The impact of an academic exchange for Letras bachelor students: the Studienreise program

Abstract

This article aims at discussing the impact on students from participating in the Studienreise program, an academic-cultural travel to Germany, funded by DAAD, in which fifteen students from the German undergraduate course at the Universidade de São Paulo (USP) participated. The project which the group submitted for funding was developed by an USP professor and accomplished both with the cooperation of four German universities (in Berlin, Leipzig and Jena), and the active engagement of students. To understand the impact of participating in the project, from the students’ perspectives, two online forms for data collection were employed (before and after the trip). They aimed at verifying the impact of participating in the program considering the subsequent knowledge and previous and subsequent experiences with regard to: German language and culture; individual objectives; motivation and participation; future professional and personal perspectives. The results indicate the relevance of the German course students’ engagement in programs such as Studienreise regarding their knowledge and professional, academic and individual perspectives. Nonetheless, the importance of preparing and selecting the project by the partner universities and by the students themselves as determinants for the (inter)cultural and linguistic cultural and decolonial experiences was observed.