Germany – Taking Stock and Envisioning the Future of Higher Education
Since we started our podcast series in 2020, we’ve talked to students and student representatives from all over Europe about the present and future of higher education. With this final episode of “NextNormal – WeStudy@Home”, we want to look back and forward, to take stock of the past years, but also to formulate a vision for future higher education. For this, we have talked to Lilith Diringer and Paul Klär from Germany who both are and have been engaged in several student initiatives such as the DigitalChangeMaker initiative and fzs (freier zusammenschluss von student*innenschaften). While discussing the potentials and take-aways from digital teaching and learning approaches, we also come back to what higher education and learning are all about and ask: is if there actually still such a thing as „normal“ higher education?

What  is the “NextNormal” of European student life? There will be a time after  the Corona shutdown, and we want to discuss what it should look like.  How can we learn from the digital turn in order to create a better  future for higher education? In our podcast, we are talking to students  and student unions from all over Europe about the “NextNormal” – the  future of higher education beyond Corona. Each episode is dedicated to  one European country. “NextNormal – WeStudy@Home” is a podcast produced  by the NextEducation working group at DHBW Karlsruhe and strongly  supported by ESU.

00:26 – Introduction
04:51 – Social presence in online courses – has it worked?
07:37 – The Corona student generation – what is it like?
15:17 – inequality of studying during and after the shutdown
20:19 – positive experiences
28:02 – Where should we not go back to normal?
38:10 – Has the student voice been heard – and how can it be heard in the future?
42:38 – mental health – consequences of the pandemic
50:45 – wishes for the university of the future