Suffolk Students Go Dutch - 22 November 2006

A group of students from Suffolk Business School at Suffolk College discovered last week that travel really does broaden the mind, when they visited Saxion University in Deventer, Eastern Holland. The students, who are all enrolled on the Suffolk College Post-graduate Diploma in Personnel Management, joined students from six other western European countries at an international human resource management conference.

During their visit the students, accompanied by employment law lecturer Nigel French, wereengaged on real HR projects at companies in the Netherlands. The issues to be resolved involved establishing ways of recruiting in the wider Europe and beyond, improving recruitment practices and ensuring that policies were put in place to prevent discrimination against older workers.

On completion of the assignments, the students were required to make formal presentations of their findings to the directors and senior officers of the companies concerned. Their tutor Nigel French commented, “The Suffolk College students all made significant contributions in the research and presentations, and clearly relished working with people from a variety of different cultures.”

As for the students, they were highly complementary of their Dutch hosts: Christine Dulake, one member of the party said, “I found the whole experience very stimulating and informative. The opportunity to work in a global organisation and in another country is one that does not come along very often, and working alongside students from other countries enriched the learning experience significantly.”

Another student, Sara Ledgard, said, “the trip was far better than I could have hoped for, and I had an excellent time, enjoyed every minute of it and met some great people.”

Terry Wales, the course leader, helped establish the European network of universities some thirteen years ago and each year a party of students undertakes the journey to one of the participating colleges. All the conferences have an international HR flavour to them. Both Terry and Nigel French believe that these annual ventures enhance and enrich the student experience greatly and are already looking forward to next year in Germany. Nigel said, “It is a measure of the success of the trip that two students have stayed in contact with the companies they worked in with a view to continuing work on their projects, and another ended up being offered a job by the company she worked in!”

ENDS

Notes for Editors

For further information please contact:

Clare Avery, Associate Dean, Suffolk Business School

Tel: 01473 296679

Email: clareavery@suffolk.ac.uk

Issued by Promotions

22 November 2006