International Student Marketing – Now by Interactive Online Seminars

It is the end of May, and it is hot in Doha, Qatar; above 35 degrees Celsius. Prospective students from the German International School and student advisor for Abitur students, Niels Bodenschatz, are curiously sitting in front of their Zoom screens. COVID-19 has had effects on international student marketing as well – much of it moved online. The International Office has been offering interactive online seminars for school students across the globe since mid-May. This time among them: Laila Shoma, an alumna of the University of Bremen. As a student, she actively participated in the kompass program, a network for international and German students. The students are taken to campus virtually by means of a short quiz, a survey on the students’ requirements, a presentation on the university, and short videos. Laila Shoma takes the opportunity to speak and to answer the different questions: questions on studying, life in Bremen as well as on campus, internship possibilities, and on studying abroad. She, for example, was able to go to London and the USA on scholarships. And she becomes a little emotional expressing her attachment to her university: She misses her kompass team and the International Office, which for her has become a piece of home in Germany.