EMLT Bulletin 13 (March) - EN

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MARCH, 2016

13

O U TH N I YO VE PAT IN O AT U RS H G T F R F B FAU C ITY RO HE U SI , S AR INT M EC NE CH EE O O SS O R” O N O AN L M IC D S

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“SOOTHING THE PATH FROM UNIVERSITY INTO YOUR CAREER” AT FAU, SCHOOL OF BUSINESS AND ECONOMICS In this bulletin, we will share some information about our partner Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany and its Career Center at the School of Business and Economics.

Founded in 1743, Friedrich-Alexander University (short FAU) has a rich history. It is a strong research university with an international perspective and one of the largest universities in Germany, with 40,174 students, 258 degree programmes, 4,000 academic staff (including over 580 professors), 171 million euros (2013) third-party funding, and 500 partnerships with universities all over the world.

FAU has five faculties, which cover the entire spectrum of academic disciplines – from medicine, sciences and engineering to humanities, social sciences and theology as well as business and economics. The individual disciplines are organised into departments, and there are 24 Interdisciplinary Centres that make a significant contribution to interdisciplinary collaboration at FAU.” This description is taking from the universities website and very clear gives a statement: If you chose to study at FAU you will study at one of the biggest and even best universities in Germany.

However, choosing the right university and the right subject for yourself is only one thing.

Another thing is how to make sure you find the right job after graduation? A job that fits you and your skills?

Graduating from university and making your first steps into the labor market can be hard, confusing and difficult. Moreover, even disappointing. To prevent disappointment, frustration and job mismatch and to even the path from university into students’ first employment the different faculties have installed different institutions.

This bulletin wants to introduce the “Career Center” of the School of Business and Economics at FAU. The Career Center provides a broad variety of services and resources to both students at the School of Business and Economics and employers within the metropolitan area Nuremberg.

The range of events includes seminars on application and coaching career entry, trainings and seminars on soft skills, presentations by organisation, lectures from managers and CEOs of well-known organisations and businesses, counseling interviews and job fairs.

All of the Career Centers activities aim to help students develop important, additional skills and to get them connected to potential employers, already during their studies.

The organization of all activities provided by the Career Center is quite simple: The students chose what they want and what they think is useful for them. As each student brings an individual profile of skills, previous work experience and career pathing activities offered are various.

The following chart shows the most important activities organised by the Career Center, the departments and even student run initiatives at FAU’s school of business and economics sorted by their fitting into the curriculum and their dimension of practical relevance.

How to get ready for employment?

Excerpt of activities offered at FAU, School of Business and Education:

Illustration 1: How to get ready for employment? at FAU, 2016

Just to give an idea of how these activities are designed we will have a closer look at one of the most popular among students, which also is one of the most practice-oriented activities: The so-called “Patronage Programme”.

The patronage programme is a mentoring programme for bachelor students at the school of business and economics. Senior representatives of national and even international operating businesses and enterprises take the patronage for selected students to involve them into business related projects, teach them to adopt a business-focused view on problems, give students into their business networks and help them connect with decision makers.

The benefit of this arrangement is a mutual one as the business representatives and their enterprises • are able to connect with young people who are potential future employees • win young talents • stay connected with university and her teachers • get easily connected with university facilities • can effectively present “their” enterprise to students as an attractive future employer.

The “Patronage Programme” is a one-semester programme and access is limited.

Prior to admittance, interested students have to go through a selection procedure and application numbers always exceed the available number of seats.

“Taking part in this programme and being part of this incredible network has given me so many new opportunities”, says Maria Seidl, third years student of business education. “Having the opportunity of joining the CEO of Nürnberger Versicherungsgruppe [editor’s note: Nürnberger Versicherungsgruppe is an insurance group and one of the biggest employer’s in the metropol region of Nuremberg] in his daily business routine like going to meetings, accompanying him on out of office appointments has given me an insight of business I would never have been able to get without this programme”, she adds. “I have met so many interesting people during this programme; one even offered me a job after my university studies right away. That’s incredible! This programme was such a “push” for my own motivation to excel with my studies. I now know that I definitely want to work for at least two or three years before I go back to university to finish my master’s degree.

To work in the human resource department of a bank or an insurance company, that is my dream.”

Another

interesting

activity

is

the

“Ludwig-Erhard-Symposium”,

a

well-re-

spected economic congress in Nuremberg with a high-caliber panel of speakers and workshop instructors from business, media and politics. An organization

team

staffed

with

students

runs

the

congress.

How the idea of this congress was born, how it is organized and how working with the organization team for this congress is accounted for in the students’ degrees, we will explain in one of our next bulletins.

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