Your studies – your commitment

Our students demonstrate a high degree of personal responsibility and extraordinary dedication.

We encourage our students to go forth with an entrepreneurial spirit while pursuing their own objectives. An entrepreneur is someone who sets goals and makes autonomous decisions about how to use his or her resources – and assumes the risks that go with them.

Finding your focus
Students at HSG are encouraged to design and plan their own course of study. This means setting priorities and getting involved, for example, by joining one of the 100 student associations, by participating in the coaching and mentoring programme or by completing an exchange term at a partner university.

Identifying your strengths
Our university provides the ideal environment for students to develop a sense of self-reliance. We encourage and support our students in their efforts to set priorities and identify their individual strengths.

Broadening horizons
For many of our graduates, an exchange term at another university is one of the defining experiences of their time as students. Contact with other people and cultures, course structures, subjects and working methods enriches your whole experience as a student. Location and language do not play the decisive role here; what matters most is that spending time abroad offers you the chance to immerse yourself in a foreign culture.

Holistic course architecture
Intellectual skills, an integrative view, flexibility, responsibility and intercultural qualifications are of ever increasing importance today. To ensure that students are able to acquire these skills, we have a unique degree course architecture at the HSG. It creates the conditions required for our students’ academic and personal development.

An integrative view of economics, business administration, law, social science and the humanities characterises the HSG’s profile and provides students with a holistic education at the highest academic level.

Core Studies

Core studies at the University of St.Gallen consist of compulsory subjects, core electives and electives, as well as the Bachelor’s or Master’s thesis.
The compulsory subjects convey the basics of the degree course of the student’s choice. Core electives consist of a wide range of programme-specific courses. Courses of other programmes are open to students among the electives. The extensive range of core electives and electives enables students to focus on issues which are of particular interest to them. Thus they are able to create an individual profile in addition to their chosen major, which will support them in the realisation of their professional and personal goals.

Contextual Studies

It is a particular feature of our degree course architecture that students do not only attend courses in core studies but also in Contextual Studies. In Contextual Studies, core studies in economic and legal sciences are complemented and reflected upon from various perspectives. Our students learn that economic decisions are always embedded in general societal, cultural and historical conditions and must therefore be viewed from an integrative angle. Students are thus educated to become personalities who are aware of their social responsibility and will be in a position later in life to act in a flexible, responsible and sustainable manner.

Participate in student initiatives
Student initiatives such as the renowned St.Gallen Symposium (ISC) have been a defining part of the HSG’s image for decades and are one of the main pillars of our university.

Student initiatives

For many students (over 50%), taking on responsibility in student initiatives and standing up for others are a natural part of their time at university. In addition to high quality research and instruction, our students’ outstanding community involvement is one of the defining characteristics of our university.

Help to shape the HSG
Student projects such as the graduate fair HSGtalents, the internationally renowned St.Gallen Symposium (ISC) and oikos (students for sustainable economics and management) are a defining part of the HSG’s image. These projects are organised by students as an extracurricular supplement to their regular studies. With more than 100 clubs, initiatives, project teams and the Student Union, students work towards realising their ideas and play an active role in shaping the university. Many students invest a great deal of hard work and free time in their projects.

Hands-on experience, unforgettable events
Though unpaid, these types of community involvement offer students rewards in the form of hands-on experience, unforgettable experiences and many friendships. The University supports this involvement, not least through Campus Credits, which in some cases are equivalent to conventional coursework.

Pursue your development in a focused manner
Besides purely technical knowledge, we offer you the best conditions for your personal development. We support students at all levels of their studies by means of voluntary supervision programmes (coaching and mentoring programmes).

Coaching and mentoring programmes

Coaching programme
We offer intensive, personal support to students in the Assessment Year through our voluntary coaching programme. In particular, the coaching programme fosters social competence and personal responsibility, leadership skills and the capacity for self-reflection.

Mentoring programme
An experienced person (mentor) helps a younger person (mentee) develop and expand his or her work competencies. Mentoring represents the relationship between two people who maintain regular contact and exchange ideas over an extended period of time, not only in the business context but on a personal level as well.