Romance studies, economics, international marketing: career paths with Katharina Benecke

Katharina Benecke studied "Professional Multilingualism", a Bachelor's degree program at the University of Kassel in cooperation with the University of Nice. The content of the course was similar to the current BA courses in Culture and Business at the Institute of Romance Studies, but it included English, French and Spanish language elements. After completing her final year of the Bachelor's degree at the University of Nice, she began the Master's program "Intercultural European Studies trinational" at the University of Regensburg, in cooperation with the Universities of Madrid and Clemont-Ferrand.

After completing her Master's degree in 2015, Katharina had enough of universities and spent six months in New Zealand on a work and travel visa. There she worked in the kitchen of a bistro and very quickly had to take on the roles of chef and restaurant manager.  After this work-intensive "time-out", Katharina was drawn back to university - she represented the international course coordinator at the University of Regensburg for three months. She then returned to Madrid, where the job market was lean. After an intensive search, she started as a course counselor for the German-speaking market at a language school chain that operated internationally in Spain and Latin America. After just six months, she was promoted to Ara Manager and took on further tasks in marketing and sales, customer acquisition, account management and representation at relevant trade fairs.

Six months later, she was headhunted by a rival Canadian company - and from then on worked worldwide for an agency based in Madrid that sells digital marketing strategies for schools and universities. As Client Representative Europe, Katharina was responsible for customer acquisition and support, conducted customer relationship management training and attended conferences in the education sector worldwide. At the beginning of the pandemic, Katharina's international activities were abruptly interrupted. Although she was spared the wave of layoffs at her company, the curfews in her home town of Madrid were particularly strict. After months of isolation in her shared flat in the city center, Katharina decided to return to Germany - to her parents' home in Lower Saxony and, a few months later, to her parents' farm, a certified organic fish farm and processing facility.

You can find out more about Katharina's exciting international career (and her plans for the future) on 23.05.23.  The event will take place online via Zoom. It will start at 18:00 (s.t.) and is expected to last one and a half hours. Registration is possible via the link below, the link to the Zoom meeting will be sent a few days before the event.

Registration at: https://veranstaltungen.uni-kassel.de/event/romanistik-wirtschaft-internationales-marketing-karrierewege-mit-katharina-benecke

Contact person:

Tamara Schmitt
praxiskoordination.fb02@uni-kassel.de