Oregon students in Germany fall term 2024.
The state of Oregon and the German state of Baden-Württemberg have engaged in a student exchange program for more than 50 years, with alternating delegation visits between the two happening every five years.
This week, from Oct. 13-19, the Germans are in Oregon for the first time in a decade, for a visit that includes meetings at Oregon State on Tuesday and a two-day workshop at OSU-Cascades at the end of the week, as well as stops at the University of Oregon and Portland State.
Since 1968, the state-to-state exchange has resulted in an estimated 1,100 Oregon students studying in Germany and 1,500 Baden-Württemberg students coming to Oregon. The Oregon program is administered at OSU by the IE3 Global Programs team and is open to all public universities in the state.
Program participants, staff and faculty on the 45th anniversary of the exchange, which started in 1968.
In Germany, Oregon students can choose from among 14 institutions, where they may elect to do a German-language intensive or pursue their field of study in a German university. There are also faculty research connections between OSU and researchers in Baden-Württemberg for students to get involved in, said Michele Justice, director of OSU’s Global Opportunities (OSU GO) program.
The vast majority of exchange students are undergraduates, though some graduate students take advantage of the fact that master’s-level education in Germany is widely offered in English.
The goals behind this week’s visit are to discuss how the various institutions of higher education can better serve their increasingly diverse student populations, as well as to find ways to strengthen research ties and offer more opportunities for research collaboration. There is a particular focus on the signature areas of OSU’s strategic plan, Prosperity Widely Shared: robotics, clean energy, climate change and biotechnology.
Baden-Württemberg is a research powerhouse area in Europe, Justice said. The state boasts more than 70 state and private universities and more than 100 research institutions.
German exchange students in Oregon this fall.
The delegation representatives are the directors of the universities’ international offices responsible for supporting research and student mobility.
“We’re particularly interested in moving forward in STEM areas, both at the research level and at the level of encouraging STEM students to go,” Justice said. “These are comprehensive universities just like the universities here in Oregon, so they’re doing everything we’re doing — groundbreaking research in a wide range of academic disciplines.”
Study abroad is the highlight of college for many students, Justice said, and helps to prepare them to thrive in an increasingly globally connected world where they may work with people from multiple cultures.
“We often hear from students that study abroad has a profound impact on them in terms of building their sense of self, their independence and their resilience,” she said. “A lot of students come back from an experience like this with a strengthened direction for their future. They are able to say, ‘This is what I want to do in the world, and this is what my place is.’”
Faculty interested in connecting with the Baden-Württemberg delegation should contact Michele Justice, [email protected], for inclusion in this week’s activities.
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