Eleven UCD students have arrived in Kraków, Poland for the 2024 NICE Summer School.
Hosted by Jagiellonian University from 29 June to 5 July, the Summer School brings together around 80 students from seven leading universities;
- University College Dublin
- University of Edinburgh
- University of Amsterdam
- University of Padua
- Jagiellonian University
- Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv
- The University of Johannesburg
NICE - the (opens in a new window)Network for Intercultural Competence to facilitate Entrepreneurship - is a 12-week virtual programme designed to prepare students for the reality of working in increasingly global and virtual workplaces. At the end of the 12-week online programme, a cohort of students from each university are selected to attend an in-person Summer School.
The blended format of the programme which combines virtual learning with an in-person element is designed to enable students who may not be in a position to go away for long periods of time to have an international experience.
During this year’s week-long Summer School, students will attend workshops on creativity and entrepreneurship, intercultural communication and communicating with impact, led by an international team of educators from the NICE alliance.
Students also work in international teams on developing a solution to a set challenge and pitch their ideas on the final day of the Summer School.
Alan Morgan, UCD, delivering a session at the 2024 NICE Summer School
Alan Morgan of the UCD Innovation Academy will be delivering a series of workshops at the Summer School. He said: “The NICE programme is a fantastic programme – it’s creative, it’s innovative, it gives students the intercultural awareness they need for working in increasingly international workplaces. It also does something that many other programmes don’t do, which is that it encourages students to become flexible and agile and to think entrepreneurially, helping them to recognise problems as opportunities.”
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Rachel Toal, one of 11 UCD students attending the 2024 NICE Summer School
Rachel Toal, a BSc student in Social Sciences applied for the programme because the flexible blended format worked better around her commitments. “One of the reasons I applied for the NICE programme is that I live in Sligo and that’s where my job is so the format of the programme was really convenient for me. When it came to looking at Erasmus, I wasn’t sure about living away for a year whereas with this programme it’s only a week. The highlight so far for me has been meeting people from so many countries and institutions and hearing new ideas and perspectives - it's great to experience that!"
Andréa Nicolenas in Kraków
Andréa Nicolenas, an MSc student in Behavioural Neuroscience, is also representing UCD at the Summer School in Kraków. “One of the reasons I applied for the programme was that I really wanted to develop my leadership skills and my entrepreneurial skills,” said Andréa. “The timing and format of the programme also fitted perfectly with my master’s programme. If I had to sum up my experience of the summer school so far in three words, I would say ‘creative, innovative, amazing’.”
Read more about the NICE programme here or follow UCD Global to follow the students’ experiences.
Find out more about the NICE Programme
- The NICE Programme commenced in 2017, coordinated by the University of Edinburgh and co-funded by Erasmus+, as a partnership between eight different research-intensive universities across the UK and Europe, including UCD.
- Applications for the 2025 NICE Programme willl open in January 2025 and will be advertised on the UCD Global website.
- There is no fee for participating in the NICE Programme.
- For more information on the NICE Programme, contact (opens in a new window)nice@ucd.ie