The Praxisplatzboerse at the University of Applied Sciences Bielefeld offers prospective students as well as companies the opportunity for an initial personal contact. In times of distancing and special hygiene measures quite a challenge! Therefore, the University of Applied Sciences had decided to organize the event in digital format. After the presentation of the study courses by the professors and lecturers, the prospective students could establish the direct contact to the participating companies.

For MINDA it was particularly important that interested students get a real insight into the company. For this purpose, 4 MINDA employees prepared the digital event in order to be ready for all questions of the prospective students: Jörg Altvater (Head of Education Management), Johanna Leibig (HR Management) as well as Nils Diekmann (Industrial Engineering Student) and Mick Koch (Mechanical Engineering Student).

Our two students waited for the questions directly in the production halls at our sites in Minden and in Minden-Päpinghausen, while the colleagues from the HR and education departments were connected from the office building. Our two students were able to provide the "real insight" in two respects, as both had already completed an apprenticeship at MINDA prior to starting their studies with integrated practical work experience.

After a technical test run and the final set-ups in front of the camera - for example a large cardboard box as speaker’s desk - we could finally get started: Exactly at 4 p.m. all four stations started more or less at the same time and the first prospective students also directly joined. After a few questions like: "What does MINDA do?" and "What makes MINDA special?", the questions were directed more specifically to the individual study courses. In this connection it was obvious that mathematics particularly play a major role for the interested students. Especially Mick was able to relieve initial fears regarding the difficulty of the exams and also provided one or two tips.

Thus, the "first meeting" between MINDA and the students was completely different and despite the physical distance, a vivid exchange took place for two hours.

All participants really did their best for the organization of this meeting and this digital event was definitely not the last one. The University of Applied Sciences Bielefeld already indicated that they will offer digital office hours for students and interested persons in the future.

And MINDA is also preparing more digital exchanges for the coming months. We really had a lot of fun!