Studying with a broad outlook

Iceland, the land of fire and ice, had been right at the top of Friederike Bösener’s (26) wish list for a semester abroad as part of her Global Communication in Business and Culture degree at Mittweida University of Applied Sciences ever since she began her studies. She has now been at the University of Akureyri in northern Iceland since January, enjoying the Northern Lights and the even rarer ‘stratospheric polar clouds’, as well as lectures on Icelandic culture and courses in International Business and Ideology and History of Modern Times. She will return to Mittweida in May. “The degree programme teaches many intercultural skills. The semester abroad is the best opportunity to consciously recognise and deepen these,” says Friederike Bösener. Because intercultural competence can only truly be learnt through personal experience, a period abroad at a partner university is just as much a part of the Global Communication in Business and Culture degree programme at Mittweida University of Applied Sciences as an internationally oriented work placement.

Philipp Spörl (22) has taken a completely different path. A spot right at the southernmost tip of the world map, home to Mittweida University of Applied Sciences’ partner universities, had piqued his interest. Durban, on the southern part of South Africa’s east coast, was the destination in February 2023 for “the adventure I was absolutely determined to experience, and the semester abroad presented the perfect opportunity to explore this beautiful country”.

It’s good for Spörl that the Durban University of Technology (DUT) also offers courses that interest him and usefully complement his studies in Mittweida, for example in the fields of marketing and retailing. This is because the degree programme combines intercultural competence with media and business studies, thereby preparing students for a wide range of roles in internationally oriented companies and organisations. And even before he starts his career, what he’s learning on his degree is proving useful: “We’re learning to understand other cultures better and to communicate more effectively with people from other cultures. I find it incredibly exciting to see how what we’ve learnt in theory can now be applied in practice,” says Spörl. “It also really helps me to find my feet in South African culture and to empathise with people more effectively.”

Having arrived in Mittweida, Saxony, Germany, from India in 2019 to study here, Sree Sharan Suresh Babu (21) has already successfully overcome his first ‘culture shock’. Now he is adding another to the mix and spending his semester abroad in Nysa, Poland, where he is studying English Philology. He says: “I come from a culturally diverse country myself. I was told that every country in Europe has its own culture, and I decided to experience Polish culture. In any case, student life here is very different from that in Germany.”

Sharan will share exactly what he experienced at FOREIGNWORLDS in early 2024 at the latest. At that event, the students – known simply as the ‘Globals’ – will share their experiences abroad in a wide variety of ways. FOREIGNWORLDS is an online platform that the students will bring to life over the course of the coming winter term. At the end of the semester, i.e. in early 2024, they will present the project at a live event. This, too, is part of the Global Communication in Business and Culture degree programme – processing experiences, analysing them academically and presenting them professionally.

The predecessors of Böseler, Spörl and Suresh Babu were, for example, in Mexico, Indonesia and Singapore in 2022 – or in Dresden with their one-year-old daughter. What they all had in common was their experience of stereotypes, not only abroad but also in everyday social life back home. Together, the fifth-semester ‘Globals’ made these experiences the focus of their event on 15 February, broadcast live from Studio B at the university and streamed live on YouTube.

At their ‘FOREIGNWORLDS – Breaking Borders’ event, the students presented the work they had been developing over the past few months: explanatory videos on the topic of stereotypes and blog posts in which they recounted their own experiences of feeling like an outsider. All of this – and, ultimately, the organisation and running of the event itself – forms part of the degree programme, which combines media and business studies with intercultural competence.

With Dr Marita Wenzel, a physicist with extensive international experience gained through numerous research stays and business trips, and Dr Godula Kosack, an ethnologist and professor of sociology from Marburg, the students also had the opportunity to engage in conversation with two experts, alongside the audience, on 15 February.

The Open Campus Day on Saturday 1 April is the ideal opportunity to find out about the degree programme and get to know the university. Professor Ramona Kusche, Dean of Studies at the Faculty Media Sciences, will give a short presentation on the Global Communication in Business and Culture degree programme at 9.05 am. This will be followed by a guided tour of the Centre for Media and Social Work, one of the most modern academic training centres in Europe.

The topic of ‘Studying Abroad’ will be covered in a talk by the International Office at 12 noon on Saturday. Representatives from both the Faculty Media Sciences and the International Office will also be on hand from 9 am to 2 pm to answer any questions you may have.