I graduated with my Bachelor’s degree in 1987, just before the participation of the University of Limerick (UL) in the European Union’s Erasmus Programme, so I might be forgiven for thinking that the programme is just for students. Not so, staff mobility is an important part of the programme. So, after a successful visit to UL by a colleague, Susanne (who happens to be an alumna of our MSc in Project and Programme Management) and without a word of German, never having visited the country, it was my turn to visit TH Wildau, in the Brandenburg region of Germany, near Berlin, in May to participate in International Week. Here is a brief chronology of my visit with some photos as evidence!
Monday involved mid-morning registration followed by lunch in the canteen to get to know some of the other participants along with our hosts from the International office. Visiting colleagues represented Belgium, Finland, Germany, Poland and Ukraine.
In the afternoon we participated in a workshop entitled ‘Academic culture and living in Germany’ where we were invited to introduce ourselves in German (I respectfully declined at this point, since it was my first ever visit to Germany and I was not yet used to hearing everyday language around me), and provide feedback on a one-page guide for international students on German cultural practices that might not be found in a Lonely Planet or similar guide. The campus tour was really helpful in terms of orientation for the days ahead.
What was most interesting to me was its history as a locomotive factory and many of the buildings were repurposed from factory production. On Thursday an exhibition to mark 125 years of locomotive building was opened in the library with a model railway at the centre – a dream of many a childhood!
Later we went cruising and had an enjoyable evening socialising with colleagues and sharing our plans for the week ahead.
Tuesday: I was only required to attend three hours of beginner’s German classes since I was an ‘absolute beginner’. The class was very practical and later on my visit to Potsdam with Susanne and Karolina I was able to order coffee and remember what is sold in a bakery (‘brot’ without looking it up, honestly). My German may be limited but I can find my way around a grocery shopping list!
Never forsaking an opportunity for collaboration, on the train to Potsdam Susanne had us review a lengthy list of projektmanagement standards to see which ones we were familiar with. It was a lengthy list so I can understand why she and her research colleagues thought it worthwhile to do some work in this area. Sustained by chocolate from the UL visitor shop we got to work and discussed our findings before the train journey ended and our evening in Sanssouci Park and Potsdam commenced, a few photos follow below.
Since there were no German classes on Wednesday, Susanne took the opportunity to book the Opp:Lab co-working space for us to brainstorm ideas for a new 8-week course for Masters students next year on international projects. Susanne and Karolina have been involved in research projects in the past so there was also opportunity for us to discuss future potential for collaboration. After three hours we had the basis captured on sticky notes with the working title ‘International group-based learning’ for Susanne’s class next year and potentially a research collaboration between the three of us.
It was helpful to make acquaintance with TH Wildau’s International Office team at a scheduled meeting and to provide them with the necessary introductions between the two universities so that between them they can progress the relationship into the future as appropriate.
Thursday was the busy day of the week for Susanne and I with a research methods workshop (in German) in the morning with postgrad students and a class with undergrad students (in English) in the afternoon where a practical project was being progressed using an Agile/adaptive projektmanagement approach.
For the morning workshop I decided it might be a good idea to turn on English captions for my PowerPoint slides so that students could read what I was saying. The test set up worked and I wondered if it might be possible to translate to German… Eureka! The quality of the translation was very good according to Susanne and the timelag was minimal. Thank you Microsoft, although Susanne did not have the same feature on her version so I consider myself very fortunate indeed! For reference the path is Slide Show > Subtitle Settings > Subtitle Language > German (or whatever you’re having yourself!) as indicated in the screenshot and supporting photo!
Before our afternoon class we spent an hour at the International event where students represented their countries by cooking traditional fare and sharing it with visitors including the Mayor of Wildau. Susanne had a flurry of emails from students advising their non-attendance at class (no surprise) but a small number did turn up and progress was made on the project that has real-life consequences for a group of primary school visitors due on campus later in May.
After an intense and productive week, Friday was entirely flexible and Susanne and I had made plans to travel into Berlin, have breakfast and join a scheduled tour called ‘Under the Berlin Wall’. Having studied European history before the tearing down of the Berlin wall, a lot had changed and the tour was fascinating. In particular, one of the tunnel diggers (Joachim) went to university, specialised in underground engineering and later worked on the Channel tunnel (makes sense of course!). Related books and podcasts are now on my reading/listening lists.
Of course, I took the opportunity to visit a few tourist sites to end my first (but definitely not my last!) visit to Germany.
Overall, it was an incredible week, I learned loads, made new acquaintances and generally had a great time.
Until next time, Sandra
Sandra Flynn 
What a lovely feedback on your stay in Wildau and Germany. Thanks, Sandra!The long-standing connection between Susanne and you certainly helped to connect our two institutions – I’m looking forward to future collaboration… Come back soon and “Auf Wiedersehen” :-), Karin (from the International Office)
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Many thanks Karin for your kind words, along with the opportunity to participate in my first International Week, hopefully not my last 🤞
S.
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