The importance of inclusivness

Malekar Manodnya
student of the Master’s Programme in International Business

Inclusiveness is one of the SEB LU’s key values, and student body diversity is of strategic importance for the SEB LU. From your experience, in what way do SEB LU students gain competencies of involving people from diverse back- grounds into everyday activities? Do they value different perspectives and respect diverse needs?

Yes, indeed. When I started my pro- gramme in SEB LU, I was little skepti- cal since it was my first international experience. I was also indifferent about the thought of whether my col- leagues would get along with me, or if I would be able to fit into this environ- ment. But, SEB LU has an environment where you never feel left out. Our pro- grammes are structured in such a way that everyone gets to work in a team for group projects, class discussion, and presentations. And yes, every- one’s opinion matters. We have so much diversity in our class that we al- ways had group members from differ- ent countries. That is why we could learn their methods, techniques, and we could understand the different ways of thinking that we could adapt in our professional career. This facili- tated the exchange of not only our ideas, views, and opinions, but also the thought processes.

As a foreign student studying in SEB LU’s Master’s programme in Interna- tional business, could you say that in- clusiveness is one of key characteris- tics of SEB LU’s culture?

I come from a country which is differ- ent in terms of culture and values. The culture in Slovenia and the other Euro- pean countries is somehow similar. But still, everyone respects each other’s culture here, and also values our perspectives. I think in this envi- ronment I experienced that one’s per- sonal opinion is always valued irre- spective of their origins or their for- eign nationality. In fact, it helped us to know each other better. SEB LU also conducts different kinds of workshops for international students, where we can connect and blend into the envi- ronment more easily. Also, our pro- grammes have a more practical touch, where we get to know the cases which occurred in different countries. This facilitates our participation in the class discussions. Most importantly, it helps us to eradicate the stereotypes which we had in our mind about the other cultures, and get a clear idea about the reality. SEB LU has also facilitated the teaching of Slovene to students, which is conducted for the first year students. I think this is the kind of a feature where it helps us feel included. Our school conducts the business skills development workshops also in English where we can learn the skills to be used in professional careers.

SEB LU provided me the platform where I could develop myself and en- hance the knowledge which will con- tribute to my career.

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