The intercultural exchange is one of the most important assets of our programs. Therefore, we were enthusiastic that we could meet 20 students from four different continents and 12 countries this year. For the first "intercultural online meeting and dialogue", that should enable the students to get to know each other and the Cologne Summer Schools team, we had a special idea: our graphic designer Marcelo created a lovely "That' s me" sheet which the participants used to introduce themselves in groups of two and then in the plenum.
Also the team, Marina, Moritz and Victoria filled in the sheet and introduced each other to the participants. The questions asked were not those you might expect, convince yourself! They were: what skill would you like to master? What does your perfect breakfast look like? What kind of challenges are you facing these days? What are you greatful for and what motivates you? Further, they were invited to talk about common things like pets, hobbies, favorite movies, books and fields of interest.

To accomodate the time differences, the classes took place from 4 to 8 PM Central European Time - morning for our North and South American friends and evening for those in Asia. Some, like our students in China, had to stay up until 2 or 3 o'clock in the night to attend lectures or group work sessions! We were truely grateful for their efforts and they were hailed as our summer school heroes. 

After our decision to cancel the onsite school, which was done quite early in the Covid-19 timeline, we contacted all scholarship holders in order to know if they wanted to join us on our digital journey. Luckily all of them confirmed, only two students canceled their participation due to positive personal circumstances like having got a new job and an internship. 
Our passengers came from partners world wide and Santander's inernational network of universities, the Santander Universities Network: Argentina, Brazil, China, Czech Republic, Italy, Mexico, Peru, Poland, Russia, Spain, UK, USA. Even more variety came into play by the great diversity of their study majors: here is the list that shows the interdisciplinarity of their studies: