Prof. Schmidt, you’re the coordinator of the new degree course in Mechanical Engineering that will launch at HAW Hamburg in the summer semester of 2025. What prompted your department to set up a mechanical engineering degree for an international student body?
For some years now, we’ve been running a few specific classes in English each summer semester, enabling international students to spend a semester in our department. My colleagues and I are in agreement that these classes have proved extremely beneficial all round. And so we started considering whether it might be possible to broaden this offering and launch an entire Bachelor’s degree course – we figured that a culturally diverse city like Hamburg, which acts as a gateway to the world, would be excellently placed for the success of an initiative like this, especially in view of the wealth of experience we’ve gained with the Shanghai-Hamburg College. We’re all really excited about the course’s launch and looking forward to seeing how popular it proves. I’m absolutely certain that all our students will benefit from the boost to the international atmosphere of our campus.