Last but not least: Visualizing the essence of "Bologna" with online advertising
A new online game, part of a campaign by NZZ Campus, has aptly visualized the «Bologna Process»—and ultimately satirized it. Three cheers for the ad folks!
The Bologna Process was initiated in 1999 by 29 European education ministers with the aim of creating a uniform university system throughout Europe. Contrary to the objective, however, the initial result was more of a uniform confusion about how to implement the Bologna ideas in practice. The somewhat meagre result after ten years of "Bologna" is now just the introduction of the Bachelor-Master system and the ECTS credit system.
While Bachelor's and Master's degrees are merely superficial re-designations of existing levels, the ECTS credit system has made somewhat deeper inroads into the mechanics of university studies. In order to obtain the degrees, students must now collect enough ECTS points by attending courses for which they receive points.
To understand what is happening as a result, you only need a minimum of common sense: those courses that give more points are attended more; interest in content and enthusiasm for topics take a back seat, while the eager collection of points comes to the fore. This new character of universities as points-collecting and efficiency centers instead of places of creative thinking has now been aptly summarized by an online game from NZZ Campus. You could even say that it visualizes the essence of "Bologna" come true.
The game is part of the NZZ Campus spring campaign and is being advertised in student-oriented print and online media.
While Bachelor's and Master's degrees are merely superficial re-designations of existing levels, the ECTS credit system has made somewhat deeper inroads into the mechanics of university studies. In order to obtain the degrees, students must now collect enough ECTS points by attending courses for which they receive points.
To understand what is happening as a result, you only need a minimum of common sense: those courses that give more points are attended more; interest in content and enthusiasm for topics take a back seat, while the eager collection of points comes to the fore. This new character of universities as points-collecting and efficiency centers instead of places of creative thinking has now been aptly summarized by an online game from NZZ Campus. You could even say that it visualizes the essence of "Bologna" come true.
The game is part of the NZZ Campus spring campaign and is being advertised in student-oriented print and online media.
