Campus

Aerospatial ideas for internationalisation

A raft of suggestions to improve the internationalisation and cross-cultural collaboration at the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering (LR) were the result of a brainstorming lunch session on February 29.

Two weeks later the organising Faculty Student Council (FSR) at LR produced a report with the results.

Ensuring the mixing of internationals and Dutch in project groups and making the use of English mandatory when possible stand out as feasible vehicles of internationalisation.

FSR-LR chairperson, Anouk Scholtes said that they have discussed the brainstorming report at their monthly meeting with dean of the faculty, Dr. Hester Bijl. “Together we found the ideas that were the easiest to implement directly and also identified suggestions that are worth looking into in future,” said Scholtes. “We expect that some of the ideas will be implemented within the faculty in the coming months,” she said. The most direct way to boost internationalisation is to make measures implicit and adapt existing platforms and programme activities where students and lecturers interact. Using social activities successfully is more challenging as students are constrained by the demanding study load of the programmes.

Grading English peer review

The easiest targets are the student projects. Projects involve a peer review where students grade one another and this contributes to the final grade from their mentor. This can be adapted making the whole graded exercise in English to encourage uptake by the students and identify those not participating early on. The language issue is sensitive, but the FSR-LR considers suggestions to make internationals learn Dutch or oblige the Dutch to always speak English impractical and counterproductive.

Cultural component
TU Delft organises voluntary acculturation workshops, but a cross-cultural element can also be a mandatory part of the LR freshman introduction. It can also become an integral part of the curriculum as part of a first year bachelor’s project to raise consciousness of cultural differences. This is based on the work of Dutch social psychologist Geert Hofstede, whose studies identify key dimensions which vary between national cultures.

Extra qualification

A student can obtain an extra distinction of the qualification earned in three ways acknowledging extra academic, entrepreneurial or educational efforts. A fourth distinction would recognise international and cultural activities, such as internships and periods of study abroad.

You can read the previous article on Delta about the first brainstorming lunch.

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