Information PENGUIN 2014

PENGUIN 2014

Introduction Camp International Econometric Students 29th of August 2014 - 31th of August 2014

FAECTOR Erasmus University Rotterdam

Table of contents

Introduction

Introduction p. 2

Dear prospective student,

Preface President FAECTOR p. 3

Congratulations on your acceptance into the Erasmus University Rotterdam. We look forward to welcoming you at our university, as well as the next few years spent together. In this booklet you will find all the information about the PENGUIN weekend, the introduction weekend for the International Bachelors Econometrics and Operational Research and the BSc² Econometrics/Economics students. This weekend is organised by the Freshmen Committee of FAECTOR (Faculty Association Econometrics & Operations Research), the study association for students Econometrics.

Teacher: Dr. C. Heij p. 4 Freshmen Committee p. 5 Freshmen event: Amsterdam Trip p. 9 FAECTOR Committees p. 11 Dining out in Rotterdam p. 12 Nightlife in Rotterdam p. 13 Important places at Erasmus University Rotterdam

p. 14

PENGUIN 2013 p. 15

The PENGUIN weekend offers you an opportunity to get to know the university, the city Rotterdam and your fellow students in a fun and informal way, before the semester starts.

The goal of the weekend is to make you feel comfortable and at home in Rotterdam and with your new classmates.

There will be a series of games and activities to both get to know each other and the city. Furthermore, there will be an opportunity to meet older Econometrics students, who are more than happy to provide insight into your upcoming studies and life in Rotterdam. All together we hope to provide you a fun and relaxed weekend before you start your challenging studies.

To cut a long story short: the Penguin weekend will be a great, once in a lifetime experience full of fun and games, and the best opportunity to get to know one another!

FAECTOR Board p. 16 On behalf of the Freshmen Committee, Information about PENGUIN 2014 p. 17

Why should you sign up for PENGUIN? p. 17

Milena Zychlinsky Scharff

Signing up! p. 18

From left to right: EsmeĂŠ, Shuda, Tammo, Austin, Milena, Maxi, Bob & Isabelle

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Preface President FAECTOR Dear prospective Econometrician, By choosing to study Econometrics and Operations Research you have opened the door to countless opportunities and future endeavours. By choosing to enrol in this program in the beautiful city of Rotterdam you have further heightened your university experience, because Rotterdam is the backdrop to make everyday student life enjoyable. Besides just deciding on an excellent programme and city you have also made a great choice by signing up for the PENGUIN weekend.

PENGUIN Weekend is the introduction camp for first year Econometricians, and it marks the beginning of the bachelors programme. The weekend will be organised

by FAECTOR (Faculty Association for Econometrics and Operations Research): the one and only study association for Econometrics students at the Erasmus School of

Economics (ESE). You might be wondering now: what is a study association exactly? And why is the PENGUIN weekend such an unforgettable experience?

Firstly, FAECTOR, the study association for econometrics, have the task to guide you throughout your studies.

Not in just the social, but also the academic and career-oriented aspect. During the course of the year we plan many activities ranging from after exam drinks, to a study trip to Asia, to football tournaments, a banking trip to London, and of course book sales (with discounts for our members). At the start of your studies you will most likely benefit more from the social aspects of the association, but as you move forward with your degree, plenty of great career opportunities will present themselves.

You will get in contact with prestigious companies and hopefully find your dream job.

Now, on to the second question. Why is the PENGUIN weekend so special? It is an opportunity to meet your future classmates for the first time. This is probably one of your first activities at university, and I can assure you that it will be a weekend you will always remember. Not only due to the lively and fun activities, but also due to the friendships you will forge, that will last in the years to come. Furthermore, the weekend presents you with the opportunity to meet some of the people carrying the study association, such as the board of FAECTOR as well as the Freshmen Committee.

helping plan these events, I suggest you talk to one of the members of the Freshmen Committee. The Freshmen Committee plans several fun activities throughout the year and is a great way to get to know your fellow classmates. Many opportunities lie ahead of you at FAECTOR, which we are sure you will soon find out.

I wish you an enjoyable introduction camp and I look forward to seeing you around at PENGUIN and the campus.

Enjoy!

The board consists of seven members, and they are in charge of organising the many events in cooperation with all the committees that you will be able to participate in throughout the year. If you are interested in becoming an active member of the association, and

Bas Vringer President 48th Board (2013-2014)

From left to right: Isabelle Indeweij Gerlings, Ewout Bosch, Kim Wittekoek, Bas Vringer, Jan-Willem Zeijen, Max Schotsman and Joris Blokland.

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Teacher: Dr. C. Heij PENGUIN: Start of a great journey!

Penguins will do anything for each other. They have a strong team spirit and they will walk more than a hundred kilometers through awful territories just to get food for each other. As a prospecting student, you are at the start of a beautiful journey. You might encounter some bumps on the road, e.g. when the study can get demanding and time consuming. But the team spirit at the study Econometrics is fantastic. You get to know each other at PENGUIN very well, so that the challenging and pretty study period that is about to start, will also develop great in social aspect. At PENGUIN, the foundation is laid for an active group of students, who do a lot for the study and for extra activities of the study association Econometrisch Dispuut. I wish you as a PENGUIN an amazing introduction week. We will see each other straight afterwards at the start of the study, during the first course Introduction to Statistics. First enjoy your freedom during your holidays and afterwards you’ll experience that your student life will be very pleasant too. Talk to the older students at PENGUIN, they can tell you all about their own experiences. I am looking forward to your arrival at our campus!

Best regards, Christiaan Heij, teacher PS. For anyone who wants to think about a statistical question already: if there is a chance of 1 in 10.000 that an Econometrician from Rotterdam will become a billionaire and there are in total 10.000 Rotterdam Econometricians who will graduate in the 21st century, what is the chance that exactly one Rotterdam Econometrician from the 21st century will become a billionaire? And what is the chance that at least one Rotterdam Econometrician from the 21st century will become a billionaire?

Freshmen Committee Dear Penguin, We are a committee consisting of freshmen International Bachelor Econometrics & Operations Research and freshmen BSc² Econometrics/Economics. Our job as the Freshmen Committee is to help you get adjusted to the new environment. To make your transition from high school as smooth as possible, we try our best to acquaint you with your class mates and older econometricians.

Last year we organised many different events. After the PENGUIN weekend, we took our international students on a trip to Amsterdam. Throughout the year we celebrated the Dutch tradition Sinterklaas, we had an After-Christmas Dinner and a Lasertag event. We ended the year with a big Beer Pong Tournament.

If you want to be part of this amazing committee, keep your ears and eyes open. The application process will start right at the beginning of the academic year.

On behalf of the Freshmen Committee, Milena Zychlinsky Scharff

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Freshmen event: Amsterdam Trip Over twenty students from Econometrics went to the greatly anticipated Amsterdam Trip. It was an event organised by the Freshmen Committee, held on the 2nd of November and designated to those who would like to spend their Saturday in Amsterdam. Registration was done weeks before the event, and lasted until a few days before the main event, which means that there’s a lot of opportunity for people to sign up. It cost only €20, which was a great price for a whole day in Amsterdam, including food and beverages. It surely was an occasion that everyone looked up to, especially by international students who haven’t been to Amsterdam before.

Everyone gathered quite early in the morning, in order to catch the morning train to Amsterdam and do the activities as soon as possible. The main event in Amsterdam started at 11 pm, and in the schedule it was said to be a “museum” visit. It did look quite lame and boring, but everyone’s thought did change when they finally did arrive at the museum. It’s none other than the Sex Museum of Amsterdam. Everybody did actually go wild when they figured it out. They knew that wouldn’t be just another museum visit trip. The Sex Museum in Amsterdam is the fourth most visited museum in the city, and is

also one of the most famous sex museums in the world.

The museum is, of course, filled with lots of galleries and sculptures that imbue sex and other erotic contents. It surely was worth the time to visit, as there are lots and lots of things that you would never find anywhere else, such as ancient pictures of people from ages ago doing sex. It may be quite wrong when you think of it, but it really is a must-visit museum.

After the museum, it was already time for lunch, which was the time that people were waiting for. We visited a restaurant near the museum, which was quite delicious and not pricy. Everyone had to choose food and drinks from the long list of menu with the budget of €8, which was actually very satisfying. The great and tasty meal prepared the group for the long-waited event, the Red Light District tour.

A tour guide came and showed us around Amsterdam, as she gave the group a lot of information, such as the biggest coffee shop Grasshopper, the building of the central station, the canals and much more. After the walk, we all finally arrived at the Red Light District. We started from the old church, which was the place where

all of the Red Light District’s main activities were held at first. Now, it is the place where a few rainbow-colored flags are raised, which was the sign of a site designated mainly for gays. As everyone went through the street, some buildings started to appear with red lights above their door. Some of the windows were open with women standing and posing behind the mirror. The tour guide led the way to the biggest sex theatre, where live sex shows are shown every day. After those long walks, the Red Light District tour ended at the Chinatown district of Amsterdam. The tour guide really did help everyone gain a lot of experience and knowledge, and an unforgettable spectacular tour.

Next in the schedule was some free time, where everyone could go wherever they wanted until 17.30 to gather for dinner. Some went to a coffee shop, others went looking for some extra food, as there’s a lot of other choices of things to do in Amsterdam in two and a half hours of spare time.

At the evening, everyone had their dinner around the southern part of Amsterdam, where they all gathered

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again. The dinner was incredible, with the same budget of €8 and a wide variety of choices of mostly Italian food and drinks. It truly was an enjoyable moment, to have a dinner together with friends while being accompanied by good music and that warm, cosy feeling.

The day wouldn’t have been complete if everyone went home without visiting any pubs or bars. Well, that’s what the committee had been saving for last. Everyone headed to a pub, where everyone could get drinks and enjoy themselves, having a good time. After around two hours at the pub, the last event of the day was to go to a pool bar, where everyone could play and have fun together, even those who never touched a cue stick before. This truly was a great event to finish the day in Amsterdam.

Estimator Committee

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FAECTOR Committees As you have read, FAECTOR organises all kinds of events and it would be the most fun if you could be part of the organisation. As a freshman, you can apply for one of the following three committees: the Freshmen Committee, the Estimator Committee and the Almanac Committee. All three committees are very important.

Freshmen Committee You can read all about the Freshmen Committee on page 6.

Estimator Committee The Estimator is FAECTOR’s magazine. It is published four times a year. Every issue contains fun facts, interviews, stories about our events and photo pages.

As a committee member, you can go to all events of FAECTOR and write articles about them. Would you like to improve your writing talents or just show them to the rest of us? Look no further and apply for the Estimator Committee.

Almanac Committee This committee is responsible for composing the Almanac, the yearbook of econometricians in Rotterdam.

This committee will be created at the end of the year.

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Eating out in Rotterdam The almanac notices all FAECTOR’s members and committees and it will be distributed to all the members.

It is a very nice committee and a very simple way of getting to know a lot of people, so this committee is definitely worth looking at.

Activities Committee The Activities Committee is there to ensure that some great social events FAECTOR has to offer will be organised smoothly and properly! The biggest events the Activities Committee will be focusing on are the yearly FAECTOR City Trip, the End of the Year Party and the Eurekaweek. Last destinations of the City Trip were Paris, Berlin & Dublin. It’s still a big surprise where we will head next!

Other Committees Starting your second year, FAECTOR has a lot of other committees for which you can apply. For example the International Research Project Committee or the Recruitment Committee. To see what these committees are for, check: http://www.faector.nl/associations/committees

Although the Netherlands is not famous for its own food, you don’t need to worry about your appetite when you are out in Rotterdam. Rotterdam has a local specialty, “Kapsalon”. If you order it, you will be served fries topped with shawarma, molten cheese and garlic sauce.

A photo of this snack is found below!

Besides that, restaurants of different styles can be found in every corners of this modern city. Take a look at the following restaurants and go find out which one suits your appetite.

Argentinian Mendoza, Boompjes Chinese Tai Wu, Mauritsweg Lange Muur, West-Kruiskade Restaurant Beijing, West-Kruiskade African Viva Afrika, Nieuwe Binnenweg

Italian La Pizza, Scheepstimmermanslaan San Marco, Bergpolderplein Angelo Betti, Schiekade Mexican Popocatepetl, Spaansepoort French Mimosa, Pannekoekstraat Soit, ’s-Gravendijkwal Spanish Tapas bar Barcelona, Pannenkoekstraat Proeflokaal Lokanta, Waterloostraat Japanese Sumo, Binnenrotte Yamato, Kruiskade Kobe House, Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal Greek Dionysos, Schouwburgplein Olympia, Schiedamse Vest

We hope to see many of you in a committee next year!

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Nightlife in Rotterdam As a new student in the city Rotterdam, what is a better way to socialize and meet new people here, then to go out? Of course a big city as Rotterdam has a lot to offer to you! You can experience any kind of night here.

Ranging from a laid-back pub crawl to a crazy party night at a club.

For starters, FAECTOR organises a social drink every first week of the block, the After Exam Drinks. Those drinks are held in the bar called Divoza, which is located in the Oude Haven. The beer prices fit in any ones budget and you always have a good time with your fellow students. Have you had enough of Econometricians?

There are plenty of bars in Rotterdam in de Oude Haven, Witte de Withstraat en de Oude Binnenweg. Feel free to explore the bars and cafés here yourself! We, as the Freshmen Committee, can especially recommend bar Stockholm where you can have delicious dinner and then have a relaxed cocktail or two afterwards.

Important places at Erasmus University super cheap beer and mostly internationals will always ensure a memorable night.

If you would like to experience partying “Dutch style”, the Après Skihut will definitely blow your mind. The bartenders/dancers will make sure that the crowd goes crazy to Dutch music. At this club, tables are made to be danced on!

On Thursday nights the clubs are filled with students all across the Netherlands. Rotterdam Café Beurs is especially busy but it’s always worth it. The party will not stop until the last person has left the club in the early morning hours. The music played is anything from 80s and 90s music to recent music in English and Dutch.

Besides those clubs, Toffler also has a great reputation for clubbing. Famous DJ’s frequently play at this basement location.

For you as a freshman there are only a few important places you will get to know very well during the first weeks.

C-Building Most of your lectures and tutorials will take place in this building. The library is also located in here. Besides that you also have the opportunity to grab a bite of food in a little café located in between lecture halls on the ground floor. Seats and relaxing areas are also available.

H-Building In the H-Building you will find the FAECTOR-office, it is located in H10-05. There you can buy your books as well as get information and sign up for all FAECTOR events. If you decide to join a committee this will be your meeting point as well.

Shopping On the campus you have a variety of shopping opportunities. The V-Building is home to the study store where you can also buy your books, if you should decide not to join FAECTOR. Besides books they also have any study supply you could think of. In the V-Building you will also find stores like a hair dresser a bakery and a copy shop.

Food Recently the Food Court opened in the heart of the campus with a variety of different little stores, for example Starbucks, Toasty World, New Fork and a Spar supermarket.

Besides the food court, the buildings J, L, T and H have their own cafeteria where you can have full meals.

It doesn’t matter where you go: you are always guaranteed to have a good time!

Enough of drinking, but you can’t stop dancing? Then on Tuesdays Club BED is the place to be. The free entrance,

Food court

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PENGUIN 2013 At midday on Friday 30th August, a group gathered outside the train station at Rotterdam Alexander, strangers to each other, these individuals came from far and wide. To the untrained eye they seemly had nothing in common. They had strange accents, dressed a little different and all had sleeping bags and camping gear, but why?

Of course there was only one answer! The start of PENGUIN WEEKEND 2013!

Lead by the Freshmen Committee chairman, Bob Muijs, the international students arrived at the scout centre just north of Rotterdam. Surprisingly no one got lost travelling to the camp, despite passing a KFC on the way. At the site an extremely enthusiastic 2012 Freshman Committee greeted the shy Penguins into camp and were hurried past the crates and crates of beer and wine, I believe the site doubled up as a warehouse for local Gall and Gall stores, but this cannot be confirmed.

The boys realized quickly they would be bunking down in the large tent whilst the girls got five star accommodations in the nearby cabins.

After introductions from outgoing Educational Officer Tijan Lam and his team, the first port of call was to break the ice and test our mental faculties. A quick game of “name that person” took place, about an hour later; the students had lunch and played some more games.

Throughout the three days a regular routine was established whereby everyone was split into groups to tackle tasks like washing dishes, cleaning tables and preparing meals. If a parent is reading this, read the last sentence again, yes your child can do these things, for the last eighteen years they just pretended not to know how.

There was a mix of students from Britain, Germany, Indonesia, Netherlands and more, a great vibe was building and everyone was enjoying getting to know each other. A game of “get to know you bingo” discovered some people had tattoos, others revealed shocking stories and quite a few students didn’t actually know what bingo was. But laughs were had and later dinner provided more opportunities for students to get to know each other.

FAECTOR Board committee members expense, names shall be withheld.

BANG! No it wasn’t a gun but Bob cheerfully banging a metal pot with a big wooden spoon as the bleary eyed students woke up for day two. After a very Dutch breakfast of bread with chocolate sprinkles on top, but definitely not jam and sprinkles, that would be a silly mistake. All the students were split into groups for a game of similar to treasure hunt. Now some of the tasks seemed easy, get a napkin, pose by a statue, but this would lead you into a false sense of security as it quickly became apparent that not all tasks could be done. As budding Econometricians, calculations were being made, what was the benefit/costs of doing a Kung-Fu fight scene in the city centre as opposed to eating as many “Ferrero Rocher” chocolates in one minute (apparently the benefit is quite high). Others were more daring, asking strangers to marry them or doing a “mission impossible” in H&M. Rest assured all the groups valiantly performed the tasks with enthusiasm before lunch. Afterwards was a great opportunity to meet the outgoing 47th Board of the Econometrisch Dispuut. The first years learnt about the opportunities on offer, social events, career days and much more.

That evening a grand barbeque was setup for all to enjoy, the previous and current board arrived as did many iBuddies (a great bunch of second year students who helped the new arrivals in some of the day to day things like bank accounts, books and where to shop).

There was a whole host of meats, cheeses, vegetables and desserts for everyone to enjoy. As the evening turned to night, beers were drunk and wines spilt. A thrilling series of beer pong games entertained the students amongst the music and laughter.

All good things come to an end and Sunday after breakfast and cleaning everyone left for home. The partying and socialising had set up a great foundation for friendships in the years to come. Many of the students were now ready for their first block of study knowing that their new friends were there with them. A massive thank you to everyone who helped organising this weekend!

Estimator Committee

President As president of FAECTOR you are chiefly responsible for the general well-being of the association. You are the one who guides this organisation with over 900 members into a direction in order to make it prosper even more. It is furthermore your task to maintain the professional image of FAECTOR towards both external as internal parties. These external parties include the university (and faculty, ESE), other study associations in Rotterdam, your ‘sister’-econometric study associations in The Netherlands and last but not least; companies.

Internally you are also the main representative of the association together with the secretary.

Secretary The function of secretary is a multi-faceted function within the board. A chief task of the secretary is that you are the first link between the association and the committee members; you are the most important connection to the members. Besides that, the secretary is guiding the wild yet cosy First Year Committee with whom you will organise a lot of tournaments like the poker, pool and football tournament. Another prime task of the secretary is handling all the incoming and out coming information: be it postal, per mail, on social media, the site and managing the member-database.

As a secretary you will take place in the board of the alumni association, called RECNET, where you will help with organising the alumni drinks and activities and will manage the RECNET LinkedIn group.

Treasurer The treasurer takes care of one of the most important aspects of the association: its finances! You do this through accounting and keeping the books. You also assist committee members with the financial side of the projects. Because the treasurer has a crucial view on the current financial situation you are important in determining the association’s year-policy. Besides that, you are also responsible for the book-sale each block.

Career Officer The career officer is an exciting position within the board: you are responsible for several big projects throughout the year that require a lot of planning and contact with major companies. You should be an outgo

ing person, not afraid to take some major decisions and internationally oriented. This position also demands you to be skilled in multiple fields; you need to be social, stand your ground and have extraordinary planning skills. You will chair several committees, with whom you organise prestigious events such as the Quantitative Finance Tour, Orientation Days, Econometric Career Days and Find Your Match.

Commercial Officer The commercial officer is an important pivot in the association: you are the contact person between the association and our business-partners. You make sure the bonds between sponsors and FAECTOR stay healthy.

The main task of the commercial officer is to get enough sponsoring money from the wide array of companies that are interested to use our association to get in contact with our students. This is essential in order to finance other activities.

Educational Officer The Educational officer has a multi-functional position within the board that cannot be missed. One of the essentials tasks is keeping in contact with academic relations within the university (together with the president) and organising education related events. Furthermore you are the contact person for the internationals: they can come to you for questions and you are the head of the Freshmen Committee, consisting entirely out of first year internationals organising activities for both all students as well as for only the internationals.

Furthermore, one of the biggest and oldest projects of FAECTOR will be your responsibility: the International Research Project.

Marketing Officer In an organisation like FAECTOR a marketing officer is a necessity. You are responsible for all marketing – and media – related output of the ED. Parts of this are all publications. Like the Estimator: our magazine concerning all things FAECTOR-related, which is published four times a year. And of course we have our yearly almanac!

Also, all marketing related processes are your task: designing marketing material are necessary for several of our big events.

With drinks and food, games were played deep into the night, Poker was a popular favourite as probabilities were calculated, antes raised, pots lost and bragging rights won. For others it was games like “Vikings” that required strange noises and rowing actions from its players or the rather popular “Screw the Dealer” which provided numerous laughs at some of the Freshmen

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Information about PENGUIN 2014

Signing up!

During PENGUIN we will make sure that you will get to know the other freshmen. It is often the case that students meet their friends for their entire student life during PENGUIN! We will not tell you exactly what activities we are going to do during PENGUIN; it still needs to be a bit of a surprise. But we will give you a small description of what you can expect this weekend:

PENGUIN Weekend will start on Friday the 29th of August and will end on Sunday the 31st of August. The participation costs are €35.

You can sign up by filling in the form on our website: www.faector.nl/penguin When we receive your registration we will send you more information.

Friday 29th of August: introduction games, outdoor challenge (if the weather permits), evening activities.

For any questions you can give us a call or mail us.

TEL: E-MAIL:

010-4081439 penguin@faector.nl

We can’t wait to meet all of you and spend an amazing weekend together!

Saturday 30th of August: Crazy 88 downtown, Pub Crawl, BBQ Sunday 31st of August: Say goodbye to each other :( The amount you have to pay for this weekend is €35.

This participation fee includes breakfast, lunch, dinner, residence and all the activities. Our residence will be Scoutcentrum Rotterdam.

Why should you sign up for PENGUIN? As you are about to start a new chapter in your life in a new city, there are a lots of things you are going through and as most of you don’t know a lot of people in Rotterdam yet, there is no better way to start it than with an introduction weekend for you and your upcoming classmates! This is a nice way to get to know your classmates better before having your first lecture.

During the weekend filled with lots of fun, crazy and cool activities (we don’t want to spoil them yet) you will get familiar with your classmates really fast and within half a day you will know more about them than you expected!

You will also meet quite a few seniors, like the board of FAECTOR, the Freshmen Committee and others who are not shy to give you some tips and share their experience about their first year as an econometrician. So feel free to ask us as many questions as you like.

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So why should you sign up again: • You will meet a lot of new people, both freshmen and seniors, before even starting!

• You get to know your way around in Rotterdam. Quite handy if you get lost.

• Your first day at the university will be fun instead of awkward, since you already know most of your fellow students.

• And last but not least we’ve got beer!

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