Students’ Empowerment in Providing Extracurricular Activities for Students of Technology in Europe an example of Board of European Students of Technology Keywords — Europe; Curriculum Improvement; Extracurricular Activities; Student Organisation; BEST
Klemen Krulec Board of European Students of Technology Maribor, Slovenia Klemen.Krulec@best.eu.org
Tadej Stepisnik Board of European Students of technology Ljubljana, Slovenia Tadej.Stepisnik@best.eu.org
Zane Zondaka Board of European Students of Technology Riga, Latvia Zane.Zondaka@best.eu.org
Wieke Villerius Board of European Students of technology Amsterdam, The Netherlands Wieke.Villerius@best.eu.org
Nowadays higher education sphere is facing severe changes. Pace of progress in modern era is forcing every part of society to change and adapt to the needs of the market. Same statements can be projected on higher education, especially on the field of technology. The initial goal of higher engineering education was providing technical knowledge to students. Additionally for most of students the initial motivation to attend university was career advancement. This synergy of motives has been fulfilling requirements of graduating engineers and industry. Recently the balance has changed. Modern engineering is more complex than ever before. [5] Although universities continued producing technically competent graduates, who understand engineering concepts, however their employability has dropped over time. Industry representatives point out, young graduates lack so called people skills or social skills.
Modern engineers should obtain not only the technical expertise, but ability to perform in team, communicate effectively, think critically to create products, which satisfies the needs of world of today.
Extra curricular activities can bring an added value which fills the gap between needs of engineering students’ and higher education study programs. By engaging in such type of activities, students gain valuable experience in various areas, which would not be possible to obtain during regular classes. Extra curricular activities help students to gain and develop their emotional, intellectual, managemental and social skills.
It is widely known that extra curricular activities can bring an added value which fills the gap between needs of engineering students’ and higher education study programs. By engaging in such type of activities, students gain valuable experience in various areas, which would not be possible to obtain during regular classes. Extra curricular activities help students to gain and develop their emotional, intellectual, managemental and social skills. Europe has recognised the importance of students’ extracurricular activities and is institutionally encouraging students’ involvement as such. Throughout the year students have opportunity to participate in various events such as short courses on specific technical topics, conferences, workshops on career related skills, debates, training sessions on various topics, engineering competitions, network meetings, hackathons, event related to education, case studies, and many more. Aforementioned activities and initiatives encourage students to link and apply practical knowledge gained in the university with the “real world” as well as those develop their capacity to work in culturally diverse environments.
In order to benefit from services provided by BEST: academical courses on technology, career related skills or applied engineering, educational symposiums, engineering competitions, BEST academics and companies forums students are expected to provide motivation for learning and expanding their knowledge in proposed topic, related to technology or education or improving their skills and capabilities. This creates a strong base and enhances learning capabilities. Nevertheless student is expected to have basic social and English language skills. The academic courses, European BEST Engineering Competition (EBEC) [2] and events on education imply social interaction and working in teams, intercultural cooperation, active participation in discussions or debates regardless the origin country, age or year of studies.
Furthermore, above mentioned competences, play a key role in creating encouraging learning environment. This activities gather students with similar interests, strong thirst for new knowledge and an open mind, all this combined with multicultural environment creates strong external incentive for further development, cooperation and tolerance.
BEST courses and competitions doubtless provides multicultural ambient to every single student to enhance their, firstly technical knowledge on related topic, secondly, soft skills. During the courses students are assigned with various tasks, group works, case studies, which require teamwork, collaboration, process management. In most events BEST provides, students evaluate their development in various areas (academic and non-academic). Softs skill development is ranked higher compared to academic or language skills development, however, aforementioned skills are still presented in top ranking. For an example, in past two years students have had evaluated their participation in European BEST Engineering Competition Final (EBEC Final). More than 50% of respondents stated, that they believe they developed presentation skills, project management, problem solving, communication, leadership and more than 60% on teamwork. [3]
Besides participation in complementary education activities, students also gain competences and develop themselves by active voluntary work in organisations as BEST or others alike across the globe. BEST counts 3300 active members who invest their time and effort in offering and developing services to students all around Europe. BEST members are expected to be motivated, flexible and (being) able to initiate change and development for the future of the organisation. Through discussions, collaboration and taking responsibilities everybody has opportunity to excel in leadership, teamwork, communication, organisation, delegation, decision making and online collaboration. Hands-on experience and sharing community play a key role in creating proper environment. Members feel equal to each other and are encouraged to exchange knowledge within the organisation for the future reference. Within the shared community and by the hands-on approach, individuals develop their awareness of self-development, that has influence not only to their future career, but also to academic activity.
References [1] Board of European Students of Technology public website (visited in August 2013) www.BEST.eu.org [2] A. M. ENEA, A. KLIUSHNYK, J. MATEUS, 2011. European BEST Engineering Competition, International Symposium on Project Approaches in Engineering Education, Lisbon, 1-2 October 2011 [3] T. STEPISNIK, Z. ZONDAKA, J. PACHECO, W. VILLERIUS, R. CZAHAJDA, 2013. Influence of participation in engineering competitions on students’ attractiveness for future employer, International Symposium on Project Approaches in Engineering Education, Eindhoven, 8-9 July 2013 [4] Board of European Students of Technology Annual Report 2011/2012, Available from: http://best.eu.org/download/BEST_Annual_Report_11-12.pdf [5] J. E. MILLS, D. F. TREAGUST, 2003. ENGINEERING EDUCATION – IS PROBLEMBASED OR PROJECT-BASED LEARNING THE ANSWER? [6] P.COPPENS, W.A.VILLERIUS, A.SPYRIDONIDOU, A.GRAVILOVIC (2013) Students’ thoughts and opinions on aspects of their education [unpublished paper] BEST – Board of European Students of Technology
Growth of BEST
14 46 31 LOCAL BEST GROUPS
64
80 95
1989 1994 1999 2004 2009 2013 COUNTRIES 12 18
20
26
30 33
Later, once the BEST network started growing, these courses became more and more widespread over Europe [4]. There is still a continuous growth of the amount of BEST courses annually taking place, and the topics are still innovative and fit in the current engineering practice. For example recently sustainability has become more popular than couple of years ago. It is proven through the feedback received from participants of BEST Courses that these initiatives are still current and of great interest of students. Even in recent years BEST has seen the amount of applications increase; e.g. for summer season 2013 over 10.500 applications were received (this is the majority of the annual applications of about 18.262 in 2013), whereas in 2012 this was 8.810, in 2011 9.362 applications.
86
18 262 6
COURSES ON CAREER RELATED SKILLS
4
3
OF EV E
72
NT S
TECHNOLOGY
1SP6RING 1
COURSES ON
4M0MER
Indifferent by side or type, involvement in these organisations help students to improve their way of thinking. This is motivating them to speak up and defend their rights or dispute wrongs.
The initial idea when BEST was found in 1989, was to encourage mobility of technology students in Europe. Students united to be able to travel more easy and experience university life at other higher education institutes. Because it was not in their power to initiate cooperation between universities, the idea of short courses abroad was born. At that time 20 students from all over Europe were selected to come for 1 or 2 weeks to one of their universities and learn on a topic which is maybe not part of their curriculum, but of high interest of these international oriented and eager students.
SU
Not only higher education bodies, but also students themselves have identified importance of skills gained through extracurricular activities and majority of above mentioned activities are organised by wide range of student organisations. Student organisations are formed depending on different study fields, hobbies and interests. Among European universities quite some student unions, sport clubs, theater groups, and many more are present. Also size and structure of groups vary, from local photography club with less than 10 members, to european wide umbrella associations of students of law or technology with profoundly defined hierarchy.
Board of European Students of Technology (BEST) [1] is a non-profit non-political student NGO present in 95 European (technical) universities in 33 countries. BEST aims at providing complementary education, career support and provide space for students to be more involved in educational matters. BEST strives for empowered diversity through developing students; both the 3300 members of the organisation as well as 1.3 million students of technology in Europe through its network.
13
AU T
3INTER
UM
N
EVENTS ON EDUCATION
W
LEISURE
SEASONAL ENGINEERING COMPETITIONS
EVENTS
Whilst looking closer at the motivation of students to participate in courses, events on education and EBEC related events, a tendency of arguments can be identified. “It has really widened my perception and it has given me lot of new stuff to reflect upon. Furthermore, on the personal level it has helped me clear up some doubt and answer some questions about my own future.” Daniel, course participant in Vienna. “Being together for two weeks with such nice people, of different nationalities, with different hobbies and from different academic environments, really changed my perception about people in general.” Cezar-George about his course in Krakow. Participants from the most recent edition of EBEC undoubtedly feel more confident about their education due to experiencing the opportunity of practically applying their knowledge and receiving direct feedback about their work during the competition. Looking at the evaluations of the 5th EBEC edition, similarities can be drawn with the results brought by the previous editions. ‘Developing skills’ and ‘having fun’ were repeatedly indicated as the main reasons for participation. Ambition of ‘winning the competition’ was assigned only secondary importance. The research was conducted through an online questionnaire within the network of BEST universities and beyond during 4 weeks in February and March 2013. In total almost 300 replies were gathered giving a representative sample of student opinions on matters related to their education, career development, and extra-curricular activities.[6]
Although the aforementioned only implies the successes of BEST activities by experience, recently more objective research took place to identify the needs and expectations of students of technology in Europe. The aim of this research was to position BEST and its services in its market, though the data includes relevant information to more than just the internal scope of BEST.
The activities were described in a general matter, knowing BEST is not the only organisation that provides such experiences to students. It was concluded for each branch of activities in which BEST has a stake, that the experiences provided are still of interest of today’s students of technology in Europe. Not only our participation statistics show the relevance of extra-curricular activities, but also this research proves that even though in the past 25 years, the European climate of engineering education has changed, BEST is still a relevant player in the field of providing complementary education, career support and opportunity for educational involvement for students. The research however does not show the added value BEST activities bring to their members through organising these opportunities for students in Europe. BEST members are passionate and have a natural drive from within to challenge themselves and make a difference. It is not proven that this is how BEST is still accurate today, as it was 25 years ago, though it is a fact that without its members it would not have been able to develop and reach its current status and relevance.
In conclusion of this poster shows the importance of extracurricular activities for engineering students. Nowadays higher engineering education in Europe is struggling with satisfying needs of the current engineering student in the career advancement. To fulfil the job market requirements no longer is enough to excel in technological knowledge and understand the engineering concepts, young graduates also need to show capability in soft skills. One of the possible path for gaining necessary skills is engagement in the extracurricular activities. Such engagement and students’ involvement, as an example of BEST, is presented in this poster due to the high impact of the organisation on skills mentioned. BEST is a student NGO providing complementary education for engineering students, providing services: academical courses, engineering competitions or educational symposiums. These activities and events undoubtedly support definition of extra curricular. In a multicultural ambient, students are given the possibility to gain soft skills: management, social, etc. This is shown in evaluation BEST conducted among the participants of several editions of EBEC. Nevertheless, BEST made an objective research among students of technology in Europe. The results show, the experiences provided by BEST services are of general interest of students and relevant as extracurricular activities. For the further research the topic of development of BEST members should be pointed out, as working on a daily bases in large students’ organisation as BEST also contributes to members’ self- development and skills, which are of general interest as future employees.
y
e
a
r
s