Dual study at ESYON: Wulfgar Siewert reports on his experiences

We are always on the lookout for young talents who can strengthen our team and contribute their skills to our projects. That is why we are pleased to announce that ESYON GmbH is now an official partner of the iba (International University of Cooperative Education) Leipzig. In the course of this partnership, we took the time to interview our first dual student, Wulfgar Siewert. We talked to him about his experiences in the dual study programme, his work at ESYON and his future prospects. Read what he told us in this article.

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Practical content and a family environment: That’s why the choice fell on ESYON

To start our interview, Wulfgar tells us a few things about himself. Before his studies, he trained as a reserve officer. After that, the Erfurt native was supposed to start a dual study programme. Wulfgar explains why he preferred this model to full-time studies, as most dual students would: Above all, the mix of theoretical and practical content was decisive, he says.

In his search for suitable universities, Wulfgar came across iba Leipzig. It stood out positively, especially because of its time management. His degree programme, business administration with a focus on digitalisation and management, follows a split week: on Monday and Tuesday, the theoretical part is taught in the form of lectures. Wulfgar spends the rest of the week with us as a practical 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 because of two things: firstly, of course, the favourable location, because like iba, we also have a site in Leipzig. But the decisive factor was the family atmosphere.

“It wasn’t like I was there for 15-30 minutes for the interview and then got either an acceptance or a rejection. I was able to look around the company for almost a whole day. That’s when I got a lot of great impressions, too.”

And not only that. Even before the start of his studies, when it was clear that Wulfgar would be joining our team from October 2022, we invited him to celebrate our 10th anniversary to Switzerland. “We were on site for three days and so I had the opportunity to meet everyone in person in advance. That was the decisive point that made me sure I had found the ideal practice partner in ESYON.”

What works for clients also works for young talents: this is how we introduced Wulfgar to his tasks

At the time of the interview, Wulfgar has already been with us for five months. At the beginning, it was a matter of acquiring the skills to handle the products we distribute. In order to make this as practical as possible, we took Wulfgar to training sessions that we organise for our customers. In this way, he has been able to get to know both customers and products and gradually acquire the necessary knowledge. If he has any questions, the person responsible for the project is always there to help him. At the moment, Wulfgar is mainly supervised by Marit Mohr, who has already been available for an interview and told us about the work-life balance at ESYON.

In the meantime, Wulfgar is taking on his first tasks in the area of PIM for our customers. Even if the exchange with them is initially only in text form, he is already involved in our Perfion projects. He is mainly involved in report and table design, where he creates layouts for product catalogues and flyers. In the long term, however, Wulfgar is to move through all areas of the company and be given the opportunity to find an area he would like to deepen.

Subject-specific content pays off in 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 the value of his theoretical content for everyday, practical work.

“The more business administration-heavy subjects primarily give me a general overview of how business processes and corporate structures work as a whole. The specialisation in digitalisation is particularly important for practical work. There were frequent overlaps here, so that I already knew terms relevant to practice from theory, for example. Of course, that contributes to a better understanding.”

At least in Wulfgar’s case, the decision for a dual study programme has already paid off. He also tells us that the content for the specialisation is taught separately at iba Leipzig. “There are two weeks in which only courses for the respective specialisation take place,” he adds.

With preparatory work on the way to a Bachelor’s degree

The goal of the dual study programme is, of course, to successfully complete it with a Bachelor’s degree. Whether and to what extent he can write his bachelor’s thesis at ESYON is something Wulfgar, as a first-year student, understandably cannot tell us yet. However, he does have a few interesting tips for prospective students.

“The iba prepares students for the bachelor’s degree in the form of academic papers throughout the entire programme. The topics to be worked on often relate to the practice partner. For example, in the first quarter, one assignment was to analyse the company structure, processes, hierarchies and the like.”

Looking at his own goals, Wulfgar tells us that he is looking forward to getting to know the other areas of ESYON and possibly starting a full-time job in one of them – but before that, his main goal is of course to graduate successfully.

Wulfgar, we had a lot of fun and we are very happy to have you as our first dual student. We wish you all the best for your future!