A French- German Trainee for Eucor – The European Campus

The Eucor – The European Campus team at the University of Strasbourg has welcomed a new member: Anna David will be supporting her colleagues until June 2017. She is one of around 340 trainees from the French-German Youth Office (Deutsch-Französisches Jugendwerk/Office franco-allemand pour la Jeunesse) currently completing a traineeship in France and Germany respectively. Her main duties will include informing students about possibilities for study or work in German-speaking countries and participating in career advising sessions with Espace Avenir. She will also serve as a representative at trade fairs and visit university courses and school classes to introduce students to the French-German programmes offered by the University of Strasbourg and Eucor – The European Campus. “With our activities, we mostly aim students. A young trainee will represent them in a better and more credible way” explains Agnès Bousset, one of Anna David’s tutors. “Besides, she is an important gain for our French-German team and the intercultural atmosphere.” Flexible time management for a lasting experience Originally from Hamburg, Anna David earned her bachelor’s degree in social sciences in Koblenz and spent a year abroad in Rennes. Her foreign language skills are already more than sufficient for work in the higher education sector, “but I want to improve my official French,” says the young trainee. She also wants to learn more about the structure of the university. “I’m going to take four sociology courses at the University of Strasbourg to prepare for a master’s programme in France.” Anna David and her tutors, Aurelle Garnier and Agnès Bousset, have agreed on a flexible manage of working hours. They want to make sure to that their trainee, besides assisting them, can benefit from a lasting experience. However, Anna David’s claims go beyond that: in Koblenz and in Rennes, she has been committed to working with refugees and plans to participate in the European Campus’ task group on this topic. Close Cooperation with KIT The University of Strasbourg is not the only European Campus institution to be taking on trainees: Lauriane Wolf is supporting the head office of the German-French Initiative at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT-DeFI) and will be cooperating closely with Anna David in addition to engaging in marketing activities. She will spend part of her time at the Studierendenwerk Karlsruhe, where she will be involved in various international activities. Lauriane Wolf is from Angers and earned her Master 1 in International Business at the Skema Business School. She recently completed a six-month digital marketing internship at the meeco-Group in Dresden. This made her even more interested in Germany, so she decided to apply for a German-French traineeship in the higher education sector. What is a French-German traineeship? The Franco-German Youth Office supervises the French-German traineeships by managing the trainees’ and the hosting institutions’ applications. There are currently around 340 French and German trainees in the neighbouring country (France and Germany respectively), and thereof 30 in the higher education sector. Other possible fields of work are educational, social, ecological or cultural institutions, area municipalities or else the Franco-German Youth Office itself. Besides their social commitment, the trainees gain linguistic, intercultural as well as professional competences.