Student of Speciality 073 “Management” of the National University “Yuri Kondratyuk Poltava Polytechnic” Mariia Bovkun told about her studies under the Erasmus+ KA171 Credit Mobility Programme at the University of Applied Sciences Wiener Neustadt GmbH in Wiener Neustadt, which is located near the Austrian capital Vienna, in the autumn semester of the academic year 2023/2024. A student of Poltava Polytechnic mastered new useful skills and knowledge from 4 September 2023 to 16 December 2023.
Mariia Bovkun, a future professional manager, shared her impressions of studying at the Austrian partner university:
“Studying on an exchange programme in Austria was an extraordinary challenge and an unforgettable experience in my life. It wasn’t my first exchange, but it gave me a new perspective on living and studying abroad. I studied in the small town of Wiener Neustadt, which is 60 km from Vienna. At the beginning of the full-scale war, this cosy town became the main refuge for Ukrainians in Austria. So why did this exchange become an extraordinary challenge for me?
First of all, Austrian higher education is one of the leading places in the world ranking and they really justify their position. There were many challenging classes at Wiener Neustadt University, where I gained knowledge that will certainly be useful to me in the future. For example, in my finance class, we did a project to create an investment portfolio with shares of well-known global companies such as Starbucks, Mercedes, and Apple. As part of the “Leadership and Entrepreneurship” course, we did a project to create a training on specific topics for different companies.
It was difficult to understand a lot of specialised material in English, so I often had to learn something extra. I was surprised by the three-hour classes, and sometimes they could be eight hours long. They also have a slightly different grading system: 5 is the lowest grade and 1 is the highest. Studying in Austria is very consistent and systematic, you need to work hard all semester to get a decent grade. Also, this university does not have a single final exam for each subject, but rather projects and several important exams during the semester, which gives you a better chance of getting a good grade, but this requires systematic work and attendance at all classes.
Another and the biggest difficulty and experience for me was that I went to this exchange programme all alone. Every day I had to speak English for many hours without the opportunity to communicate in my native language. I had to put a lot of effort into coping with problems alone and adapting to living in another country with different values and culture. After this school of life, I know that I can achieve anything and overcome all obstacles.
I got a lot of positive impressions from my studies. All the teachers are very interesting and professional people, owners of private companies, business consultants or analysts, people of different cultures and nationalities. At my host university, international students are so commonplace that teachers treat them like ordinary students.
The university is equipped with the latest equipment and very comfortable classrooms. It was even possible to rent a laptop for the whole day free of charge for all students.
Austria impressed me with its unhurried flavour. High mountains, schnitzels and Sacher cake, calm people who are in no hurry, amazing Vienna and the Vienna Christmas market, which is known all over the world.
The university organised many exciting events for exchange students: a city tour of Vienna, a group of international students climbing the highest mountain in lower Austria – the Schneeberg, a trip to the fabulous Zotter chocolate factory, a winery and a walk through the Vienna Christmas markets.
During this exchange, I felt like I lived another small life. I learned how to be independent and strong, how to find a way out of any situation, how to make friends with people from different cultures, how to constantly learn and adopt the best practices from different parts of the world, how to revive old connections and travel to other countries to visit my old friends, how to step into the unknown and keep moving forward under any circumstances. Apart from different cities in Austria, I also had time to travel around Europe a bit and visited Germany, Czech Republic and Slovakia.
I am very grateful to Poltava Polytechnic for this opportunity and this cool experience that will stay with me for the rest of my life! I will continue developing, studying, travelling, and one day I will become a person that the whole country, and maybe the whole world, will know about, and I will say that it was our university that gave me such a good start for success!”
It should be recalled that applications for credit academic mobility at the Finnish university Laurea University of Applied Science in the academic year 2024/2025 are now open. The application deadline is 8 April 2024, at the Austrian University of Applied Sciences Burgenland and the Austrian University of Applied Sciences BFI Vienna, and Polytechnic scientists are invited to 2 trainings within the framework of the DAAD’s “Bologna Hub Peer Support II” project!
Currently, four university students are mastering useful professional skills at the Romanian university “Aurel Vlaicu” University of Arad, a master’s student in philology is studying under the Erasmus+ academic mobility programme at Vilnius University of Applied Sciences (VIKO), a rehabilitation student is successfully studying the latest therapeutic techniques at the Romanian partner university, recently, students of the Educational and Research Institute of Finance, Economics, Management and Law have successfully completed their studies at the University of Applied Sciences BFI Vienna, teachers and students of the Polytechnic attended lectures on building acoustics from a representative of the British acoustic design and consulting agency, a Polytechnic scientist visited Washington, DC as part of the “Open World” programme and got acquainted with American higher education by visiting one of the local communities, visited one of the leading universities in Florida, visited Embry-Riddle University, a private aviation university also known as the “The Harvard of the Skies”, and visited Everglades University, a private university; a philology student improved her digital skills by participating in the Erasmus+ academic exchange programme in Italy, students of the Educational and Research Institute of Finance, Economics, Management and Law shared their positive impressions of studying at an Austrian partner university, and students of the Polytechnic held a workshop on “green” lifestyle.
It should be noted that students of Poltava Polytechnic have the opportunity to study abroad under the grant programmes of credit academic mobility for a semester or a whole academic year at the leading universities of Austria, Greenland, Denmark, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Norway, the Netherlands, Germany, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Finland, and the Czech Republic.
For more information about the current academic mobility programmes, please contact the International Relations Department (room 320-F, interoffice@nupp.edu.ua) or the Coordinator of International Cooperation of National University “Yuri Kondratyuk Poltava Polytechnic” – Candidate of Philological Sciences, Associate Professor of the Department of Germanic Philology and Translation Anna Kostiantynivna Pavelieva (room 310-C, email: kunsite.zi@gmail.com, phone: +3-8-(095)-91-08-192).
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National University “Yuri Kondratyuk Poltava Polytechnic”
