29 March 2019. A total of 426 graduates were handed their degree certificates in the following programmes:

• 49 in Business Innovation,
• 30 in Marketing, Service and Communication Management,
• 94 in Accounting and Finance,
• 24 in Strategy and International Management,
• 55 in Business Management,
• 15 in Management, Organization and Cultural Theory,
• 79 in Banking and Finance,
• 4 in Economics,
• 10 in Quantitative Economics and Finance,
• 35 in International Affairs and Governance,
• 12 in Law,
• 13 in Law and Economics,
• 6 in International Law.

Lifelong learning and unlearning

President Thomas Bieger started his address by stating that in the age of digitalisation, human work was not only increasingly being replaced by machines when it came to mechanical activities but also in academia. Intellectual activities, in particular, would in future be more strongly impacted by technological developments, for artificial intelligence could also learn to learn, and when doing so had access to the entirety of digitally recorded human knowledge, said Bieger. On the basis of this statement, Bieger raised the question as to how human beings would be able to remain ahead of machines in the longer term. His answer was: "We keep ahead of the machines by learning." The learning of new things was always also accompanied by a process of unlearning, for the digital work required us to rethink things, after which what we had learnt at an earlier stage might appear to be an obstacle. At the present time, accumulated and habitual knowledge was not sufficient any longer; instead, transformative learning was required. Bieger encouraged the graduates at the Masters’ Graduation Day to pursue lifelong learning and expressed his hope that they would not lose their curiosity on their personal path of lifelong learning.

Attractive social programme

In the course of the Masters’ Graduation Day, graduates, their relatives and guests made use of a varied social programme: besides the Master’s Level taster lecture, guests were able to savour some St.Gallen specialities in front of the Library Building, for example. HSG Alumni President Urs Landolf congratulated the graduates on their academic degree. He outlined the great advantages of the large HSG Alumni network for new graduates, in particular, and encouraged them to become actively involved in it. In the evening, HSG Alumni staged the traditional Graduation Party in St.Gallen.