Students from the Alexander-Hegius-Gymnasium in Ahaus, Germany take part in the International Project Week
For the second consecutive year, high school pupils at the German Alexander-Hegius-Gymnasium (AHG) in Ahaus participated in the annual International Project Week at Saxion. They worked together in teams with Saxion students and other international students on challenging projects provided by companies. These are real assignments coming from professional practice. It is up to the teams to develop an innovative solution or concept for tackling the problem.
More than 1,000 students took part in the 26th edition of the International Project Week. Groups had all week to work on their assignment. On the final day, the 150 teams presented their results to the companies involved and a jury at a project market. Each year there are great prizes to be won. An AHG student and her team won the Entrepreneur Award for their presentation.
It’s experience in working in international and interdisciplinary project teams
“Our pupils learn a lot during this week,” say the AHG lecturers. The personal development and collaboration with other students is much more important than the end result. It is experience in working in an international and interdisciplinary project team. Our pupils get to practise conceptual thinking and discover what it is like being at an applied university. And all of this in another country. Although it still feels close by. We are always surprised that it is only half an hour by train from Ahaus to Enschede.
Students Antonio and Barra noticed that it is different at Saxion than in Germany. “It’s very open here and we were given lots of freedom. We were allowed to decide for ourselves in our group how we were going to solve the assignment. Working together was fun and we met a lot of new people.”
An extra programme was arranged for the 25 Ahaus pupils so they could get to know Saxion better. After an informative introduction, the group was split into two. One group visited the FabLab. Where they got an explanation about 3D printers, laser cutting and processing of materials. As a keepsake, students were allowed to engrave their name on a keyring. The other group visited the XR Lab, where they got the opportunity to try a Virtual Reality game and other new technology.
