In the framework of the “Applied Intercultural Competences” course, 12 students interviewed students and staff of the EPICUR Alliance universities in order to produce podcasts of interculturalities. These podcasts allow to discover useful information to better understand EPICUR, its advantages for students and staff, testimonies on student life or even ideas to prepare one’s career during one’s studies in an EPICUR university!
Check out the podcasts here:
- Prof. Serge Neunlist and Lise Plumecocq : Introduction – About the EPICUR podcasts of Interculturalities
- Assia, Ranya and Driss : The EPICUR Alliance, benefits for students and staff
- Eva, Zaha and Fouad : Preparing your career when studying within an EPICUR university
- Anissa, Fiona, Rozalin and Thierno-Aliou : Studying in an EPICUR university: habits and lifestyle
- Li-Ting, Kamba, Kenza, Inès and Inès : Karlsruhe, a EPICUR city in focus
Context
In April 2021, the EPICUR universities were invited to offer courses in the framework of the EPICUR Liberal Art and Sciences Bachelor Programme. In order to reply to the needs of the EPICUR Alliance, to make the students aware of its existence and advantages and to invite them to benefit from the cooperation of the 8 universities, Université de Haute-Alsace (UHA) decided to offer the course “Applied Intercultural Competences” aiming at developing common student projects within EPICUR. The course gathered students from UHA as well as two participants from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and University of Strasbourg.
Goals
The goal of the course was primarily to introduce students to the EPICUR context and allow them to work directly in teams with other students of the European University. In addition, the students got the opportunity to reflect on their intercultural practices and skills thanks to the accompaniment provided by the trainers. Moreover, they were invited to develop ideas on how to raise awareness among the other EPICUR students about the importance of reflecting intercultural matters within a European consortium.
Course outline
Based on the concept of projects from students to students, this course was open to all EPICUR students, that met the general admission criteria, ensuring diversity inside of the classroom. The course took place between October 2021 and February 2022 and was offered in French and English reflecting in this way the importance of multilingualism within the Alliance.
This course was offered in a co-teaching format with two UHA trainers (NovaTris and Chair in Interculturalities). The first part of the course was devoted to activities encouraging intercultural reflection and awareness, while the second part of the course allowed participants to work on joint projects. The students were fully involved in the choice and creation of their projects: the ideas and resources of each participant were valued and used in the project.
The students were accompanied by the trainers through the project development process while taking responsibility for its management and implementation:
- the idea development,
- the concretization of the concept,
- the evaluation of its advantages and risks,
- the study of the EPICUR context,
- the search for student and staff partner in the different universities,
- the technical or logistical implementation,
- the communication about the project within EPICUR and, finally,
- the definition of the next steps and the future of the project after the end of the course.