Scheduled lecture times, rigid exam dates, learning for exams instead of learning for life: Do you know this? Universities today still work as they did a hundred years ago. But life today is different. So are the jobs. Digitization and networks have changed everything. What you need today is not knowledge, but competence. If you want to learn the right thing, this is the right place.
We make education possible for you 24/7, independent of location, completely flexible and individually tailored to you. And to make sure that education leads to the right results, we don't do written exams, but invite you to an all-inclusive exam week at an exclusive location in Europe, where you solve a real-life task together with other students, proving that you can not only memorize, but are ready to apply knowledge.
Transforming a knowledge-based university into a skill-based university: that is the goal of the School of Management, Creativity and Technology, or SOMCAT for short. SOMCAT offers educational opportunities to develop modern management and technology skills, becoming the first department of the Central European University of Applied Sciences, which is currently being established.
The demographic development of all major industrialized nations is creating a shortage of skilled workers. This shortage is not only quantitative (lack of applications for vacancies), but above all qualitative: the time it takes to fill a vacancy has tripled in the last ten years because applicants lack key skills. And this is despite the fact that the applicants are highly trained and formally qualified.
What is going wrong here? Schools and universities have long focused on the acquisition of competencies, but they don't really seem to be achieving this goal. Written exams and academic papers together form the most common form of examination at universities. However, competencies can only be measured to a limited extent in this way. Moreover, traditional forms of examination promote knowledge-oriented rather than competence-oriented learning.
The fact that competencies are becoming increasingly important is a consequence of the accelerated and technology-driven development cycles of the 21st century. Knowledge is already efficiently provided by machines today, and will certainly be better tomorrow, and knowledge can be quickly found in networked structures - known as the Internet. The focus of people's work is and remains the competent handling of knowledge in practical application, and this must be acquired, trained and tested.
Education must therefore become more powerful, educational institutions must train competencies - not only on paper. We need graduates who can produce success as managers even in volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous times because they are competent in solving problems, think in a networked manner and have the capacity for innovative ideas and creative solutions. Graduates with high employability.
A key starting point of the School of Management, Creativity and Technology SOMCAT is a structural innovation that rethinks the entire educational process. The focus is not on teaching, but on examining competencies in terms of transdisciplinary application of knowledge. The SOMCAT approach starts with the design of exams in the form of cross-module assessments. For a full week, students work together in different constellations to solve real-world cases and are observed and tested by a team of professors and practitioners.
Because we want the students to succeed, we deliver individual exam preparation supported by modern AI tools. The platform of this learning coaching are the flagship lectures, which are provided throughout as video courses free of charge. In this way, SOMCAT turns the familiar university approach around: the focus is not on the teaching, but on the exam. Not the lecture is dominant, but the individual learning support. This is reflected in the so-called "learning excellence funnel".
The free access to all teaching content without registration or enrollment enables low-threshold access and, at the same time, a high degree of social permeability. Anyone can engage with SOMCAT’s lectures, 24/7, at their own pace and with as many repetitions as you like.
Building on this flagship lectures, SOMCAT supports learners in acquiring knowledge individually. Instead of "one size fits all", SOMCAT delivers "custom made" support in the acquisition of topics. The successful completion of such a learning unit is confirmed with a certificate.
If the necessary five certificates for a competence group are completed, students are admitted to the competence-oriented assessment exams and can register for the exam week. If successful, one then receives a so-called Micro Degree, e.g. in the competence field "Management", which is recognized with 30 Credit Points (ECTS) in the European Higher Education Area. With at least five such micro degrees plus the scientific thesis, students can then complete the program with a bachelor's degree.
The first study program offered by SOMCAT and submitted for accreditation is Business Management (B.A.). This program is structured in five basic competence groups (compulsory), each with five individual subject modules:
In these five fields of competence, 150 credit points are acquired. The Bachelor's Thesis contributes another 30 credits, so that the program can be completed as a Bachelor's degree with 180 credits.
Optionally, the degree can be extended to 210 or 240 credits through additional competence fields, which allows for a faster master's degree.
The use of all learning offers (lectures) is completely free of charge.
The registration for individual learning coaching with certificate costs €699,- per module once. If you decide not to take only one module but start a regular study program, you will get a 28% discount and have to pay only €499 per module.
The competence assessments summarize five modules each. The assessment weeks take place at attractive locations throughout Europe. Accommodation, food and beverages are included, as well as assessment and guidance by an on-site team of professors, coaches and representatives from the field. The total cost for an assessment week is €2,599 all-inclusive.
With a total of 25 subject modules and 5 exam weeks as well as the Bachelor's thesis, a 180 credit point degree costs a total of €30,000.
The School of Management, Creativity and Technology SOMCAT will open in fall 2024. To make sure you don't miss anything, you can use our email alert. We will then inform you about the status of the development and the available learning opportunities. This way, you won't miss anything and will get exclusive and free advance access to content and test versions.