UzhNU in the project “Global Challenges for Universities”
As part of the Twinning program, Uzhhorod National University took part in the international virtual project University Global Challenge, initiated by the University of Central Lancashire. For the second time, it brought together young people from different parts of the world to find ways to overcome global challenges related to the UN Sustainable Development Goals. In total, 4 higher education institutions from Ukraine, China, the United Kingdom, and Sri Lanka participated.
The program lasted from October 14 to November 29. During the program, students attended Zoom sessions (which were recorded and could be viewed later) and worked together to understand and solve the problems of the modern world. In addition to the mandatory workshops and meetings, participants also had the opportunity to take four additional courses for free on the following topics: “Employment Skills, Cultural Interaction Skills, Digital Competence, and Work Environment Basics. Upon completion, they received a certificate. Anastasiia Rakhno, a third-year student of the Faculty of Foreign Philology, took advantage of this opportunity and notes the content of the educational materials: “There is access to some courses on the platform. Actually, I took the course “Fundamentals of the Work Environment” and started the second one, which is related to intercultural communication. The courses include videos, polls, photos, statistics, and material that can be listened to in audio format. There are also links to some additional articles and resources.” In addition, she notes that the University Global Challenge helped not only to deepen their English skills, but also gave them the opportunity to meet and work in teams with young people from four countries.
An important stage of the project was to unite the students. Therefore, to facilitate successful cooperation, four international teams were formed at the beginning of the event, with representatives from each country headed by one mentor, who, in turn, provided comprehensive support to the mentees. The work process took place on The Pagoda Portal platform. Participants worked in groups, discussed ideas, and attended three workshops: “Sustainable Development, Creative Thinking, and Step to Business. As a result, each team presented a project designed to solve the problem they were assigned.
Antonina Bulyna, the coordinator at UzhNU, noted that such platforms provide an opportunity to see each other's perspective. Students studying in different specialties, thanks to the time spent together, find new solutions to real problems and broaden their horizons. “We had two students of philology, and it was a real challenge for them because they had to work side by side with those whose specialty will be related to political science, engineering, international relations, etc. - these are different fields, but this program was a good experience for them. In fact, it turns out that in the process, in these Zoom sessions and workshops, participants change their consciousness and perception. And it seems to me that projects of this type naturally make it possible to feel what it is like to interact with someone who is not Ukrainian. Such activities contribute to building a society full of understanding, empathy, and civility.”
The members of the team that won based on the most successful project solution were interviewed and, as a reward (based on the results of a successful interview), one of them received a paid virtual internship at a company that is a partner of the University of Central Lancashire. This is the energy consulting company Optimized, whose representatives attended some of the sessions and the final event to summarize the results and share their observations on the participants' work.
We are proud that among our students there is one of the best participants - a third-year student of the Faculty of Social Sciences, majoring in Political Science, Ivan Shumsky. He worked in a team called Team Diversity for Sustainability, which took an honorable 2nd place. “In general, the project left a pleasant impression. It was not something very complicated, I would say that the only difficulties that arose were purely technical. For example, not very convenient meeting times or problems with rooms in the Teams program. In order to achieve the result, it was enough just to have basic skills in searching and analyzing information. Moreover, we had a ready-made framework of what we had to do and what we had to focus on during each week. I took all the available courses, ie: Employability Skills, Intercultural Fluency, Digital Competence, Workplace Basics. Our team, even though it was difficult to get everyone to work in sync, was quite strong. We are very grateful to our wonderful mentor Brigitte, with whom we worked even outside of meetings, and I think that's why we took 2nd place,” Ivan Shumsky says about his experience.
For his achievements, he received the Engagement Award (a £25 Amazon voucher) and a certificate of participation, which certifies that the participant has improved his skills in digital, teamwork, organization and planning, leadership, problem solving, and communication.
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