HSG students organise exchange trips with other universities

‘We want to promote encounters between students from different countries. And we give HSG students the opportunity to build up an international network,’ says 20-year-old HSG student Zoé Eberle. She is president of the Ressort International, an initiative of HSG students.

Every year, the Ressort International organises exchange trips to Europe, Asia, Latin America and other regions of the world: 20 HSG students visit a country and are accompanied by 20 local students for ten days. A short time later, these students travel to Switzerland, where the HSG students play the role of hosts. These ‘exchange tours’, as they are officially known, are no holiday, says Eberle: ‘The HSG students have to apply for them. The programme is quite dense and ranges from visits to places of interest and cultural events to workshops and tours of companies in the respective countries,’ she says.

HSG students most internationally mobile in Switzerland

The Ressort International was founded by the HSG student union in 1981 and enables around 100 HSG students to take part in these short exchanges every year. The initiative thus contributes to the high level of international mobility among HSG students: According to a study published in 2023 by Movetia, the national agency for exchange and mobility, 52.6 per cent of HSG students have international study or internship experiences. This makes HSG the Swiss university with the most internationally mobile students.

The approximately 40 students in the Ressort International work on a voluntary basis. And thanks to their collaboration with sponsors, they finance and manage their initiative completely independently. The sponsors cover part of the costs of the exchanges and of travel in Switzerland. ‘All of us are also committed to keeping costs low. For example, students who are guests in Switzerland can stay with HSG students,’ says Aylina Kaiser (24), who is responsible for marketing. When travelling in Switzerland, the groups stay in holiday camp houses such as those known from scout or ski camps.

Project management and intercultural communication

Although the students of the Ressort International work together with the official Student Mobility Services of HSG, they often establish contacts with foreign universities independently. ‘We now have a good network with various universities. But it takes a lot of effort to keep attracting new universities and countries to the programme,’ says President Eberle. In recent years, for example, HSG students have been to Tokyo, Istanbul, Cape Town, Beijing, Montreal, Munich, Paris, Tallinn and Bogotá.

Each of the tours to a world region has a project manager who leads a team of three students. ‘The students with leadership roles invest several hundred hours of voluntary work per year,’ says Eberle. They learn a lot in the process, in areas such as project management, stress resistance and intercultural communication.

The Ressort International supports exchange students at the HSG

In addition to its own exchanges, the Ressort International also takes care of official exchange students. Around 700 of them spend a semester at HSG every year. They all have the opportunity to be assigned a buddy: these are HSG students who help the guest students with organisational matters and also introduce them to the HSG community and to St. Gallen city life. The Ressort International also organises several cultural events, parties and other activities for the guest students.

Around 200 HSG students are ‘buddies’ and help foreign students to settle in as well as possible at HSG and in St.Gallen. ‘This gives HSG students the opportunity to meet international students. And the gratitude of the guest students is always huge,’ says President Eberle.