot. Now you can already imagine that although it was very practical to study there, it became somewhat boring after those years and because of that I craved for new surroundings and experiences.

Since the start of the academic year at Vlerick in Brussels, my wishes came true. Not only have I been traveling each morning for thirty minutes to the campus but I was also encountered with a great diversity of people, architecture and Brussels’ sparkling life. Each morning I walk in a buzzing stream of people who are hurrying to work or school and each evening, no matter how late, I still notice that most of the shops are open and that the streets are crowded. Even when we were working on an assignment in the middle of the night we could still order delivery pizza to the campus, what was difficult to do in Leuven on a usual weekday.

But even a greater diversity was awaiting me in the Financial Management group on the first of September. I was expecting some international students since Vlerick is an international business school, but our programme alone counts more than 12 different nationalities if you count me in. It is fascinating to work with people from so many different backgrounds and is inspiring how we all became so close in a short period of time. Although I realize that we are halfway our amazing journey I look forward to next challenges that our program has to offer.

The most important ‘non-financial’ lesson I learned in 2015 is that we must not be afraid of stepping into the unknown since the real life starts at the end of our comfort zone.

I wish you all lots of success and lots of exciting experiences in the new 2016!

Kyryl Berezin
MFM Candidate 2016