On September 19, 2018, a workshop of the Erasmus+ project EPIC took place as part of the 46th conference of the European Society for Engineering Education(SEFI). Representatives from aconium GmbH, which is involved in the project, traveled to Copenhagen for the event. EPIC offers the opportunity to write Bachelor’s and Master’s theses as well as project work together in transnational teams. The topics and problems for these theses come directly from the practical experience of companies. Jens Myrup Pedersen, lecturer at Aalborg University in Denmark, the lead partner of the project, presented the aims and principles of EPIC as well as the results and findings from the first year of the project. Koojana Kuladinithi from Hamburg University of Technology explained to the workshop participants the particular challenges that EPIC has to face. These include:
- The cultural differences between the participants from different nations and regions
- Consideration of the requirements of all participating universities in the evaluation of the services provided
- The acquisition of companies and their role during the collaboration
A student from the now completed first year of the project also had his say. He shared his experiences and emphasized that he had learned a lot about teamwork, structuring project processes and taking different opinions and skills into account. He explained that the EPIC model enriched his studies and offered many opportunities to expand his own skills. He called for participation in the project and expressed the wish for further offers of this kind. The workshop participants made extensive use of the opportunity to actively exchange ideas. All participants and aconium GmbH will use the experiences from the first year for the further course of the project in order to enable even more students and companies to work together in an enriching way in the future.
Cover photo: The EPIC workshop took place as part of the SEFI conference in Copenhagen on September 19, 2018.
Photos in the text: Jens Myrup Pedersen, lecturer at Aalborg University (Denmark), the project’s lead partner, presents EPIC as well as results and findings from the first year of the project; Koojana Kuladinithi (TU Hamburg) explains the particular challenges faced by the EPIC project to workshop participants.
Photo credits: aconium GmbH/Anne Reichenbach