University of Brighton

It was a proud moment on Friday when students and staff graduated at the University of Brighton's 2019 Winter Graduation Ceremony.

Double degree programme in Business and Management received their UK Bachelor of Science degrees today at a ceremony in the Brighton Centre situated on the seafront in Brighton.

On another extremely sunny and warm day, the business school students from Amsterdam looked splendid in their ceremonial gowns as they crossed the stage to pick up their degrees after being congratulated by Prof Debra Humphris, Vice Chancellor of the University of Brighton.

At a Partnership Review Event, held yesterday at Falmer Campus of the University of Brighton, plans to launch a Doctoral College at Wittenborg University Apeldoorn were approved by a panel who also carried out a Partnership Review into the collaboration between Wittenborg and Brighton. The proposed Master of Arts in Education, to be delivered at Wittenborg from September, was also approved.

A new Doctoral College in Apeldoorn, to be run jointly by Wittenborg University of Applied Sciences and its British partner, the University of Brighton, is set to raise the small Dutch city's international and research profile.

It is always a proud moment to hear of the successes of Wittenborg alumni – one of those is Dutch graduate, Raymon Driessen.

Driessen graduated with an IBA in Entrepreneurship & Small Business from Wittenborg in February 2016 and has not looked back since. Currently, he is working as an assistant account manager at Dutch bank ABN AMRO – one of the best performing banks worldwide in terms of sustainability. He has also just graduated from the University of Brighton’s School of Business with an MSc in Management & Entrepreneurship.

At Brighton’s recent 2018 Graduation Ceremony in the UK, Driessen caught up with Wittenborg’s chair of the executive board, Peter Birdsall, who was supporting Wittenborg MSc students as they received their diplomas from Brighton as part of a joint programme between the two institutions.

What are his plans for the future? “I want to get some experience in the financing sector in which I am currently working. I want to understand the financing side of owning a business. At the moment I am an assistant account manager at ABN AMRO and following a programme in the financing sector to become an account manager. My other goal is to gain some managerial experience before setting up my own company.”

On his time as a student in the UK he says: “The culture in the UK is very different than in the Netherlands. More than I expected. The people are extremely friendly and helpful. On campus I stayed with a lot of British students so that was great. It feels good to be a graduate!”

Wittenborg's latest Master of Science graduates received their formal degrees on Friday at the University of Brighton's 2018 Winter Graduation Ceremony in the UK. Wittenborg offers its MSc programmes in conjunction with Brighton.

This week Wittenborg programme coordinators paid a working visit to the University of Brighton, visiting three campuses - the business school in Brighton, the Falmer campus and the School of Service Management in Eastbourne.

During the visit to the business school at the Mithras House campus, Apeldoorn's University of Brighton programme coordinator Myra Qiu was joined by Amsterdam's coordinator of the bachelor's in Entrepreneurship to discuss ongoing development of the programme.