I had the pleasure of attending two interesting international conferences this autumn – the huge annual conference of European Association for International Education (EAIE) in Liverpool in September and a more specialized “Internationalisation of the Curriculum” conference at the University of Göttingen in Germany. My focus in both of the conferences was internationalization at home. Too often internationalization is thought of as the external networks of the university or the percentages of the foreign student population at campus. I like a more holistic view on internationalization as something happening inside the university, in its internal practices, in learning methods and in internationalized learning outcomes. Next I will present the top picks and most interesting stories from the conferences, enjoy!
How to bring international perspectives to all students? Many German universities have started impressive processes to internationalize curricula, because international mindsets and intercultural communication skills are deemed essential for all graduates. Internationalizing the curriculum does not mean switching the language of the program to English, it means systematically integrating international and intercultural perspectives and global questions into the contents of the curricula, in the learning methods and outcomes. There is no one-size-fits-all model of an internationalized curricula but the process of internationalizing requires a lot of reflection and involvement of faculty and students. Where business students need to get an understanding of global markets and intercultural negotiations, engineering students benefit from an understanding of cultural and societal surroundings of their future engineering projects. The Vice-President of University of Göttingen said it well: “the bridges fall down the same around the world, but what happens next is culture specific”. All keynote lectures from Göttingen can be found here.
Göttingen is a small university town 200km from Berlin with 120 000 inhabitants and the 5th most international university in Germany!
Why is internationalization important? Today’s work life requires graduates to be fluent in foreign languages, to function in a multicultural workplace and remotely with customers and colleagues around the world. In EAIE a panel of top recruiters from big multinational companies got together to discuss the level of preparedness of graduates for the requirements of working life. I was surprised to learn that the recruiters unanimously put more emphasis on the soft skills than the hard, academic skills when making their recruiting decisions. Soft skills, also known as interpersonal or transferable skills mean skills like communication, teamwork, networking and intercultural communication skills. According to a study presented at EAIE almost half of university students feel ill-equipped for the labor market and 87% of them would like to get more career advice from the universities. The aforementioned soft skills may be trained during the studies but they should also be systematically communicated to students. For example, instead of making students do a group work without further explanation, the teacher could mix the students into multicultural and multidisciplinary groups and explain why practicing teamwork and intercultural communication is important for their future work life and also to discuss with the students the potential challenges they encounter. Intercultural communication and understanding and being able to relate to different perspectives and circumstances were key skills in employers’ opinion. If you’re interested in reading more about the employers’ views, check out this blog.
How can students communicate their intercultural competence? How to make soft skills visible and the student acknowledge what she has learnt? How can a student prove the job market she has acquired relevant international skills as part of the degree? In a session in EAIE 3 German universities (Hamburg, München and Göttingen) presented their certificates for intercultural competence. All the certificates consist of a theoretical component of intercultural communication and selective elements ranging from mobility periods to language and culture courses and to getting active in the international student community in associations or as tutors. Intercultural competence means behaving and communicating effectively across cultures, understanding different value-sets and ideals and being flexible and able to adapt to new situations. Intercultural competence can be learned from books only to some extent, as going outside of the safety of your own cultural bubble and reflecting on the new, sometimes uneasy sensations when you don’t know what is expected of you and you cannot understand why your counterpart is behaving in a certain way, are often the most valuable lessons of intercultural competence. In all of the 3 presented models students had to reflect on their intercultural encounters to gain the certificate. Students had started to think critically of the hidden assumptions and behavioral models their own culture gives them and felt the most important aspect of intercultural competence was to be curious to new viewpoints and not to be a prisoner of stereotyping. What I liked the most was that all the 3 certificates put a great emphasis on learning intercultural competence at the home campus, by getting to know the international students. If you’d like to hear international students’ perspectives on studying in Aalto, check out AYY’s project Aalto is Multicultural.
The best of Liverpool: Fab Four (The Beatles), the well functioning city bike system and the sunny waterfront boulevard.
What can digitalization bring to internationalization? Digitalization opens up a whole new world to higher education as new perspectives and encounters are no longer limited to physical settings. Digitalization plays a key role in internationalization strategies of the universities, as it enables the involvement of intercultural and international learning also in courses that do not benefit from a multicultural student body. In Göttingen digitalization was one of the key themes of the conference with many good examples of practicing intercultural communication via online platforms. One interesting example was a course on built environment which was done by a German university with its Mexican partner university. The students made local projects on sustainability issues of their respective urban environments, but presented and discussed their findings in multicultural groups in an online platform. The students also had to analyze their experience in virtual intercultural teamwork, but the main focus of the course was on learning about sustainability in built environments. Digitalization is a great chance to bring the wide international networks of Aalto into use in learning. One interesting course is coming up next spring, where students get to practice cooperation in virtual teams in different continents. The course is open for all master students, I bet it’s useful!
How to make incentives for internationalization of curricula? Money might be the best incentive for universities to bring about a change. In Ghent in the Netherlands the university has made an ambitious Key Performance Indicator (KPI, with which universities measure their key objectives) target: intercultural competence should be embedded to every degree by 2020! In Ghent the university has made a conscious and determined decision in its strategy to encourage internationalization and with KPIs it’s making sure internationalization will not be a mere word in the strategy but actually part of every student’s degree. In Aalto University’s strategy for 2016-2020 internationalization is not mentioned because it’s seen as a cross-cutting value of the university. But in order to make it visible and real for every student in Aalto, clear incentives and instructions would be needed.
What can students do for internationalization? In 2016 AYY has been active in creating an action plan for the university to better take into account internationalization in degrees, teaching, digitalization and all university practices. The action plan will be ready soon and the work will continue next year to raise awareness of the objectives together with the university. AYY international sector has also made an ABC guide for internationalization for student associations. This booklet with useful hints will be online soon! What could every student do for internationalization? You can decide to benefit in full extent of the wonderfully diverse Aalto community! Maybe make a new year’s resolution and get to know 5 new people from different cultures next year?
Milla Ovaska
works at AYY as a Specialist in International Affairs and plans to read a lot, eat chocolate and visit Hamburg during the Christmas holidays.