General provisions

The course is offered within the Master's Programme in International Humanitarian Action, 120 ECTS.

Entry requirements

Career Development Training is only available to students admitted to the Master Programme in International Humanitarian Action.

Learning outcomes

After successful completion of this module, students should have:

• demonstrated the ability to formulate adequate and ethically sound recommendations for humanitarian action grounded in the humanitarian principles and values, translating these in innovative, practical terms to policies, strategies and programme management;
• a highly specialised knowledge and a critical understanding of humanitarian concepts and theories;

  innovative expertise on a particular current theme in humanitarian action with an interdisciplinary understanding in terms of its political, legal, anthropological, public health and management aspects;

• a thorough understanding of personal security risks in humanitarian fieldwork and possible techniques and strategies to reduce the impact of external stressors;
• the ability to act firmly and appropriately in insecure situations according to the security rules, taking into account advice from security sources and other stakeholders;
• demonstrated the ability to act on decisions made; adopted the reflective practice of analysing personal learning goals and ways to achieve them; the ability to stimulate the involvement and development of team members and partners to achieve a successful humanitarian project;
• the ability to involve partners and team members in different levels of decision-making and act in a responsible and accountable manner concerning one's own decisions; the ability to actively contribute to teambuilding, a balanced distribution of work, and the fostering of a good atmosphere and cohesion in group projects in an effort to achieve the common goal;
• the ability to learn from past experiences, identify opportunities to overcome humanitarian dilemmas and propose new work methods for increased efficiency, effectiveness and stakeholder accountability in complex and unpredictable humanitarian environments.

Content

The Career Development Training module is designed to give students the opportunity to evaluate and plan their career and employment futures, as well as expand their job-related skills and knowledge.

Instruction

The teaching-learning methodology may include:

• facilitative teaching styles that encourage and model an open and honest exploration of the career planning process;
• self-audits (e.g. of personal and career management skills);
• role play (e.g. recruitment of personnel, mock interviews);
• peer review (e.g. of CVs or of assignments);
• card-sort exercises (e.g. devising a sequence of decision-making activities); problem-based methods;
• the supplementing of lectures with on-line peer discussion groups or tutor-managed discussion forums;
• self-directed learning.

The language of instruction is English.

Assessment

The course is examined through oral and written assignments.

Grades: Fail (F), Sufficient (E), Satisfactory (D), Good (C), Very Good (B) and Excellent (A).

If there are special reasons for doing so, an examiner may make an exception from the method of assessment indicated and allow a student to be assessed by another method. An example of special reasons might be a certificate regarding special pedagogical support from the University's disability coordinator.

All work to be assessed must be in English.

Transitional provisions

Should the course cease to be given or change significantly, examination will be offered according to this syllabus on a further 3 occasions over 3 semesters. Under special circumstances, such an examination may also be offered later.