Last year, the 11th grade of the Georgianum Gymnasium was able to take part in project days on the topic of "School meets business – digitalisation live". These project days serve to provide young pupils with career guidance for the future. This year, they met on the morning of 9 September 2025 at the Lingen campus, where a wide variety of companies had the opportunity to introduce themselves and their work in 60 seconds. The students then individually chose which company they wanted to spend their internship day with the following day. The students had a wide variety of companies to choose from – from a bakery to a helicopter company.
On Wednesday, the time had come: the students were able to gain wonderful new insights into their chosen companies. The focus was on the progress made so far in digitalisation within the companies. Together with four classmates, I was able to gain experience at Heli Service International GmbH in Emden. After a somewhat longer journey, we were warmly welcomed on site. This was followed by breakfast together and a discussion of the day's schedule. Then the exciting part began: we were able to experience the everyday working life of the employees at HeliServices up close. We gained insights into all departments and were able to ask all our questions about digitalisation. Whether pilots, dispatchers or administrative staff – everything was shown to us with great patience and explained in detail. There were numerous helicopters on site, which we were allowed to board and view from the inside. In the presence of the pilot, we were allowed to start the helicopter once, while the technical processes and digital equipment were presented to us. In addition to these impressive insights, we were also given an explanation of the safety precautions. In this context, we were allowed to try on a survival suit, which must be worn on flights over water, known as offshore flights. After lunch, the day came to an end and we were driven back to school at around 2 p.m.
On Thursday, we worked in groups to prepare a presentation on digitalisation in companies, which we were able to present on Friday. It was also particularly exciting to hear the presentations of other groups and gain insights into the companies they visited.
Overall, the days were very informative and involved a lot of fun and collaboration. We were able to gain many new insights – especially into digitalisation in companies – and gained interesting insights into operational processes.
Text: Hanin Abu Shammala, Photos: Stefan Roters.