10 years of agricultural degree programmes at AU

In the autumn of 2018 it will be 10 years since we began to offer agricultural degrees at Aarhus University. Our courses are interdisciplinary, research-based and solution-oriented. The number of students has been increasing and along the way, we have managed a number challenges, such as changing to a semester structure from 2017 and moving to Trøjborg and Katrinebjerg. The students give our programmes a positive evaluation. It is time to take stock of our degree programmes in 2018. 

Mini SWOT analysis of our degree programmes

The conditions of and key words describing our degree programmes can be grouped under the headings Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats:

We are happy about our strengths, we work with our weaknesses and opportunities, and we are alert about our threats. We are in the ”green area” with regard to most of our student indicators, such as confrontation hours and evaluation of teaching. With regard to student environment, we are in the “yellow area” in the Bachelor and AEM degree programmes. Statistics Denmark shows a gross unemployment of M.Sc. graduates one to two years after graduation of 16.7 percent. These figures have recognised problems (the figures are an average of four years, and have been falling to less than the weighted national average in the past two years (10 percent)).

Despite the recognised problems with the physical framework for the student environment, the results from the student environment survey show that most of our students in all three degree programmes assess the overall benefits of the course as being “very great” (meget stort) or “great” (stort). 

The student environment has its challenges

In connection with development of Campus 2.0, it is expected that in the future Agrobiology will be part of a life science cluster in the University Park. Agrobiology has unique challenges because the teachers do not have their work places in Aarhus. There are thus no student facilities in Aarhus in connection with existing research departments and while the facilities in Foulum and Flakkebjerg are good, they are difficult to travel to with public transport.   

The first two years of the Bachelor programme comprises many general courses. This means that students from these years spend a lot of their time in the central part of Campus Aarhus and have not been integrated very much in the student environment in Katrinebjerg. This has posed certain challenges in relation to dropout rates and satisfaction with the physical framework of the student environment. 

The future move of the programmes to the University Park is therefore very positive. At the time of writing, the members of the Degree Programme Committee and students are busy describing the programmes’ present extents and future needs with regard to student facilities and environments in order to initiate user involvement as quickly as possible. At various meetings held in recent months, the rector, pro-rector for education, dean, vice-deans and department heads of AGRO, ANIS and FOOD were informed about the challenges and possibilities for Agrobiology at Campus 2.0. 

Recruitment and retention of students to be strengthened

Agrobiology has initiated efforts to increase the number of applications to the Bachelor degree programme. We have thus identified various target groups that correspond to the tracks in the programme. Workshops have been held for each of the target groups with a focus on student input. Texts for au.dk and ug.dk based on the target groups are now being written. 

We will search engine optimise to increase visibility in Google, etc. We will develop Facebook ads (with videos) that aim for the specific target groups with the version of the story that means something to them. And we will continue to participate in U-Days and Student Internship, etc. 

While not all the efforts have as yet been implemented at the time of writing, we have in 2018 seen a strong increase in quota 2 applications to the programme (130 percent more applicants with the programme as first priority). We therefore expect the number of students to increase. Our mentor scheme ’AgroMent’ is expected to continue in the autumn and thus help improve teaching skills and lower the number of dropouts. We aim to involve the industry more in the programmes in collaboration with our advisory panel.   

We look forward to the next 10 years with agricultural degree programmes – with interdisciplinary, solution-oriented, research-based teaching, and where new possibilities for knowledge-sharing are taken up as needed.