Clothes make the graduate.
Also, David Judge dresses up for the graduation ceremony of the Hector
School, the ceremonial conclusion of 18 months of advanced in-career
education, a strain and fulfilment at the same time.
Professor Horst Hippler, head of the university, confers the master's
diplomas at the Karlsruhe Palace.
In an exclusive group of young future executives, Judge looked for
excellence and founded at the Hector School the KIT Technology
Business School.
It challenged him, his employer and his family, but now opens up new
prospects to him.
For 18 months, he intensified his knowledge in dedicated theme courses
and combined it with management know-how.
For 18 months, he closely cooperated and lived with other budding
executives.
He became part of a global network spun by 22 students from 15 firms
in 9 nations.
Internationally competitive structures, the use of English,
interdisciplinary advanced education, exchanges of methodological and
conceptual knowledge between industry and university, these are
hallmarks of the Hector School.
The special thing about the Hector School is its combination of topics
in engineering and management, taught to a target group on its way to
completing professional development in a firm.
We think this approach is very important against the backdrop that on
the one hand industry learns about the professional network at KIT and
on the other hand KIT learns about and appreciates the large group of
industrial representatives at the Hector School.
Each of the five executive master programs conveys knowledge from
different disciplines.
The financial engineering course is about finding innovative solutions
to problems of financial management.
The idea is to incorporate various disciplines.
On the one hand financial management but also methods of IT,
programming, mathematical methodologies, applied mathematics and
numerics.
In this way we seek a highly innovative solution for a financial tool
or analyze a financial tool.
Graduates, teachers and representatives of industry meet at the
graduation ceremony.
Their close contacts, exchanges of industrial experience and the high
quality of university teaching are basic to the success of the
business school.
It relies on its competence and is open to perspectives of practice.
A special feature of the Hector School is its interdisciplinary
character, the combination especially of economics and engineering
disciplines.
It is internationally oriented, seminars are held in English and are
attended by young professionals from Germany, from Europe, from all
over the world.
They have the possibility to take part-time courses offering the full
quality and scope of a course of master studies.
Like judges' employer MAG, many companies rely on the Hector School
for a new generation of engineers and managers for the 21st century.
A versatile, highly qualified leadership elite perceiving the current
crisis as a challenge, considering it an opportunity to change things
and not walking well-trodden paths but designing the course they want
to embark on.
These graduates represent a substantial amount of planning and
preparation is required to ensure that an individual is ready for such
a journey.
Our prior experience, personal and professional, prepared us for the
challenge.
In many of our member companies, the managers are trained engineers.
This is where the concept of the Hector School comes in.
On the basis of a sound engineer's training, equip participants for
executive positions in companies.
A young elite are leaving Hector School aware of their responsibility
for progress and to society and in this way emulating Hans-Werner
Hector, the great promoter of the business school.
I truly believe that the experience at Hector School in the great city
of Karlsruhe is one that will forever be at the top of my experiences
in my life and one that has prepared me for what's next and that's the
most important thing that I take away from from the Hector School and
that's the ability to cope with the challenges in my both professional
career as well as my personal life in the near future and for the rest
of my life.
This ceremony is a highlight but not the end.
It is the beginning of a journey to new destinations.