I am a bachelor student for Software Engineering at CODE University of Applied Sciences and was in the middle of my fourth semester when Corona started to become a serious topic in Germany. I am proud to say that my university reacted very well to the current situation: On the 12th of March, while other universities where still discussing whether to delay the semester or not, CODE already chose to change to remote studying. On the same day they started implementing changes.
Because the semester at CODE had already started, the university had to react faster than other universities which were still in their semester break. They could not simply postpone. With an incredible team effort, we managed to change to remote within a day. There was a lot of exchange going on between students and professors about different tools and how they worked. Now we do not only have online courses but CODE changed how they organized the learning units and they gave us more material for preparation.
Also they offered us great personal support to make sure no one was left behind. All mentors reached out to all mentees and there was a survey to check if we had the necessary technical equipment.
So far remote meetings work well even if it is a big step from actually seeing people on campus. We set rules on how to interact online and now many meetings are even more efficient because we talk less about private stuff.
In order not to miss out on social interactions we are trying to find other formats. One student for example went live on Instagram and played music while the others were listening. It felt like we were all together in the CODE kitchen.
I think CODE takes the situation as an opportunity and am curious to see which online formats we’ll keep even when going back on campus.
