Communication

This course discusses communication in a professional setting. Topics include: communication in business; active listening; empathy; assertive behavior; non-verbal communication; the importance of feedback; constructive criticism; constructive debate; difficult conversations; intercultural communication; written communication.

This course debates contemporary issues in a Socratic manner inspired by Michel Sandel's lectures and Ian Shapiro's views on Enlightenment philosophy, which placed great faith in the power of human reason to understand the true nature of our circumstances and the idea of progress in human affairs as means to control, and perhaps even improve, our environments and our lives. Through different roles, students adopt different positions to think about sensitive issues related to conflictual situations from points of view that are not necessarily based on their personal convictions. Topics are inspired from the Council of Foreign Affairs: What is a Moral Foreign Policy.

This is a hands-on course that invites students to discover and engage with artists who have come to Berlin from abroad. Berlin’s thriving and dynamic arts scene has long drawn theater-makers, writers, actors, poets, musicians, and visual artists from all over the world. This course examines the experience of displacement and dislocation, the challenges of mobility and the demands of integration, but also the positive aspects of finding oneself in a new place and making it one‘s own, establishing a life and finding a community here. In addition to this theory-driven component, students also learn and apply basic journalistic skills as part of a hands-on exploration of the worlds created by these artists from abroad, in Berlin. Finally, students meet and speak with artist guest speakers from a range of fields, in addition to doing a deep dive on the life and work of one artist from abroad, who they profile for their final project.

This workshop studies how to read and analyze journalistic content on economic and social themes in a professional manner. It provides an opportunity to question journalistic expression by analyzing the facts and data it provides, the credibility of the information transmitted, and the meaning of their publication on certain dates and distribution platforms. The course examines quality, balance, and relevance of the sources; tone, rigor, and atmosphere of the expression; precision of the information; point of view of the narration; identification of the news; typology of the publications; analysis of the formats; and platforms of distribution.