DAAD Prize awarded to Oleksandra Shvets
Oleksandra Shvets, B.Sc in Business Administration, class of 2025, is this year’s winner of the prestigious DAAD prize, which honors the exceptional accomplishments of foreign students studying at German universities and comes with a €1,000 endowment. Oleksandra’s roles as a KLU student ambassador and academic student senator, involvement in student consultancy Advisupply, and work organizing KLU Thinks Big and TEDx events deem her a worthy recipient of the award.
The DAAD prize honours not only academic achievements but social and intercultural engagement at KLU. What activities and projects have you been involved in at the university?
I’ve worked for Advisupply, which is a KLU student consultancy completely run by students, and was on the board as the Head of Workshops. I was also part of the student club KLU Thinks Big that was inspired by TED talks and provided a stage for students, professors and staff to share their ideas. The club later transformed into an officially licensed TEDx KLU Hamburg event which I helped co-organize in February this year. I’m part of the founding team of Young Founders Forge, which is KLU’s very first student club centred around start-ups, innovation and entrepreneurial spirit which functions within the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Hub at KLU. As well as that, I was a student ambassador, representing KLU at open days and school visits, and was a student representative on the academic senate for two years.
What activities have you found especially rewarding?
I really enjoyed the open days and visiting schools, talking to prospective students about the advantages and benefits of studying at KLU. I also found organizing the KLU Thinks Big and TEDx events particularly rewarding. I remember I was doing my semester abroad at the University of Tennessee and I was doing the planning of the TEDx event with my classmate Paul Scharlau, who was doing his semester abroad in Vietnam, and it was really stressful, including the day of the event. But in the end, we had eleven speakers – despite two speakers cancelling at the last minute - and packed out the university auditorium, which had never been done before.
What’s special about studying at KLU?
KLU is a small university and has a very close community. Everyone is very friendly and helpful and get you get to know a lot of interesting people. I’d advise anyone starting at KLU to get involved as much as possible. There are lots of great opportunities to meet people from places all over the world, and not just students, but professors as well. I often think about the people you pass by and the lives they have and the people they know. At KLU it’s easy to get into contact with people and form connections that last your whole life.
What does winning the DAAD prize mean to you?
Well, first of all, it’s a huge honor. I really like helping people, and the fact that this has been recognized by receiving the prize is really special. I came to KLU on a refugee scholarship, having left Ukraine, and wanted to give something back to the university.
What are your plans for the future?
I’m doing my Masters in Global Logistics and Supply Chain Management at KLU at the moment as well as working for Hapag-Lloyd in their reefer strategy department, which I enjoy. I find logistics very interesting, and I’d like to stay working in the field, maybe as a consultant as I really enjoyed working for Advisupply. Whatever I do, I’d like to stay in Hamburg. It’s a nice city and is an excellent place to be if you want to work in logistics.
