So this is a minor about the USA. Why would that be interesting for you? More and more do we see that there is a need from students from various educational and cultural backgrounds to understand the world in which we live. They realise they need to understand various viewpoints in order to reflect and grow (and become a flexible and agile professional). This USA minor allows students to get an understanding of the political, social and economic background of a powerful player, the USA.

In a nutshell the minor will provide a Socio-Economic overview of contemporary America. The main aim of the content is to give you a deeper understanding of today’s America. This will give an objective basis for those who wish to know about the key superpower in the world today, the potential changes that are to come and how the world economy will be affected.

In this minor you will partly work together with students from the Sports Entertainment Management degree program at the University of Northern Texas, Dallas. You jointly work on cases brought in by a selected set of organisations from the Netherlands and the USA. These organisations are in the field of sport, Innovation and technology. Part of the minor is a facilitated study trip to the USA (*). During this trip you will see in practice what you learned in the minor and you visit and pitch your finding to the university and businesses  case partners.

1. Students will obtain valuable business insights and educational knowledge concerning the American Business & Culture in the 21st century.
2. Understand, apply and analyze the main macro-economic principles and policies and being able to relate them to America’s (economic) position in the world as well as current global economic developments.
3. Understand, apply and analyze America’s economic model and its monetary and financial system and the central role it (still) has in the world economy.
4. Understand, apply and analyze cultural issues in American society and apply these in business cases. Focus is on history, politics, sociology and regionalism.
5. A specific and relevant knowledge and experience of American business practices and real case-studies on location in the USA. This will be used to create solutions stemming from the cases.
6. Student shows that he/she can apply knowledge and insights at business cases related to his own specific degree program. This knowledge and insight will be analysed and evaluated.

If you register for this minor you are expected to have some background knowledge of basic economic theory and the contemporary international business environment. If you are a student from a non-economic background you are also very welcome to take part in the minor. In the intake interview we jointly see if your individual learning objectives meet the learning objectives from this minor. The advice is non-binding.

The minor has an obvious and structural international character – both the learning and social environment uses English. We expect you to master English at B2 level. This will not be tested in advance. It is your own responsibility to ensure this level.

The learning objectives will be assessed via a combination of didactical assessment tools. We will use a combination of formative and summative assessment

 15 ECTS = Theories and case-studies concerning the economic, political, historical and cultural context that form a background understanding of contemporary USA which can then be applied to the actual global business environment by our students. We identify 3 subjects:  The American monetary and financial system, American macro-economic principles and policies, American business and culture.

10 ECTS = One project in two parts concerning American business practices and opportunities.

5 ECTS = You will create a personal portfolio.  This portfolio is based on the ILO’s (Individual learning outcomes) defined at the start of the minor. We use Canvas and the Feedpulse module to reflect and assess the portfolio (the USA study trip will take up part of this portfolio reflection).

The minor will run every spring semester (starts in february) and runs for the entire semester (20 weeks / 30 ECTS). The location of the minor is the Rachelmolencampus in Eindhoven. This is comfortably located on walking distance from the Central Station.  For questions please contact us by email: Richard Boon (r.boon@fontys.nl).

In order to participate in this minor we ask every student to make a financial contribution to partly cover for the facilitated study trip costs. The individual student contribution will be made know soon.

(*) the decision to run the facilitated study trip will be made prior to the start of the minor and depends on the situation at that moment.