Last week, the students of the event management masters program at HiMolde finished their 10 day international module in Germany.
The purpose of this module was to offer the future event managers a taste of what the practical field looks like. Not in a form of an internship, but in the form of lectures and tours by respected event managers and others working in the field in Frankfurt, Berlin, Mainz, Oberhof and Leipzig.
And truly when it came to experience, it was filling. Daily schedule ranging on average from 8 AM to 6 PM basically did not allow for any brakes besides time to get on and off the infamous german S-bahns and U-bahns. Running to catch a train while trying to bite off, chew, swallow and hold down your lunch was probably the most precious experience of them all.
«That is what the world of event management looks like. So it is good that you get to experience it» said Gerald Fritz, a PhD student with vast experience in event management, for example from the Qatar football league.
Professor Holger Preuss – HiMolde & Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz – and Gerald Fritz were the main organizers of this international module.
Se more photos from the course in Germany on Panoramas FB-page.
Taking students from Norway, a country with a very specific event market, and throwing them into more «real life» Germany is a good idea. It gave a perspective to the students of how such giants like Mercedes -Benz arena or Berlin Olympic stadium have to operate to generate money.
The tight schedule started to take its toll on people the very second day of the module. Well, it wasn’t just the tight schedule implemented by the trip organizers. Future event managers managed to make it even tighter with the night-time additions. Sleeping patterns suffered. I personally managed an overall trip record of 20 minutes of sleep one night before lectures. I hardly remember any lecture where at least one of the students did not find comfort in bending their head forwards or backwards and later even more comfort in the land of dreams for a while.
Students complained about the lack of free time through the whole module, but one must realize that student complain all the time about everything. It is the gift of a critical mind, which is required for university studies. But overall one must admit that we learned a lot.
And how else would you imagine squeezing 15 credits – a one semester subject – into 10 days without almost dropping dead at the end?