Topic outline

  • Report

    20. January 2022


    Virtual closing event in January

    The first round of exchanges officially ended with a virtual closing event on 20 January 2022, as the COVID-19 pandemic made it impossible to travel at that time. The participants, including the six exchange students, Farina Ebel and Susann Salah (HKA), Grecia Hernandez and Ivan Santos (UL), Nyota Mwatsuguu and Simon Riziki Kilemba (PU), as well as members of the VIEL team, Prof. Sissi Closs and Belinda Oechsler (HKA), Dr. Yvonne Cleary (UL), Edith Maino, Alexander Muthanga and Prof. Yakobo Mutiti (PU) looked back on the successful first exchange semester together. wEveryone agrees that the first virtual exchange semester was a complete success. This was also confirmed by the consistently positive feedback from the students. On the one hand, they learned important skills in the area of communication and media through the workshops, and on the other hand, they learned a lot about the other cultures. Everyone agrees that the newly formed friendships will last beyond the end of the student exchange. 


    • Student Feedback

      „It was a great first semester. I learned a lot. I loved how international we were. Even across the three countries or three nationalities that were we were supposed to be. Like Kenya, Ireland and Germany, we had backgrounds from Spain living in Switzerland and Egypt living in Germersheim (Germany). So that was really cool. What I liked most was to learn more about different cultures and to have an exchange on our different everyday lifes.”

      (Farina, HKA)


      “When I applied for the project I had really high hopes in terms of my professional skills and high curiosity about the interplay of the different cultures. And I must say that I think my expectations have been exceeded. Because when it comes to my career skills, I learned a lot in the quite short time during the workshops and it gave me a real good overview about the topic and if I want to dive deeper or not. And in terms of the cultural. To learn about the other cultures and regarding that we only saw each other once a week, we really got along very well, which was really cool."
      (Susann, HKA)


      “I think it's been a great opportunity for me. I'm extremely grateful to be part of the group. I actually feel that it’s being extremely interculturally enriching for all of us. [...] I've had an absolute blast interviewing Simon, for example, in our podcast. I think it was so much fun. Overall I think it was great, I am so grateful and very happy to be part of it.”
      (Ivan, UL)


      “When I applied for the project my intention was to learn more about technical communication because I'm like very knew in this field. But I also learnt a lot about other cultures. [...] I also like that even when it was difficult to have like a weekly meeting. I appreciate that we had that opportunity to learn more about those like in a more personal way. And I think that we made a very good team, because in those weekly meetings we could make loads of jokes and everything. That was very nice.”
      (Grecia, UL)


      “Let me take this opportunity to appreciate all the projects organisers for letting me part of this project. I should admit that I have learned a lot, especially in terms of the technical communication and media. I have learnt quite a lot through the sessions.”
      (Nyota, PU)


      “When I heard about the project I was really excited. The object of the project is learning about new cultures, interacting with new friends and the whole thing about media and communication. I really felt that chance for me to gain a lot of knowledge about the same. […] Our weekly meetings they were so fruitfully. We made longlasting friends. […] I am really grateful.”
      (Simon, PU)