From November 8th to December 3rd 2021, EMUNI students Yara, Eslam and Emna enrolled in the first year of the Intercultural Business communication Master’s degree took part in a virtual mobility exchange by the title of “Think Local Work Global”.
EMUNI students met other colleagues from the Catholic University of Valencia (Spain), The virtual University of Tunis (Tunisia), and International School for Social and Business Studies (Slovenia) on the online platform “UNIcollaboration”, where they worked in virtual teams unpacking issues affecting their communities.
Throughout the four phases of the virtual exchange, students trained their problem-solving abilities and cooperated to locate specific challenges to their respective communities. They were asked to showcase their findings and to deliver a presentation on solutions to improve their communities’ welfare.
The exercise was supervised by tutors Dorsaf Ben Malek (UVT) and Rut Muniz Calderon (UCV) who commented that all participants contributed to the exercise with insightful and realistic solutions to problems affecting their communities.
Reached for comments, EMUNI students praised the experience and said that encountering team members with different cultural and educational backgrounds allowed them to adopt multi-disciplinary and multifaceted perspectives on how to solve the problems with which they were presented.
Eslam said that the programme provided a friendly environment and the subdivision into different steps allowed the participants to ease into the different exercises by first having to introduce themselves and their culture of belonging.
“I am glad I participated in the program I improved my cross-cultural teamwork and communication skills. I learned that despite our differences, we have many things in common.”
Eslam, EMUNI 1st year student of the Master’s degree in Intercultural Business Communication
Yara El Turk stressed her appreciation for the programme’s approach that allowed her and other students to dive into “global debates and problems related to education, climate, sustainability etc. while referring to our personal experience and disciplines”.
“This experience was very enriching to me. It was very interesting to hear all the different opinions and learn about our cultural differences. I have gained a lot of new knowledge, where I have expanded my understanding of different socio-cultural topics and I had the chance to learn more about Colombia, Spain and Lebanon.”
Emna Jbara, EMUNI 1st year student of the Master’s degree in Intercultural Business Communication
The virtual exchange was deemed successful by the organisers and our students alike. The latter were awarded digital badges for their active participation and unanimously praised the experience as enriching for their future professional career as well as their personal development.
For us at EMUNI, where we value intercultural dialogue, it was rewarding to witness our students’ enthusiasm and commitment in participating in this exercise which emphasises the ability to devise consensual solutions to the great challenges of our time.