As part of the Study Tour, students have to participate in an education programme too. This programme starts 5 weeks before the start of the trip on April 19th and lasts till a couple of months after the trip (half of August). Within these weeks the students have to do a macro-, meso- and micro study. Students will get insight how Singapore and Australia work on a national level and will further zoom in towards a case study. During the trip itself, students will make a visit report of the excursions.
Lectures
The studies will be supported by several lectures, which will be announced soon!
Macro
The participants start with a macro study on the United States. The macro study will be done with the help of the PESTLE-analysis. This method is one of several methods to perform a macro study. PESTLE stands for Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal and Enviromental. 6 groups containing 4-5 students will each analyse one of the letters of PESTLE. The final result will be a report and a presentation. The conclusions of each group will be combined to make a total conclusion.
Meso
Parallel to the macro study, the students will perform a meso study. This will be done using Porter’s Diamond. 6 industries will be analyzed using the five forces within the Diamond. The final result will be a group report and a presentation.
Micro
Lastly, all students will conduct an in-depth micro research to a topic related to the central theme of the study tour, “Sky High, Down Under!”. Within the central theme, there are 8 subthemes with each having one respective supervisor:
- High rise buildings and underground construction
- Sustainable construction in big cities
- Governing public transport
- Challenges of transportation
- Urban water management
- Coastal protection
- Logistic challenges at gateways
- Resilient Cities.
The micro study is based on preliminary findings and data gathered during the study tour (mostly excursions). The participants will write a preliminary paper, a visit report and a final paper about their research. There will also be several presentations.
Assessment
Each study will be assessed. The following distribution will be applied:
- Macro- and meso study report/paper – 30% (group)
- Preliminary paper micro study – 30% (group)
- Visit report(s) – 10% (individual)
- Final paper micro study – 20% (group)
- Presentation final result micro study – 10% (group)