The joint trip by Faculty W and the International Office took them to Almaty, Kazakhstan's largest city.
At the beginning of May, Ms. Kunze from the International Office and Prof. Schütte from the Faculty of Business, Economics and Industrial Engineering flew to Almaty, the largest city in Kazakhstan. The aim was to prepare the continuation of existing institutional agreements (Faculty W) and the submission of new ones for Faculty N and Faculty EI in 2019 as part of the ERASMUS+ program.
After landing in Almaty, there was a 4-hour time difference to deal with, but the first appointments/meetings at DKU took place just a few hours later. The focus of the visit was on content and administrative coordination with the German-Kazakh University (DKU), with which Faculty W already offers a double degree. Ms Kunze also dedicated half a day to TURAN University in the south of the city to discuss comparable modules in degree courses (in this case tourism), language requirements and financial opportunities in the form of DAAD programs.
In addition to lectures for Prof. Schütte and appointments at the DKU International Office for Ms Kunze, the program also included information events for interested Kazakh students who would like to spend part of their studies with us.
The evenings were mostly spent with local contacts, such as professors and staff working at DKU, the author of the travelogue "Discover Kazakhstan", the director of the Goethe-Institut in Almaty and the president of DKU. Over shashlik and vodka (or water), there were many interesting conversations, which also provided one or two ideas for further work.
On the big national holiday (Victory Day 1945), we went to the Butakovsky waterfall, an almost 6-hour hike into the Tien Shan mountains. At the weekend, a minibus was organized through the DKU and we drove into the steppe with Kazakh students. Of course, we also had detailed conversations about the country and its people during this trip.
After a week, we both returned home. We left with many wonderful impressions of Almaty and the surrounding area as well as the many friendly people we met.