Are you wondering what a cooperative master’s program in business economics with Deutsche Telekom actually entails? In this blog post, I provide some insights into my daily routine as a cooperative student and describe how it is to complete a program of studies alongside practical assignments.
I have been a cooperative master’s student for the last nine months, working in the areas of Employer Branding and HR Marketing. After finishing my Bachelor’s, I knew I wanted to finally gain some practical experience and earn my own money, but I still wanted to work towards my master’s degree. At first I played around with the idea of taking a full-time position and starting my master’s after working for a few years. After doing some research, however, I came across Deutsche Telekom and their cooperative master’s offer. I applied and what do you know – now I’m here and the time is flying by.
Let’s start at the beginning: so what university am I studying at?
Deutsche Telekom cooperates with the School of International Business and Entrepreneurship. Anyone doing a master’s in business economics with Deutsche Telekom studies at this university. My course is titled M.Sc. International Management. The modules on this course comprise areas such as economics, business economics, finance and accounting, and marketing. We also have the option to choose a module from a variety of mandatory elective subjects. I decided on the Change Management module. Studying abroad is also an obligatory part of the course. For our course, we will be going for around three weeks next spring to a partner university in Edinburgh, Scotland. Not all of my classmates are with Deutsche Telekom, though. They’re spread across various corporate groups and small and medium-sized enterprises. This makes our exchanges all the more interesting and varied.
Exams, projects and practical assignments
A large part of our assessment is done through coursework and presentations. Since we are carrying out our own project within the company spanning across the two years’ of our degree, there are relatively few exams to do. Besides its practical implementation within the company, we also work on the theoretical side of the project through coursework. This combination is also a good way to put the theoretical knowledge learned in our various modules into practice. The few exams that we do end up sitting then offer real value, supporting us in the implementation of our project.
And how is my practical assignment at Deutsche Telekom Going?
For the duration of my degree, I have two key contacts in the Group. The “study coach” is my contact within Telekom Vocational Training, who I meet up with at least once a semester for a coaching talk. That’s when we talk about our experiences thus far and discuss any possible issues. The good thing about it is that these talks are one-on-one and what we discuss is confidential. The “business mentor” is my contact during the practical phase of my degree. This mentor supports me in my daily activities and also acts as the main contact for the project I’m carrying out in the company, the theoretical side of which I’m working on at uni.
As I mentioned before, I work in the HR Marketing unit. I’m primarily assigned to the social media team there. I do, however, have other exciting tasks that don’t directly count towards my work for this unit. In my next blog post, you’ll learn in detail about my tasks and what I do day-to-day at work – stay tuned 😊
