Master Management of Intercultural Issues

Key competence of the 21st century

With this master's degree, you can work in a wide variety of industries. Regardless of whether you would like to work for globally active companies, institutions or organizations later on or see your professional future in the region. In many areas of professional life, there is a clear awareness that intercultural and transnational action competencies are indispensably interwoven with relevant professional competencies, because intercultural competence improves cooperation and contributes substantially to the success of a company.

Understanding intercultural challenges as an opportunity

This master's program prepares students to manage and implement intercultural teams and projects on their own responsibility. For this purpose, they learn to understand and shape complex intercultural and international situations. An important step in order to be able to act in a culturally sensitive and competent manner later in one's career is "self-reflective confrontation". This is central to the course of study and is learned as part of the additional IHaKo training.

Acquire career-oriented skills and competences

In addition to interdisciplinary expertise, foreign languages, and the acquisition and training of leadership, organizational, and project management skills, it is important to develop an appreciative attitude toward what is foreign and what is one's own. To achieve this, we work with experiential learning settings and use applied research contexts. All of this provides students with career-oriented action competence and comprehensively prepares them for their later, complex tasks.

This master's degree program is designed for:

• Graduates of the Bachelor's program "International Relations & Management".
• Graduates of all faculties who later work in international or intercultural contexts, take on leadership, organizational and management tasks and want to acquire the necessary international competencies (IHaKo).
• Explicitly also to graduates of technical and engineering courses of study, who later often work in international and intercultural teams.
• Students of teaching at the university with a bachelor's degree or first state examination
• Students with experience abroad or a migration background who would like to contribute their personal background academically and professionally

Relevant for many disciplines

A particular plus point: the individual design options of this master's program. And it doesn't matter whether you have completed your bachelor's degree in one of the technical, social or business-oriented programs and what prior knowledge of foreign languages or international competence you bring with you. Students of teaching at the university with a first state examination or a bachelor's degree can also gain further qualifications with us. - For this reason, we recommend that all prospective students talk to us personally in advance

Master's program with many benefits

What do our students especially appreciate about us? - The family atmosphere at our faculty, the teaching in small groups, the personal atmosphere and the resulting intensive support. The practical studies with special trainings and the good preparation for later tasks are also perceived as extremely positive.

Further qualifications

In addition to admission and qualifications for this degree program, it is advantageous if you have the following:

• Sensitivity & openness towards other cultures
• Interest in people from other countries & nations
• Willingness for personal development
• Interest in cultural self-reflection
• Enjoyment of studying in multinational groups

You would like to work in intercultural and transnational contexts or abroad later on? - Then this Master's program is a strategically sensible further qualification!

Individual design of your master studies

You will study three semesters full-time. Depending on the professional goals you have in mind and the knowledge and qualifications you bring with you from your bachelor's degree, you have the option of setting your own specific focus in the master's program.

Specialized focal points

• Intercultural competence incl. practical training
• "IHaKo plus" program for students with IHaKo certificate
• Intercultural integration management
• Foreign language/s
• Leadership & management competencies
• Project management & organizational skills
• Communicative & interreligious competencies
• In addition: up-to-date research knowledge, e.g. from intercultural psychology, social sciences, law, religious & cultural studiesInterkulturelle Handlungskompetenz inkl. praxisnahes Training

Additional benefits: practical relevance & scientific work

• Selected courses in English
• Intercultural training as a separate module
• Scientific research project with accompanying seminar
• Teaching of inter- and transdisciplinary methods
• Optional: study-related internship with intercultural focus and accompanying seminar

And after graduation? You have the best career prospects!

Our graduates are trained to take on complex professional and leadership tasks. Thus, with this Master's degree, a wide variety of fields of work are open to them: from cultural educational institutions with an international orientation or transculturally active organizations and authorities, to higher service in administration or tasks in the political environment, to management positions in internationally active companies or in research.

Diverse areas for your career

Through the individual design and module allocation in the master's program, our students can prepare themselves specifically for their later professional field. Central areas of application are above all:

Culture & Education

• Intercultural training management
• Cultural institutes (e.g. Goethe-Institut)
• Foundations & associations
• Educational organizations
• International (youth) exchange
• Church institutions

 Economy

• Intercultural Project Management
• International Personnel Recruiting
• Intercultural Consulting & Training
• International and intercultural sales
• In multinational corporations & global players
• In companies with foreign contacts
• In HR departments with specialists and managers from all over the world

International Development Aid/Aid & Understanding

• Intercultural teamwork or transnational virtual teams
• In NGOs, aid & welfare organizations
• In hospitals, research institutions, media
• In development work
• In institutions in the field of flight & displacement, migration & integration
• In church institutions

Politics

• In ministries, authorities, municipalities
• For political parties
• At national as well as EU level

Civil Service 

• Access to Higher Career & Civil Service
• Institutions in the field of flight & displacement, migration & integration

After the master's degree the doctorate?

Would you then like to further your qualification with a doctorate? Or become professionally active in research and teaching? - After successfully completing the master's program, both a doctorate and work in a scientific institution are possible.