The 27th International Project Week (IPW) at Nordhausen University of Applied Sciences took place from 19–23 May. Together with my friend and colleague Robin Finesilver, I headed up the Elbe to Dresden by train on the morning of Saturday, 17 May. This first train was delayed by around half an hour, with a knock-on effect after two more changes in Leipzig and Halle that we reached our final destination, our apartment in Nordhausen, about an hour later than planned. Since the official IPW programme did not start until Sunday morning, this was no problem. We still arrived in time to eat at our local Greek restaurant, Akropolis.
This year there were eighteen projects delivered by guest lecturers from ten European countries, with Romania being the best represented. Many lecturers from last year came back so it was lovely to see them again and to meet a few new people into the bargain. My teaching was three in one this year. I had a course with students during the IPW, then a joint workshop with my colleague Robin Finesilver at the university open day on the Saturday and, finally, a two-day workshop with university staff the following week.
I had a great group of students again, this time a mixture of regular German students and exchange students from the German Jordanian University in Amman. The two groups soon got to know each other and were all very keen to practise their public speaking. As well as watching some videos with tips on public speaking and analysing some famous speeches by prominent figures, participants also did two prepared presentations each during the week. The first was on background reading; they each selected a book from the materials I had uploaded to Moodle in advance, for instance, The Art of Public Speaking by Dale Carnegie, Speak With No Fear by Mike Acker and Confessions of a Public Speaker by Scott Berkun. Participants also gave presentations on a subject of their choice which ranged from mental health awareness to Bernd das Brot (Bernd the Bread), a popular children’s cartoon character, and Simson motorcycles, first produced in East Germany.
The students’ final presentations were on public speaking or a particular aspect of it. Two groups delivered excellent PowerPoint presentations, one also including some video animation, which worked really well. The third group decided to demonstrate the importance of body language in public speaking by acting it out, showing examples of poor and good body language in presentation. This was superb.
For the open day, we facilitated a short practical workshop for a small group of participants: “Speak up: warming up for a presentation”. The session included vocal warm-ups and practice using microphone. We also did some fun tongue twisters in German, Czech and English. At the end of the workshop, we did an exercise based on the BBC Radio 4 game show Just a Minute. Participants had to pick a piece of paper out of a hat and then talk about their selected subject for one minute using a microphone. Some of them preferred to speak German but they all did a great job. One of the participants was a former student who began studying back in 1998 and recognized me from the early days of the IPW. After our session, I joined Michael Daly’s workshop, “Travelling as a student to enhance your career”, where he encouraged students to make a plan and go for it. I also tried my hand at Basket Beat under the expert guidance of Marcel Valls.
For my two-day workshop with university staff, I had a group of six, including business owners and engineering professors. It was soon evident from the Just a Minute warm-up exercise that they were pretty confident speakers, also in English. They each did a presentation on Monday and Tuesday, ranging from more general company presentations, for instance, to talks on more specific areas of research such as bioplastics. These presentations were impressive and lively discussions ensued, moderated by participants. I gave feedback on various aspects of the presentations. For example, I noticed certain mannerisms presenters were or were not aware of. And I corrected a few errors in the slides such as decimal commas instead of full stops, which distorts the data, or pointed out when there was too much text on a slide, a common mistake in PowerPoint. I was also able to give feedback on pronunciation, particularly word stress, which can sometimes prevent the message from being conveyed clearly.
We also watched and discussed some videos in these sessions, including one with practical vocal warm-up exercises and one with tips on public speaking by Canadian-American motivational speaker Brian Tracy. Time was limited but I hope the workshop provided food for thought and that participants have also been able to look at the other materials that I uploaded into Moodle for them. They were all very active participants and nice to work with.
As always, besides working hard, we also played hard during our stay in Nordhausen. I was particularly glad we arrived in time for the Sunday excursion. Like the teaching, this was also three in one. First, we went on a ride on the steam train from Nordhausen to the Rabensteiner Stollen. Then we put on hard hats and boarded a different kind of train, the Gruben-Express, to go down the coal mine there. We didn’t stay underground too long but it was enough to give us an idea of the harsh conditions the miners had to endure while working there back in the eighteenth century. Then we were off to our next destination, the Titan-RT suspension bridge, stretching 458.5 metres over the Bode reservoir. Perhaps it looks precarious but it was in fact stable although it did start to sway more as a storm began brewing just as we were walking back. We didn’t go on the zip line or the bungee jump down from the bridge but others did and we heard the screams. Our grand day out ended with a lovely working dinner at the Indian restaurant Namaste back in Nordhausen.
There were also plenty of extracurricular activities during the week. I had to miss the Monday afternoon walk around the town because I had a client Zoom call but I made it to the Echter Nordhäuser Traditionsbrennerei (traditional distillery) afterwards, for both the tour and the tasting afterwards. I also participated in an entertaining games night at the local library organized for students later that night by Andrew Pecchia of the university’s Language Centre, followed by dinner with a couple of friends and colleagues at the nearby Café Central, one of the few restaurants in Nordhausen open on Mondays. So a really enjoyable evening overall. Another excursion I missed but I heard the others liked was to the Bratwurst or sausage museum in nearby Mühlhausen on Wednesday afternoon. Partly because I’m vegetarian, I decided to skip that one and go to the Badehaus (swimming pool) instead. It did me the world of good to have a bit of spa time there mid-week.
One of the highlights of the week for me was DJing along with Michael Daly and then with Laura Trifan (in the video) at the student party at the Karzer on Tuesday evening. Many thanks to professional DJ Max for giving us some basic training. That was certainly a fun evening. We also returned to the Karzer on Thursday evening for pizzas from Freddy Fresh kindly provided by the IPW team and for karaoke. Another fabulous night out. Also many thanks to Chiara for the lifts home afterwards.
On the Friday, the last day of the IPW proper, unfortunately, our planned trip to Erfurt had to be cancelled because the train was cancelled. Instead, the project team treated us to a lovely meal at our local, Akropolis. We were delighted to be there with the whole group this time and very well looked after by the lovely owner.
This year I travelled back to Prague immediately after classes with the university staff so I was apprehensive about making my connections. Fortunately, however, despite two trains being delayed, a change in Dresden-Neustadt instead of in the main station saved me some valuable time and ensured I still caught the evening train to Prague and could finally relax in the restaurant car with a well-earned Czech beer. It was another long day at the end of a fantastic albeit full-on trip. I really enjoyed both the teaching and the extra-curricular activities. It was a pleasure to be working with and spending time with such wonderful people. A big thank you to Jenny Ettrich and the entire IPW team who always ensure everything runs as smoothly as possible during our stay, to Kathleen Hahnemann and Martin Groß for coordinating the staff course and to Franziska Zimmermann of the Media Centre for all the technical assistance. And, of course, I would like to thank the university’s President, Jörg Wagner, for the invitation. Of course, I hope to be back next year.