The first semester is carried out at the University of Southern Denmark at the Kolding campus (Faculty of Humanities). Students are introduced, at an advanced level, to the conceptualization and strategic communication of sustainability and competitiveness in tourism development and management. Individual courses have been selected and designed to fulfill these objective.
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Courses |
Sustainability, as the key concept of the EMTM programme, was introduced under different contexts in courses in Denmark, helping us to develop in-depth knowledge about tourism development. We are trained to critically inspect and apply sustainable thinking in relation to other concepts in Project Management, Economics and Strategic Communication as the fundamental understanding for our future learning.
Group and independent works on research papers are required in most of the courses to form skills in researching and conceptualizing ideas and phenomena. We are in the process of learning how to learn according to the professors, meaning that we have to explore most of the topics on our own and develop the abilities to dive into various resources. Most of the professors provide restricted time for discussions and feedback for questions and assignments. |
Culture |
The Danish culture, we must admit, was something many of us hard to get used to first, especially the ones of us coming from the South. At the first sight people seemed closed, unfriendly, even rude, but we figured out quickly that one or two drinks open up even the shyest Dane. Danish people don't only like to drink alcoholic drinks, but also tea, hot chocolate and hot wine (Glögg) while cuddling together on their couch. That is what they call Hygge and we quickly learned to appreciate this cozy part of their culture, especially on gray and foggy winter days. Restaurants & bars were all very expensive and our student budgets did not allow us to taste all the culinary delights of the hot spot restaurant in Denmark. Nevertheless we got to try traditional food like Smørrebrød (dark bread with butter and various toppings), sweet pastry with a lot of cinnamon and sugar and much more. Another fact that is typical for Danes is that they really like to decorate with their national flag, in particular on birthdays. But that has more a historical than a patriotic background as we learned. It is worth it to dig into that countries' culture a bit more and try to understand their traditions and habits!
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Travel |
Thanks to the free learning perspective of the Danish University, which is quite generous, we took the opportunity to travel around the various destinations in Denmark and Scandinavia, which we call our tourism laboratories. Students under 25 got a special discount for the railways, but trains and buses where in general not really economical. That's why many of us decided to spend a few more hours and hitchhike (always in groups) or to use blablacar rather than to pay much for transport.
Some trips we did together and others individually, but it was always fun and nice to get out of the small city Kolding every now and then. Cities like Copenhagen, Aarhus, Odense and Ribe are all very nice destinations, also Germany is close and worth a visit (e.g. the Christmas markets in December). Additionally there is the Ryanair-Airport in Billund that offers many cheap flights within Europe. Once in Billund, a visit to Legoland is a must! Others used the time to discover Scandinavia further and travel through Sweden, Norway or even until Iceland to see the Northern Lights. All in all, there are many great spots, beautiful beaches, endless landscapes and arty cities to visit in and around Denmark and most importantly we had also enough time to do so! |