Get out of the ivory tower – learn for life!
Fresh from university and already know how things work in professional life? That doesn’t have to be a contradiction. Especially in the field of marketing and advertising, there are numerous committed initiatives in Germany in which students can gain tangible practical experience during their university education.
Student agencies such as Töchter + Söhne in Berlin, Die goldenen Zwanziger in Jena or Werbeliebe in Pforzheim offer prospective marketing specialists, media designers, business economists or computer scientists the opportunity to work on concrete projects for clients from the private sector while still studying theory. And sometimes such a student enterprise actually turns into a “real” advertising agency – this is what happened with the Bielefeld Media Lab, which focuses its communication on the fields of law and politics.
Such projects can only be realised if there is enough “breathing space” in the course of studies to find time for work in the agency in addition to the seminar room and lecture hall. Actually, this should also be the goal of our education policy – after all, it is often enough complained that university education in this country lacks a direct connection to professional practice.
Nevertheless, the continued existence of the committed student agencies is currently under acute threat: universities are increasingly focusing on tightly organised bachelor’s and master’s degree courses, in which students can complete their degrees more quickly, but also have to put up with tightly packed timetables. As a rule, there is no more room for a practice-oriented “sideline activity”. Perhaps it would be appropriate to pause and reflect on whether further “schooling” of academic training courses really makes sense from an economic point of view. Or whether it would not be much more efficient to release “immediately practical” graduates into the world of work after a more flexibly designed course of study?
Curious now?
Our contact person will be pleased to help you:
Matthias Brinkmann
+49 (0)911 / 47 49 49 49
brinkmann@twobe.de
