Sustainable international experience : Lessons learned from an interdisciplinary teaching project

The global nature of business means getting international experience during studies at the university is continuously increasing in importance. Many students on the engineering programs in Sweden also make the decision to abroad to gain international experience that is valuable in their future profession. However, this is usually not the majority of the students. Therefore, it is of great importance that engineering students get the possibility to get international experience without having to engage in exchange studies. This paper presents learnings from a pilot study from a project that seeks to create international experience without having to travel abroad (Wen, Zaid, & Harun, 2015; de Marcos, Domínguez, de Navarrete, & Pagés, 2014). The project involved the interweaving of the content of two units, an engineering unit at Umeå University and a marketing unit at Edith Cowan Univer-sity (ECU) in Perth, Australia. In 2017, the collaboration was set up between the fourth year engineering unit Prototyping for Mobile Applications and the third year marketing unit Current Issues in Marketing. Consequently, the engineering students created prototypes while the marketing students created marketing material. The virtual communication platform Slack was used to assist collaboration between students (Labus, Despotovi´c-Zraki´c, Radenkovi´c, Bogdanovi´c, & Radenkovi´c, 2015). During the second iteration in 2019, the engineering unit Social Media Technology was the counterpart to the marketing unit. However, the setup regarding the different chores was the same. The student reviews of the two units and of the project showed that they liked the idea of international collaboration. However, a more structured approach would be beneficial. Students on both sides struggled with the unknowns, as they were, sometimes, dependent on students on the other side of the planet. Evaluating the project among teachers involved, revealed some challenges. However all teachers consi