Two PhD students of the academy Alina Ilchenko and Viktoriia Nikitina returned to Kharkiv after one month internship at the PUA’s partner university - South Westphalia University of Applied Sciences.

“During our internship we had a great experience of giving lectures (we were called as distinguished guest lecturers) at International Management classes in front of the first semester students.

The task to prepare and give lectures for German students wasn’t so easy, it was a challenge.

During our classes we involved students in different types of work: studies of the relevant theory and existing best practices, case studies, exercises on cognitive thinking to refresh students brain and continue working on lecture’s topic. They had to analyze functioning of international companies in such aspects as production, financial statement, products and brands, production capability, careers, competitors, work specifics in Germany, etc. The companies were chosen by students from the Forbes 2016 ranking.

In my view, as a result, students improved their skills to learn new statements from each other, using cross-cultural communication, psychological methods and approaches, we trained to ask students, listen to them, analyze their opinions and answers. I believe we have done the work in a quite good way.

We were also able to visit other university lectures to get an experience in pedagogical area, to work at the FH SWF library and e-library.

I have found some books on my PhD thesis topic. It is precious that different views on human capital are presented in this literature and I managed to prepare a new article which I will publish this spring.

During our stay there was a lot of informal communication: Ukrainian evening with several types of dumplings; Bavarian breakfast with brezel and obazda; pub English club; volleyball game; towns and cities viewing; Christmas shopping at various fairs.

Many thanks and best wishes to this programme grantors (DAAD) and organizers (FH SWF, especially Prof. Dr. Ewald Mittelstadt and PUA entire team, especially Prof. Dr. Ekaterina Astakhova) for giving such a unique chance to participate in the internship.

Thank you for unbelievable emotions during whole time staying in Germany.”