IEPAL Student Notes About U-USA1 / I-USA1 Sept-Oct 2002
October 15,2002
Personal suggestions on the IEPAL program
The Iepal experience, at its first stage in the United States, has proved to be not only an amusing opportunity for visiting a new country, but also a significant academic and working experience where the participants had the chance of widening their knowledge of several topical majors.
It is from this perspective that the Iepal program has meant an important enrichment to our engineering education and a successful way to achieve the goal of a closer cooperation between the University and the companies.
Furthermore the project has helped all of us to come in contact with the American culture, but also to better understand the culture of our European colleagues, with whom we had the opportunity of working together.
The IEPAL experience has thus fully achieved the targets that its sponsors had set. Not only progressing the education of the participants, but especially providing to them the occasion of experiencing what will probably be their future working environment: multidisciplinary, international teams, where the key factor for success is mutual understanding.
In order to meet this goal even better, there are some aspects of this first stage of the project that can probably be improved, especially regarding a stronger involvement of the students from the receiving university and an extension of the work beyond the mere exchange period.
In facts in many occasions the available time for the projects, both at the University and in the companies, has seemed to be too short, thus limiting the possibilities of work and the subjects that could be approached.
The stage time (six weeks) depends directly on the program funds, but nevertheless it would be viable to start the projects before the beginning of the stage. In this way it would also be possible for the University and the host companies to take more time in choosing the projects that better meet their current needs. At the same time the scope of the work can also be wider and more elaborated, adding a greater value to the whole personal involvement and maybe disclosing opportunities for further collaboration.
If the companies could recognize this enhanced value, they might also be willing to contribute to the program as sponsors, providing some extra funding.
The need of beginning the work from home, in collaboration with other stakeholders worldwide distributed, could result extremely educational, forcing the participants to develop new communication skills and better understand the potentialities of modern communication devices:
share data and work progress on-line, coordinate the different tasks in virtual meetings...
Furthermore working together in advance helps to establish relationships before actually meeting each other, and hopefully maintain them afterwards.
The other issue that should be considered after the experience of this first American stage is a lack of involvement of the local students in the IEPAL activities.
Since the exchange stages are alternated between Europe and the United States, it could be interesting to couple the local students, waiting for leaving during the following session of the program, with the currently visiting students from abroad. This could be done, for example, letting them attend the same courses and work on the same projects. Beyond receiving additional education (without extra costs for the program), local students would also be encouraged to familiarize with the foreign students and organize activities for them, knowing that they would soon find themselves in the same situation.
Mixed classes would also help the local students, waiting to leave in their turn, to get familiar with the Iepal program and better prepare themselves to this experience.
The advantage for the foreign students is obviously the opportunity of building friendships with other boys and girls studying at the host University, getting more involved in the local student life and having "tutors" willing to follow them during their staying. In advance this solution would relieve the University from many organizational problems, letting it focus only on the didactical aspects.
Finally there is probably room for improvement also in the connection between the University and the companies, both in developing the schedule of the activities and in defining the projects for the students.
For example it would be very interesting to work on a wider project defined in agreement by both institutions, first analyzing it theoretically at the college and then studying its concrete application inside the company.
A further opportunity of cooperation between the University and the local companies taking part to the exchange program could be profitable for both parties, and raise their interest in the Iepal.
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