The project aimed at preparing students for a tougher work market, and to offer opportunities to be more independent as well as being less pampered. They needed to face situations where they would need guidance, but also be faced with critique and deal with it constructively to understand the prerequisites of ‘doing a good job at work’ gaining the understanding that "this is for real". Our vision was that they would thus become more sought after on the work market - both at home and abroad - as their experience would be mirrored in their applications and interviews. Our students have been in work placement training at home over their three years of vocational education, but, taking on a placement abroad as a recent graduate would certainly be a challenge in understanding varied work conditions and what employers expect. The philosophy behind the project was also that students doing short term mobilities would give them the necessary progression to enable them to go abroad in long term mobilities as recent graduates/young adults.
The project 'BRIDGE - bridging the gap between comfort zones and new ground' was created for the purpose of giving a greater number of students the opportunity to bridge the gap between the known and the unknown, the familiar and the unfamiliar. Our students enter an international, multi-cultural and uncertain work market. At the time, they lacked personal experience and they were cut short of opportunities both geographically as well as from a socio-economic point of view. In our project, they were presented with a possibility to obtain resilience and open-mindedness as they were faced with situations that made them mature in terms of independence and cultural understanding.