Artificial intelligence, geopolitical shifts and changing global industries are reshaping the careers today’s students are preparing for. This makes flexibility, practical experience and the ability to keep learning more important than ever. But should students specialise early, or choose a broader degree that allows them to explore different paths first? And how can universities adapt their teaching to keep pace with such rapid change, remain relevant and continue opening doors to meaningful careers for future business leaders?
In this edition of Campus Conversations, we explore these questions with Professor Jo Van Biesebroeck and business engineering student Debora Ruban Arumairaj from KU Leuven.
Professor Van Biesebroeck brings the academic and institutional perspective to the conversation. As an economist and researcher specialising in international trade, global value chains and the Chinese economy, he connects wider economic developments to the role universities play in preparing students for change.
Debora offers the student perspective. As she completes her bachelor’s degree in business engineering, she shares why she chose a broad, multidisciplinary programme, how internships and extracurricular activities helped her explore possible careers, and how studying in an international environment shaped her outlook.
How AI and geopolitics are reshaping students’ career choices
Studyportals: Professor Van Biesebroeck, let’s begin with the bigger picture. Students are preparing for careers in an ever-changing world, and the pace of change seems to be accelerating. How would you describe the main developments taking place worldwide?
Prof. Jo Van Biesebroeck: Obviously, for a researcher, these are fascinating times. We see geopolitical developments affecting all economies around the world. The trade war is in the news every day, while the adoption of AI is also likely to have a major impact on the labour market.
One thing that is important, not just for our students but for everyone, is that you need to be flexible. You need to be resilient. You need to be able to pivot, change what you're doing when the world changes, and take advantage of opportunities.
There are indications that deglobalisation may have happened. Trade as a fraction of the total economy is going down a little bit. If you hear politicians, migration is not so popular in many countries anymore. They talk about reshoring manufacturing. But I think that's a lot of hyperbole. I think the world is still getting more integrated. They're only inventing AI in a couple of places in the world, but it's going to affect everybody.
Studyportals: Professor, economics is a transversal field. Which areas will be more impacted than others, either in a good way or in a bad way, by these changes?
Prof. Jo Van Biesebroeck: As more jobs become automated, we, who train people with an academic background, need to move a bit more towards the real world. Because you’ll most probably not be a manager over an army of accountants. No, you're going to work much more directly with AI as well, maybe working with smaller teams and having more direct contact with what's actually happening in the field. So I think as part of this AI transformation, in many of our fields, we're becoming a little bit more practical because the layer of people between managers and customers is getting thinner.
As part of this AI transformation, in many of our fields, we're becoming a little bit more practical because the layer of people between the managers and the customers is getting thinner.
Prof. Jo Van Biesebroeck
Studyportals: Debora, from a student’s perspective, how do all these changes look?
Debora Ruban Arumairaj: What I’m most excited about is seeing how traditional career paths will change by the time I enter the workforce. I’m also curious to see which jobs may become redundant.
The rapid adoption of new technologies has made me think differently about my career. For now, I would rather develop a generalist profile than choose a very narrow field early on.
Previous generations were often encouraged to specialise early and become experts in one field. I think our generation may take a slightly different approach. We can remain as generalist as possible until things become more predictable, then we can narrow our focus and specialise.
Studyportals: What made you choose business engineering? Why was this the field you wanted to explore during your bachelor’s degree?
Debora Ruban Arumairaj: Business Engineering is a great degree because it is a multidisciplinary programme. In other words, you study a little bit of everything. And that's great for someone-like myself- who didn't know exactly what to study.
But beyond that, I did the Cambridge curriculum in high school and had a good enough balance between commerce and science subjects. And I didn't feel like sacrificing one for the other. Business engineering is kind of the perfect melting pot of both, because I get to study my Business subjects like accounting and economics. But I also get a taste of Engineering with some of our physics or electronics courses we have. And they also make sure that we're well equipped for the workforce because we have enough software-related courses. So we learn how to code amongst other things, which I think are what drew me to the programme.
Studyportals: How do you decide which academic and career opportunities to prioritise, Debora? Any advice for fellow students on how to prioritise their goals?
Debora Ruban Arumairaj: Internships and extracurricular activities helped me make those choices. As Professor Jo said earlier, the Business Engineering degree at KU Leuven has a strong reputation. This means that it opens a lot of doors for internships across various industries. That has helped me gather more experience while figuring out where to narrow it down.
Internships helped me fine-tune what I enjoy, because I've realised that sometimes the things that I like studying aren’t necessarily the things I like working on. There are some subjects that I've enjoyed learning-maybe because I had excellent professors- but when I did internships and applied that knowledge, I noticed that it wasn't as fulfilling for me.
Internships helped me fine-tune what I enjoy, because I've realised that sometimes the things that I like studying aren’t necessarily the things I like working on.
Debora Ruban Arumairaj
How universities are adapting teaching for a changing world
Studyportals: What should universities and professors do to remain relevant to students and employers and continue opening doors to future careers?
Prof. Jo Van Biesebroeck: We constantly evaluate our curriculum. Some people have been teaching the same class for 10 or 20 years because these are foundational subjects that everyone needs to study. I was always a bit more niche because I started out as a research professor with very specific research interests, so I mostly taught at master’s level.
Over time, I have taught several new classes that we added to the curriculum because we felt there was a need or there was student interest in them. And then for me, it was challenging because it's more work to start a new class, but it's also rewarding when it works, when you satisfy a need.
For example, I started a new class on the economics of China. At the time, I was maybe the only one at our university focusing on China. But now the Chinese economy has grown, our class has grown, and we have more professors involved now. We started a class in global value chains about 10 years ago. And now, with the COVID disruptions and the resilience of value chains, this is of foremost importance.
The programme that Debora is in, on our Brussels campus, got started not that long ago. Maybe six years ago. And one of the classes we make compulsory in the bachelor’s is Geo-economics. Students learn microeconomics and macroeconomics. But in today's world, we feel that what businesses and society need is to adjust to these geopolitical tensions. This is at least as important as traditional macroeconomic fluctuations. And so that got added.
We're now introducing lots of classes on how to use AI in digital marketing, AI in accounting, and so on, because we need to prepare our students for what they're going to encounter later. And that's a gradual process.
A second thing I can mention: we lived through the COVID pandemic. My kids were in high school at the time, and they had to adjust because, with the lockdowns, it was very challenging. When I look at most high schools in Belgium now, they went back to how they were teaching and operating in 2019. But at university, we definitely did not go back. We still use what we learned back during the lockdowns, like more use of digital tools and so on. I record my classes; students can watch them on their own. I don’t repeat the same things over and over again. When we meet in class, I take half an hour to touch on the most important topics, then spend an hour on Q&As based on those topics, while during the second hour we do group assignments.
How international experience has become a skill in business
Studyportals: Staying flexible as a university is very important. How does this work for students who leave their home country to live and study abroad, Debora? How did you manage this change?
Debora Ruban Arumairaj: The change was twofold for me because I was moving to a new country on my own, while also starting university for the first time. Changing countries felt a bit familiar because I grew up moving around quite a bit. The difference however was, I always did it with my family. Moving out alone was quite different. Belgium is also the first country where I had to use public transport all the time, and that took me quite a while to get used to. I happened to get on the wrong side of the trams/metros one too many times!
As a student, the orientation that we were given here at KU Leuven was great in helping us set and manage our expectations of university life. We were introduced to many exciting activities, like the welcome from the campus dean or fun events to get to know the city, the campus, and even our peers.
We were given important information upfront as well, like the importance of the milestone courses, how to switch subjects or even the help available to us. It wasn't something that you were left to figure out on your own after you were in a pickle. That made the adjustment and the switchover from high school to university quite easy.
Also, you know, the business engineering programme at KU Leuven is a double degree with a partner university. The way those interactions were going to happen was also clearly outlined for us. So we came in knowing exactly what to expect.
Studyportals: How different was it from what you were used to in high school?
Debora Ruban Arumairaj: It wasn't so different from high school for me because we had fixed schedules every single day. And most of the time, our schedules were set into blocks rather than spread out randomly. So if you had a class at 8.30, the chances of your next one being at 10.30 were higher than the next one being later in the day. They were grouped into these blocks of time that made it easier to follow. It felt a bit like high school classes where you go in the morning and then you leave, although we left a little earlier and you had kind of had a bit more flexibility.
The adjustment from having a teacher who consistently followed up with you to having a professor who wouldn't really notice whether you attended class or submitted an assignment was the biggest change that I felt.
Class sizes that were a lot bigger than I was used to. The Brussels campus is a very international campus, so I had a lot of fellow international students who were also very eager to make friends. We quickly formed different groups, and some of them are still my good friends to this day. They helped to make the adjustments very easy.
Studyportals: Professor, why is it valuable for international students studying business to meet other youth from different places in the world?
Prof. Jo Van Biesebroeck: Business has become very international. Belgium is a small country, and trade is 1.5 times GDP, which was the highest in the world for a long time. But now there are so many small countries which are in a similar situation, and all are extremely open. Every company is automatically international. So when I was growing up, there were lots of expats, expatriate employees, and they had a special status. They got extra money for moving. They could put their kids in international schools and all of that. And that's almost all gone by now.
It's really surprising that this was the most coveted position, as you're a good manager and you become an expat. But now all these firms feel “that's not how we operate”. We have an office in Belgium, but 50, 60, or 70 percent of those employees are not going to be local Belgians there. They're not all going to come from Dubai or Japan. They're going to come mostly from Europe, but the majority of the employees are going to be international. And sure, when you move to Belgium for a company, we're going to help you with the transition. We're going to pay your moving costs. But once you're here, you're an employee of our Belgian office. Many firms are European global companies, and you operate out of our Belgian office. And what your nationality is, doesn't really matter. We help you with a transition, but then you're local. And then you have to work with those people. You have to understand when you do teamwork. And in that sense, I think the experience that Debora has gone through at KU Leuven is kind of important, representative of what many people now go through around the world.
For example, my son is also studying business engineering at KU Leuven, and he's graduating next week. And he looked for a job. In Belgium, pharmaceuticals is a really big industry. So he applied to every pharmaceutical company in Belgium. But he also applied to at least 10 or 20 pharmaceutical companies elsewhere in Europe. And as it happens, he's going to move to Germany in a month to start there. He's done a half-year mobility exchange. At our faculty, we have 260 partners, and lots of people go for a half-year study abroad. But now he's going to have the same experience going to Germany. Sure, Germany is close to Belgium. The language is similar. So it's not going to be like a dramatic cultural shift. But still, you need to adjust to this change. And I think if you're ambitious in business, that's unavoidable. You will have to go through this because that's how you seize opportunities.
Studyportals: Debora, your life took you to different places. You've lived in India, West Africa, and now Belgium. How did this influence the way you see the world?
Debora Ruban Arumairaj: I think it's made me more open-minded to different cultures and to different ways of doing things. But it has also made me more focused on seeing the similarities. To give you an example, I spent the majority of my childhood in different parts of West Africa. And most people might think that West Africa is very different from India, which is where I'm originally from. But I grew up witnessing the things that were similar between the two places. Both have very spicy food, for example and are also both community-based cultures. I find it easier to focus on these and the other nuances that tie our cultures together. That's one of the ways that growing up in different countries has shaped me. I've also become much better at maintaining friendships, especially when we're no longer in the same city or time zone.
How Belgium’s university system shapes international student choices
Studyportals: Why did you choose Belgium? Why did you choose KU Leuven?
Debora Ruban Arumairaj: After high school, I was looking for a degree that wouldn't niche me down too quickly. That's how the business engineering degree really caught my attention. It's a degree that isn't offered everywhere in the world, predominantly in Europe. Plus, out of the universities that offered it, KU Leuven ranked very highly.
The rankings helped make it a very easy choice for me because, as an international student, I don't know the country that I'm going to, nor do I know the university. So the rankings gave me a good indication of whether I was dealing with a reputable university or not.
As a local student, you already have connections; you kind of get a sense of what the university is like. But if you're an international student coming from a completely different side of the world, it's harder to understand these things without standardised metrics to rely on.
Studyportals: Professor Van Biesebroeck, Debora mentioned rankings. What else should students look for when choosing their universities abroad, and how can they more easily distinguish between a quality university and a lower-quality one?
Prof. Jo Van Biesebroeck: We talked a lot about international adjustments and challenges. I studied in three different countries, and it is important to realise that their university systems are all rather different. One thing that's really unique in Belgium is that the government really restricts universities' ability to select students. For example, we can never look at grades. In no programme are we allowed to select people by grades. We can have international tests, and then we can use those things.
The way Debora describes it is quite accurate. Anybody who meets the criteria gets in. But international students, compared to local students, approach this differently. Many locals, they try something; maybe it's a little bit too hard, they fail, and they change to another subject. But for international students, they cannot afford this because we don't have that many English-language bachelor’s. If you don't make it into the one you've chosen, your options are limited. And that's why we set much higher standards for international students, because if they move all the way to Belgium, they should have a good chance to make it past the first year. The standards are high, but then when you meet those, you get in, and then we are confident that you will make it.
I think it is very important to realise that countries have very different systems. I experienced this myself when I did my PhD in the United States, and I was a teaching assistant there, teaching in their undergraduate programmes. I then started my career as a professor in Canada. And there you see a very strong grade inflation. Similar to a recent study I read, saying that at Harvard, 70% of the students get A's.
So the first year is tough here. But employers know this; they all know that if somebody graduates with a degree from KU Leuven, irrespective of the actual grades you received, it really means something. And it is also an obligation that we have towards the industry. As Debora mentioned, once you graduate from us, you get good opportunities.
The students come because we have good rankings. But on the other hand, having an international student body keeps us on our toes because these students, they can go anywhere. And so if you want to offer a degree that people choose, well, you need to satisfy their expectations. And that also forces us to improve.
Prof. Jo Van Biesebroeck
Rankings reflect that. I joined this university about 16 years ago, and I've just seen us shoot up in the rankings. And this has gone together with a more and more international student population. And I think it goes both ways. The students come because we have good rankings. But on the other hand, having an international student body keeps us on our toes because these students, they can go anywhere. And so if you want to offer a degree that people choose, well, you need to satisfy their expectations. And that also forces us to improve.
I think there are lots of good universities around, and these rankings, they don't say everything, but the style of study differs quite a lot between universities. And so you really want to, you want to pick a university that fits your needs.
Studyportals: Are there different business engineering programmes at KU Leuven for local and international students? What are the differences?
Prof. Jo Van Biesebroeck: As I mentioned before, my son is doing business engineering as well. But he has taken the Dutch language programme in Leuven, while Debora is in the English language programme in Brussels. And they're very different atmospheres. The Dutch language programme has bigger classes and more students. It's fine if you have a good, solid network and you navigate your way there. In Brussels, the group is a lot smaller, but it's a lot more international. You get much more exposure.
Even if you say, I want to study business engineering at KU Leuven, whether you do this in Brussels or in Leuven, it's a very different choice. And I think that's an asset. I think you can figure out what fits your interests and needs best and choose based on that.
Studyportals: What are your interests now, Debora? How do you see your professional future?
Debora Ruban Arumairaj: Life could take me anywhere, but at the moment, I see myself probably doing something in the finance sphere, because that's what I'm mostly intrigued by. I would also expect it to be bridged with tech. And something that contributes predominantly to people, because that's another thing that I’m interested in.
I think that's where being in Belgium has kind of helped as well. Sure, KU Leuven is a great university that opens a lot of doors, but in Belgium, there are also many major institutions that have their headquarters here. So if you're into diplomacy, finance, pharmaceuticals, and others, the chances of Belgium being able to open that door for you are quite high.
As an international student, because in Belgium there are three national languages, French, Flemish, and German, the probability of English being the common language in a working space is quite high, which, as an international student, is wonderful for me because that means that I can speak in a language that I am most comfortable in.
