Roggenburg Practical Academy

In late September, almost 90 scholarship holders gathered at Roggen­burg monastery in northern Bavaria to form seven working groups and tackle topics such as auto­no­mous driving, the glamorous life of a tax investigator and how to combat stress in day-to-day life. Theoretical concepts were soon put into practice: anyone walking down the aisle of working group meetings might well stumble across a self-driving car or encounter a group of meditating students. The Academy was also practical in another respect: industry experts applied their practical experience to plan the working groups. Two health coaches ac­com­pa­nied the “Health as a Resource” group, the stra­te­gy con­sul­tancy group McKinsey guided the group working on autonomous driving and the tax investigator was also on-site to share expertise.

The topics explored by the various groups all shared a common aspect: they were diverse and action-oriented. The groups were as follows:

• WG 1: These mobility-minded students created project concepts surrounding the topic of mobility of work, con­si­de­red a smart cycling solution and de­sig­ned an intelligent scheduling system.
• WG 2: This group, working with a strategy consultancy, developed their own software for self-driving cars.
• WG 3: The Netflix group – contrary to the mischievous comments that they would just end up bingeing box sets – made a contribution to the variety show that impressed everyone: a dubbed episode of House of Cards, filled with anecdotes from the Academy.
• WG 4: The tax investigator’s group – the only working group in which the tutors had to make clear that the purpose and objective was not to evade fiscal rules and develop potentially criminal ideas…
• WG 5: This group worked to explain mathematical methods in a way the rest of us can understand. Thanks to the young team and the flat hierarchies, the group started all of its sessions with loud energising exercises (so that no­bo­dy could say they weren’t e­ner­gized!).
• WG 6: This group interpreted and analysed children’s drawings from a pedagogically valuable perspective.
• WG 7: This health-focused group actually spent the entire week com­ba­ting stress and, in the end, left the others with just one question: what exactly did they get up to all day in the herb garden?

When a designated jazz guitarist assumes leadership of the Academy and invites a tutor who already has his entire drum kit in his luggage, a rich recreational program is guaranteed. The aforementioned sound­system came together quickly, and the evenings at the Academy were often shaped by jamming sessions around the piano. If there weren’t students jamming around the piano, the improvisation theatre group was probably practising; if you looked into the meditation room in the morning, you’d see 20 faces concentrating on their breathing and, if you ventured outdoors at night, you might glimpse a group of stargazers talking shop about constellations and galaxies. And of course, it wouldn’t be an Academy of scholarship holders if, on a walk to a nearby lake, a biologist didn’t immediately confirm that said lake was actually a pond; the highly academic speech by a real brewer was also par for the course.

In short, then, Practical Academies provide scholarship holders with the framework for productive collaboration while allowing them to explore a wide range of interests. They offer students the opportunity to create something tangible and even build an auto­no­mous car of their own. They provide space for creativity – and an open, wel­co­ming sense of togetherness. I will never forget how one tutor sang ‘Hallelujah’ every time we met in the corridor – and then continued to work with me the next day to develop an auto­no­mous car. In truth, only one thing ever dis­tur­bed our work: the Friday of our de­par­ture from Roggenburg.

Text: Lisa Gotzian, German Academic Sponsorship Foundation