Nineteen German students are completing a three-week exchange program that has taken place each year for the last 10 years at Coastal Carolina University.

The students are from two different German Universities of Applied Sciences (Hochschule Bonn-Rhein-Sieg and Fachhochschule Koblenz RheinAhr Campus Remagen). They will gather for a course evaluation session tomorrow, Thursday, Sept. 2 at 2:20 p.m. in Wall Building, room 118.

CCU's E. Craig Wall Sr. College of Business Administration and the University of Applied Sciences Bonn-Rhein-Sieg established a double degree agreement in business in 2000. Each summer since then, students from CCU have traveled to Germany for a Maymester course of collaborative study, working with the group of students who will come from Germany to CCU in August. As a sister-state institution in Rhineland Palatinate, the University of Applied Sciences Koblenz RheinAhr campus joined the program a few years later. In August, the German students from Remagen and Rheinbach study at CCU for three weeks, living on campus and working on collaborative projects with CCU students.

"The program is designed to give the students from both countries a sense of the differences both in the academic and the national cultures of the two countries," said Darla Domke-Damonte, assistant dean of the Wall College of Business and executive director of global initiatives for Coastal Carolina University. "The students work together on class projects and build relationships that resonate beyond the summer program. It has led some students to seek careers in international business, and all participants learn the importance of being good global citizens."