Trish Peters, MIB’23

The moment Trish Peters arrived in Kingston and saw the spectrum of connections and possibilities before her, she knew—deep in her bones—that enrolling in the Smith Master of International Business (MIB) was the right call. “It was such a clear feeling. I had absolutely no anxiety about the process,” she says. “Considering I’d never left home before, that was a big deal for me.”

Not a bad start for a program Trish had pursued to expand her horizons. Before the program, she had relatively limited travel experience, so the opportunity to study abroad felt like a thrilling adventure. And since she’d long liked the idea of topping up her undergrad business education at the master’s level, the prospect of pursuing two degrees instead of one held significant appeal. “I thought, ‘If I’m going to put a year and a half of my life into something, I’m going to do it full-on.’”

Indeed, Trish crammed a lot into her MIB tenure. After spending a semester in Kingston—fulfilling a lifelong dream to go to Queen’s—she flew across the Atlantic for a year-long program at the Maastricht School of Business and Economics, which she chose for its dual focus on both finance and marketing. “I liked the numbers part of business, but I also really liked the creative aspect,” she recalls. “I wanted the idea of working in both to be open to me.”

Having never been to The Netherlands before, Trish initially encountered a bit of culture shock. For instance, her Dutch classmates communicated in a far more direct—some might say blunt—manner than that to which she was accustomed. Learning to smoothly navigate such differences became an education in itself. “You learn to relate to people in a host of different ways,” she says. Indeed, she quickly forged lasting bonds with peers, faculty, and staff alike, many of whom she now regularly visits, or travels with. “The degrees were great,” she says. “But what I remember most is the fun—the moments when I realized I’d built a support system that will be there, no matter what, for the rest of my life.”

As Trish worked through class assignments, completed an internship at German molecular diagnostics firm QIAGEN, and submitted a capstone thesis related to the use of AI in marketing approval workflows, she felt her capabilities expand as much as her social network. The most obvious shift came in a new capacity to find solutions to big, often nuanced, issues: “The MIB teaches you to problem-solve not just in A plus B = C scenarios, but in cultural situations that are bigger and more complex,” she says. “It pushes you to look past your own experiences and emotions.”

Trish also found that ex-pat life suits her. Shortly after wrapping the Maastricht leg of her MIB program, she took a job in Amsterdam as a business controller with the asset management division of Dutch pension giant APG. A year after that, she enrolled in a part-time PhD program at VU Amsterdam’s School of Business and Economics, where she is now researching decision-making within financial firms. She’s become comfortable navigating what was once unknown, whether it’s Amsterdam’s intense bike lanes or the frank candour of her Dutch colleagues. “I’ve learned that you can move anywhere and connect with people,” Trish reflects. “You never know: You might end up liking another place better than home.”