After arriving in Copenhagen, students are whisked away for a bus ride across rolling green hills and through windmill-dotted fields to Roskilde, a town of 47,000, and the home of Roskilde Business College. Roskilde University is a public Danish university that was founded in 1972. The school hosts Valencia students for their stay. Last year, seven students lived and studied event management at the college for a week alongside local students. Roskilde also hosts groups from Sinclair Community College in Dayton Ohio, Roane State Community College in eastern Tennessee and the Institute of Technical Education (ITE) of Singapore. “Denmark is an excellent place to study because of Roskilde and the schools they work with,” McCain says. “They have a good program.” Each student in McCain’s course is part of a team that puts together their own business
presentation event. Teams have one week to complete the entire event management process, from selecting a venue to the review process after the event. Last year, in conjunction with an event in the capital city themed “Green Copenhagen,” teams brainstormed the various ways the theme could be interpreted and implemented to improve the community. One team developed “Place your butts here,” a campaign to place cigarette-butt disposal containers throughout the city. “They plan an event, market and execute it. Afterwards they discuss what went well, what they could do better, and what they would change if they could,” McCain says.
“It changes their lives. After they do it, they understand what it takes.”
Kronburg Castle, in Helsingor, Denmark, better known as Elsinore, the setting for William Shakespeare’s “Hamlet,” was built by King Eric VII in the 1420s. The fortress sits on an island at the narrowest point of Oresund, the sound between Denmark and Sweden.
65