A Case Study on Teaching Social Engineering to Swiss and Cameroonian University Students in a Virtual and Cross-Cultural Setting

This paper presents a descriptive case study on integrating social en-gineering education into a business school curriculum, utilizing a cross-cultural approach. The case study was conducted at the School of Business, University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland (FHNW) in collaboration with SwissLink Higher Institute of Business and Technology in Cameroon sup-ported by the Swiss-Cameroonian non-governmental organization (NGO) Tura-cos in the context of an elective module. During the six-week course, Swiss stu-dents were instructed in weekly sessions on social engineering topics and tasked with transforming their knowledge into learning materials for Cameroonian stu-dents. Subsequently, groups of Swiss students conducted virtual mentoring ses-sions, delivering lessons to their Cameroonian counterparts. Despite facing cul-tural, technological, and didactical challenges, both Swiss and Cameroonian stu-dents provided positive feedback. The study sheds light on the effectiveness of cross-cultural teaching methodologies in a virtual setting and underscores the im-portance of the cultural dimension of social engineering.