In this interview, Wulfgar, 22, gives some insights into his experiences as a dual student at ESYON. Before studying business administration, he spent three years in the German Armed Forces. After that, he decided to pursue a dual study program and started working at ESYON in October last year. Born in Erfurt, he moved to Leipzig after a stint in Kiel.
Dual studies at ESYON: Wulfgar Siewert reports on his experiences
Hands-on Content and a Supportive Atmosphere: That's why ESYON was chosen
To start our interview, Wulfgar tells us a few things about himself. Before his studies, he trained as a reserve officer. After that, the native of Erfurt was to go into a dual study program. Wulfgar justifies the fact that he preferred this model to full-time study in the same way as most dual students would probably do: Above all, the mix of theoretical and practical content was decisive, he says. In his search for suitable universities, Wulfgar came across iba Leipzig. She stood out especially positively because of her time management. His degree program, Business Administration with a focus on Digitization and Management, follows a split week: On Monday and Tuesday, the theoretical part is taught in the form of courses. Wulfgar spends the rest of the week with us as a practice partner on a 20-hour basis. The 22-year-old liked the concept so much that he applied directly to the private university – with success. After applying, Wulfgar was able to choose from a pool of companies. ESYON stood out for two things in particular: Firstly, of course, because of its convenient location, because like iba, we also have a location in Leipzig. However, the decisive factor was rather the family atmosphere. "It wasn't like I was there for 15-30 minutes for an interview and then got either an acceptance or a rejection. I was able to look at the company for almost a whole day. I've already gained a lot of great impressions." And not only that. Even before starting his studies, when it was clear that Wulfgar would join our team from October 2022, we invited him to Switzerland to celebrate our 10th anniversary . "We were on site for three days and so I had the opportunity to get to know everyone personally in advance. That was the decisive point where I was sure that I had found the ideal practice partner in ESYON."
What works for customers also works for young talents: This is how we introduced Wulfgar to his tasks
At the time of the interview, Wulfgar had been with us for five months. At the beginning, we had to acquire the skills in dealing with the products we sell. In order to make this as practical as possible, we have added Wulfgar to the training courses we host for our customers. In this way, he was able to get to know both customers and products and gradually acquire the necessary knowledge. If he or she has any questions, the respective project manager is always at his side. Currently, Wulfgar is mainly supervised by Marit Mohr, who was also available for an interview and reported on the work-life balance at ESYON . In the meantime, Wulfgar is taking on its first tasks in the field of PIM for our customers. Even though the exchange with them initially only takes place in text form, he is already involved in our Perfion projects. He is mainly active in the field of report and table design, where he creates layouts for product catalogs and flyers. In the long term, however, Wulfgar should go through all areas of the company and be given the opportunity to find an area that he would like to deepen.
Subject-specific content contributes to practical work
The crux of general, especially completely theoretical, courses of study is often that theory and practice are far apart. We therefore ask Wulfgar how he feels about the value of his theoretical content for everyday, practical work.
"First and foremost, the more business-oriented subjects give me a general overview of how business processes and corporate structures work as a whole. For practical work, the specialization in digitization is particularly important. There were often overlaps here, so that I was already familiar with terms relevant to practice from theory, for example. This, of course, contributes to a better understanding."
At least in Wulfgar's case, the decision to pursue a dual study program has already paid off. He also tells us that the content for the specialization is taught separately at iba Leipzig. "There are two weeks in which only courses on the respective specialization take place," he adds.
With preparatory work on the way to the Bachelor's degree
The aim of the dual study program is, of course, to successfully complete it with a bachelor's degree. Whether and to what extent he will be able to write his bachelor's thesis at ESYON, Wulfgar understandably cannot yet give us any information as a freshman. However, he still has a few interesting tips for prospective students.
"The iba prepares students for the Bachelor's degree in the form of scientific papers throughout the entire course of study. The topics to be worked on often relate to the practice partner. In the first quarter, for example, it was a task to analyze the corporate structure, processes, hierarchies and the like."
With a view to his own goals, Wulfgar makes it clear to us that he is looking forward to getting to know the other areas of ESYON and, if necessary, to start working full-time in one of them – but before that, of course, the successful completion is his main goal. Wulfgar, we had a lot of fun and we are very happy to have you with us as our first dual student. We wish you all the best for your future!