Interesting program with research focus

The EMEA program is challenging but interesting at the same time. The mandatory courses including seminars and lectures like e.g. political economy of oil rents, political economy of corruption and shadow economy,Islamic Finance etc. are highly research oriented, interdisciplinary and require students to conduct own quantitative (applying econometric methods to data) research which is challenging at the beginning but a very helpful preparation for the master thesis. I also think that the grading at at our faculty is quite fair and there are very low failure rates. The biggest advantage of the master program is the freedom to choose courses in the specialization and electives area which both make up almost 50% of all the credits to be earned in the program. I personally chose the Economics specialization and chose political courses like international relations and political theories in my electives which very well complemented my economics courses. Since the program is run as a cooperation between two faculties ( faculty of of business and economics and the faculty of Middle East studies) you interact with different kinds of students with different mindsets. The only aspect that I would improve is that the EMEA courses should be upgraded by inviting practitioners from relevant organizations showing that what we learned has a practical relevance and is not just a theoretical Stata exercise. This could also be helpful for networking. All in all I liked the program and don’t regret to have studied it.