Global Business students visit the annual JKU ball

This year there was even more importance attached to the university ball, as JKU celebrated its 50 th  anniversary in 2017. A lot of graduates of the university were present at the ball, among them being the graduates of the last year’s Global Business programme, who either stayed in Austria to continue their education/work or came from their home countries to meet their friends and professors. For the current Global Business students it was an excellent opportunity to meet their elder peers in this informal setting in order to learn about their professional life after the programme and to project their own ways into the future, be it learning or work patterns.

One of the interesting facts to know about Austria is that its unofficial anthem is The Blue Danube, the waltz composed by Johann Strauss II. The waltz is a living tradition in Austria. There is a multitude of balls held every year during the ball season, which lasts from November till February. To understand how massive the ball season is in Austria, one has to know the statistics. For example, in one of the nine Austrian provinces, Upper Austria, which has the population of 1,453,948 inhabitants (2016), there are around 1,500 balls each season.

The balls are dedicated to different communities. There is The Officers’ Ball, The Hunters’ Ball, The Farmers’ Ball, The Coffee-house Keepers’ Ball, The Lawyers’ Ball, etc. with the most famous and significant one being The Vienna Opera Ball. Different organisations, such as universities, also hold the balls of their own. The Johannes Kepler University (JKU), where the students from Austria, Italy and Russia study in the frameworks of the Global Business (Troika) programme, is no exception.

The programme is comprised in such a way that its Austrian term coincides with the period when the ball season is in full swing, which gives its students the opportunity to experience Austrian culture first hand.

This year there was even more importance attached to the university ball, as JKU celebrated its 50^th anniversary in 2017. A lot of graduates of the university were present at the ball, among them being the graduates of the last year’s Global Business programme, who either stayed in Austria to continue their education/work or came from their home countries to meet their friends and professors. For the current Global Business students it was an excellent opportunity to meet their elder peers in this informal setting in order to learn about their professional life after the programme and to project their own ways into the future, be it learning or work patterns.

Apart from the benefits of experience exchange and networking, the ball in itself was an invaluable guide into the Austrian culture, which turned out to be successful in combining traditions with modernity. To provide an example, the ball attendees could choose or easily change their dancing styles as they moved through the building, where the ball was hosted. In the main hall, there were offered all the varieties of classical dances, like waltz, cha-cha-cha, polka, etc., while on the ground floor the rock group was playing for those willing a break from the classics.

In conclusion, I would like once again to stress that balls in Austria are the group events that bind people together on one or another basis (e.g. The Hunters’ Ball, The JKU Ball), bring together people that relate to one another in some or other way. Therefore, it only makes sense to visit a ball when one belongs to the certain group or organization, because only in this case one may fully enjoy the benefits such an event might bring.

By Natalia Belova, GB16