This Autumn of 2022, the Department of Germanic Philology of the Faculty FPSC, SumDU, joined the implementation of the international grant project Ukraine digital: Ensuring academic success in times of crisis, financed by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD).

The project aims to support Ukrainian lecturers and students in times of crisis. The digitization of the academic process project is being implemented in tight cooperation with lecturers of the partner University of Duisburg-Essen (Universität Duisburg-Essen).

On October 17, as part of the cooperation, took place an online meeting of the 1st and 2nd-year students majoring in translation with Dr. Iris Bäcker, who specializes in Slavic studies, Germanistics, issues of literary translation, communication, and didactics.

For more than 20 years, Dr. Iris Becker worked as a DAAD lecturer, so we focused primarily on this service's tasks, areas, competencies, and programmes. In an atmosphere of open positive dialogue, students learned about the peculiarities of arranging studies in German universities compared to Ukrainian ones, about the opportunities that are open for qualified specialists in Germany, and also discussed the topic of the most widespread stereotypes about Germans.

- Events of this format are essential for students, - shared his impressions future translator Kyrylo Harkavyi, because the international academic experience is an excellent opportunity for personal and professional development.

The Faculty FPSC SumDU students were extremely grateful for the opportunity to gain international experience and learn more about German service programmes of Academic Exchanges (DAAD).

Anzhelika Kalchenko, Valentyna Rebenok, students of the group PR-11