WU4You
WU4You, WU’s scholarship program for socially disadvantaged students, was successfully launched with a pilot phase in selected Viennese high schools in 2016. Feedback from high school students, teachers, and school principals was very positive, and the recipients of the first round of scholarships have gotten off to a good start at WU and are showing good academic performance.
WU4You 2017 in numbers
- from 18 schools
- in three Austrian provinces (Vienna, Lower Austria, and Burgenland)
- schools in economically weaker areas
- 12 women, 3 men
- from 11 different schools
- 13 scholarships for the Business, Economics and Social Sciences program, 2 for the Business Law program
A total of 20 students have now received support from the WU4You program. Students are not only provided with financial aid, but also support and advice in the form of mentoring. An initial evaluation indicates that students appreciate these efforts a great deal.
Participation in the Mentoring@WU program, where older students provide support and advice to their younger fellow students, was described as very helpful by all WU4You scholarship recipients. Eight faculty members also acted as senior mentors for the WU4You students – we’d like to thank Martina Huemann, Gerhard Jost, Ulrike Kaiser, Alexander Mürmann, Nadia Nabout, Andreas Orator, Renate Rathmayr, and Michael Theil for their commitment and support.
Mobility Grants
Thinking globally is more important than ever in today’s economy. We offer our students many different ways to spend time at international partner schools abroad, learn different approaches, and build up a network of contacts around the world.
The International Summer University (ISU) programs, three-week programs that can be completed during the summer break, are especially popular. As financial aid for ISUs is not available from the Austrian government or Erasmus, WU began offering ISU mobility grants in 2017. Seven students benefitted from the program and had the opportunity to study in Estonia, Indonesia, Thailand, Hong Kong, and Russia.
Refugees Study at WU
For many young people who are forced to flee their home countries, this also means breaking off their education. The MORE program allows refugees to start a degree program or continue the university studies they started at home. We made some changes to the program in 2017 to facilitate the refugee students’ integration into university life. The program is based on three main pillars: information, orientation, and qualification.