Students spend their first term at Fondazione ITS JobsAcademy in Bergamo (Italy), where they learn the basis on Sales and Marketing, the second term is scheduled at NHL Stenden University in Leeuwarden (the Netherlands), where they continue their Marketing studies and attend lessons on Creative Business. The second year is spent in Spain (both at Institut de Vic and Institut Escola del Treball in Lleida), where students deal with financial and Commercial research issues, and the last term is spent in Portugal (Atlantica University), where they receive training on digital issues and on big data analysis. During the two years, students have to complete their lessons with internships in companies related to marketing. Both the lessons and internships allow them to obtain the final qualification.
Students who wish to undertake the programme are carefully selected. They are asked to present a letter of intent and pass an interview. It is essential for all the institutions in the progarmme to ensure that students taking the programme have a real interest in marketing, are fully motivated, have an entrepreneurial mindset, show cultural awareness and are eventually, fluent in English, as this will be the language of instructions during the two-year programme.
The selected students get Erasmus funding so that the cost of their stay abroad is partly covered. Moreover, the hosting institutions always provide information related to transport and accommodation, that makes their planning abroad far easier. As for the teachers in the programme, they are also carefully selected among the staff of the training institutions. They are required to be in possession of a C1 level of English according to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR). They are also required to use innovative methodologies in order to make the learning experience of the students much more significative.
In order to guarantee a full recognition of the learning done in the different training centers, all the institutions committed in the programme fill in and sign different documents, such as a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), a Learning Agreement for each student and a Learner Transcript or Transcript of Records. The MOU formalizes the partnership by stating the mutual acceptance of the status and procedures for cooperation. The Learning Agreement is an individual document which sets out the conditions for the study period abroad and specifies which learning outcomes and units should be achieved by the learner.
Finally, the Transcript of Records details the learning achieved by students during their stay abroad as well as the
degree of achievement of each particular learner. After the two-year period students who have successfully achieved all the learning outcomes, as well as the 120 ECTS of the programme, get the recognition of the periods spent abroad and obtain the Spanish and/or Italian certifications. The recognition is based on the Recommendation of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 June 2009 on the establishment of a European Credit System for Vocational Education and Training (ECVET), which aims to facilitate the transfer, recognition and accumulation of assessed learning outcomes of individuals who are aiming to achieve a qualification.
The third cohort of the IMM programme is now at INS Escola del Treball in Lleida. Some companies have visited the class in order to set challenges to the students who are currently preparing their presentations with their most feasible solutions. The fourth cohort is in Bergamo and more cohorts of students interested in marketing and in an international experience will surely follow in the next years.
