The University of Applied Sciences St. Pölten’s bachelor's programme in Media Technology has offered a student exchange programme at project level in cooperation with 17 European higher education institutions since 2013: the European Project Semester (EPS). In the EPS students from at least three countries work together on a joint project – in an interdisciplinary and practice-oriented way and with English as working language.
The projects amount to 21 ECTS credits each, are often interdisciplinary and can be carried out in cooperation with companies or research institutes. Courses in communication, team building, project management and subject-specific skills are taught to complement the project. The students organise their studies largely independently, teachers accompany the self-organised processes and provide expertise. The fact that English is the working language makes it possible to offer 30 ECTS credits for incoming students and to integrate them into international teams.
Each project semester begins with team training and a subsequent creative phase during which the team develops the exact questions. Depending on the requirements of the specific project experts from fields such as computer sciences, video technology, audio technology, electrical engineering and smart engineering may work together across disciplines. A project presentation is held at the end of the semester.