An Open Letter to the Pecs Summer School

Dear Pecs Summer School,

I am a student at UTS, that was lucky enough to attend you in July this year.

I enjoyed my time in your city and it’s hard to believe I was only there for a few weeks when that experience felt so formative and memorable. I have many things to say to you and I regret not having written them down in depth in the feedback form. I hope this written testimonial will partially make up for that and that my feedback will benefit you, or at the very least provide encouragement and thanks to your team.

(Most of?) My class having ice cream after dinner

Structure

I really liked the structure you provided students. As in, every day starts with a 3 hour lecture, followed by lunch, with some social activity occurring in the evening. I think the reason you were so effective at immersing your students was because there was just enough structure to keep everyone together and sticking to a sane sleep schedule, but not so much that would infringe on the complete autonomy and freedom you get from living alone.

Maybe this perspective makes more sense when you consider that in Sydney (and Australia in general), due to the population being concentrated in the cities with no-one living in the rural areas in between, students can get away living at home and commuting rather than moving to student accommodation or housing near a campus. The super high cost of living also incentivizes working and disincentivizes moving out if your parents will let you stay at home when you turn 18. The effect of this is that hardly any undergraduate students live on campus (most commute between 40 and 100 minutes one way 2-4 times a week), and in Sydney especially, since campuses are small or non existent in the city, correspondingly so is student life. You can find a spot near the main uni buildings, and go into debt renting it, but you’ll be one of the only students doing so. So you can imagine what it was like for me to come from that world, where the average student has a 30 hour work week with online lectures in evenings, to your student town (student towns also do not exist in Australia) where I’m surrounded by students who have their schedules completely wiped, with literally nothing to do other than your program.

Our student dorms, HQ for the duration of the school

The idea to have lectures be “mandatory” with a single forgoable lecture (and marked attendance) was very smart. This was the single reason we had butts in seats. The full house every morning contributed heavily to student engagement in classes. If the attendance requirement were ever removed, attendance would plummet and your entire backbone would collapse. But, importantly, despite this requirement being in the official correspondence, it was not taken so seriously. Professors were flexible with attendance and (I know you can’t acknowledge this but) they did not penalize the few students who missed lectures, producing the effect of high attendance rates without the consequence for those who really could not attend. Our single, ungraded assignment, which was to prepare a presentation about our country for the purposes of testing our English presentation skills (pretty pointless for me but hugely fun) was again only enough work to give us something to present, but not enough to distract me from everything you had to offer.

You could say I came for your classes but stayed for your structure. The balance of in and out of class programs was one of the biggest enablers of the adventures I had and the reason I’m still thinking of you months later.

Hungarian folk dancing (at this point we were just having fun)

As a Sydneysider, I was fascinated by the concept of a uni town, where a campus spread is spread across the town that students live and study in and around. Every day I had about 5-6 hours of free time which I spent with my friends visiting pubs, going on walks, playing volleyball, chess, and cards, and exploring your city. There was enough time to party, recover, party again and still sleep 8 hours. It was an awesome change of pace from my daily grind!

Classroom Content

I took the subject European Studies. As an Engineering student with an interest in the humanities, I found your academic side much more interesting than I bet many of my humanities-major classmates did. Your lectures were well chosen to complement each other and provide a gentle progression as well as constituting a truly well-rounded course on European Studies. I also think this was effective at giving me, a student without a formal background in foreign policy or political science, more than an introduction to European Studies. Anyone can say about any introductory lecture ever was ‘a good taster’, but I really believe I came away with a concrete understanding of the lecture contents (History of EU, Sustainable Development in Europe, Economic and Social challenges in Europe, etc.) I doubt the coordinators expected anyone to learn as much as I did. Maybe we can chalk that up to my genuine interest in the subject, a willingness to learn, the learning environment you created, and your lecturers themselves.

The lecturers! Oh my gosh, having only taken classes in humanities in high school by teachers who have been educated in English speaking countries, I wasn’t sure what to expect in terms of quality. Of course I was trying not to assume, but in Engineering at least, the communications portion of Engineering is not reviewed sufficiently in postgraduate education. The result of this is that Engineering professors at UTS need not be fluent English speakers and many do a substandard job at communicating the course content and engaging students when we are discussing subjects as technically dense as data structures and algorithms.

Professor Voros’ lecture- all eyes were glued to him! Also you can see my laptop on the right

Your professors all spoke excellent English, moreover the quality of lecturing- which included organization of content, professionalism of presentation, eloquence and fluency of rhetoric, willingness to debate and have their views challenged, and success in engaging hungover and sleep deprived students- was absolutely outstanding. It was refreshing to see professors teaching the way they are supposed to, and I am slightly ashamed to say in my 3 years of tertiary education I am yet to encounter such teaching at my home university. Of all teachers, Professors Voros and Tarrosy stood out to me as exceptional in terms of subject matter expertise and teaching quality.

Sometimes we hear stories about lectures or classes that are so profound or inspiring that they convince students to enroll in degrees or write their theses on a certain topic. Professor Tarrosy’s lecture on Political Cultures covered topics as broad as:

• Migration in Hungary (Immigration to and emigration from)
• Colonialism in the world and propaganda and racism in Hungary today
• The communist history of Hungary (and his experiences living through it)
• Hungary during the Orban government and how it affected him in academia
• Shifting political identity amongst Hungarian youth

This was that lecture for me.

Professor Tarrosy at the opening ceremony. The man is extremely well spoken!

Non Academic Activities

I enjoyed what you arranged for us out of class, and how fun everything turned out to be surprised me. I have to give my classmates kudos for participating with such enthusiasm. I remember before your classes had even started, sitting in the front row during the opening ceremony. I was already impressed by the quality of speeches given by the opening speakers, and midway through when I heard the faint sound of music coming from the doorway and turned my head to see the brass band march into the hall my jaw visibly dropped. The performance was amazing and that absolutely set the tone for the entire rest of the school.

The band playing during the opening ceremony

My favorite activity was dragon boat racing by the lake. We all forgot which teams you put us in by the second race, but I still think giving us teams to start with was a good idea to get us to socialize a bit and force us in the water. I also really liked the dance night- it was crazy to me that you actually endorsing pregaming before showing up 🤯 that is something you will absolutely never hear at an Australian uni. I screenshotted that directive and sent it to all my friends back home.

Dragon boat racing

But really, there wasn’t a single thing I didn’t enjoy. I did the folk dancing class, the walk to your city and through the mosque and church, your amazing lights festival, your multiple fancy dinners, contemporary dance workshop, language class, DOTTO train ride through the streets. I adored all of it and I loved the variety of having some physical activities, some cultural, and some purely fun. Everyone’s willingness to be there (even though everything was optional), and be friendly, and talk to me even if they had already made other friends was really cool. I think your ethos of being open to new things is very much felt and once people are thinking that way, connecting with them comes naturally. My class had 20 or so students and by the time I had to leave I’d hung out at least once with all of them.

DOTTO train driving past the church-mosque-church

Organization and Logistics

This is the part where I praise the deliberate choices and direct efforts of your amazing team. From my perspective you ran so smoothly and without any problems at all- we stuck to your schedule to the minute, everything took exactly as long as it was supposed to. I think one afternoon activity was moved from Tuesday to Thursday because of weather or something tiny like that, but really there were no surprises. The plan for the day including the lunch and dinner menu was sent to us via groupchat daily and everything was done to make following your plan as straightforward as possible.

Your facilities were exceptional, I thought the dorm I was given was generous- it was clean and spacious (two of us in a three person dorm, and far more cupboards and drawers than I used). The bathroom was clean and spacious. Even the kitchen was clean and spacious! For 4 people sharing a kitchen, we never ran out of space, and had 2-3 other people with us most days. On top of that, I am not sure how intentional this was (probably not at all) but amongst the 10 male students in my class, we were all paired up very fittingly according to personality. All of us got along very well with our dormmates (Better than I would have with any other student) and my roommate in particular ended up becoming a good friend who I have caught up with multiple times since the school ended.

My dorm was similar to this one, with a shared bathroom and kitchen

The laundry machines were free, the dorm provided drying racks and ironing boards and many other resources we did not need for free. There was a grocery a minute walk away and a chemist next to it. All of this might be necessary for full time students, but for students that are only here temporarily for less than a month it was extremely professional and well resourced. I would highly recommend your accommodation to future students. The temporary student ID, free transport reusable bus ticket, meal ticket system, enrollment in NEPTUN, and other prearranged/prepaid services were also extremely professional. It was fantastic that absolutely everything, essentially 100% of the program, was arranged logistically, and all I had to do (if I wanted to do the bare minimum) was follow the mentors around.

The food made by your bistro was really, really good. The portion sizes were hearty and food was sumptuous and filling (and surprisingly diverse). I also appreciated that every single meal that you arranged had really nice dietary accommodations, such as the vegetarian alternatives. Sometimes I took advantage of these and sometimes I didn’t. I genuinely was not prepared for everything to be of such high quality, especially the chances to try nicer restaurants, like the provided dinners. I (and other students) would not be able to afford such nice experiences back home.

This is a picture of the bistro- we would line up on the right and then eat together

The weather was much warmer than I expected. It was pretty uncomfortable actually and woke me up at 5am every morning, but I mean it when I say it was all part of the experience. Hot summer nights, mid July, will always make me think of you and it would feel like cheating to get to be in Pecs but somehow avoid the pecsi weather.

The cost of living in Pecs is very low, bare necessities are roughly half the price of what they would be in Sydney, and certain foods like bread and liquor are a third or even a fifth of the price. I paid the full enrollment price of 1000 euros for your fees which I would be more than willing to pay again. I realize you are likely being subsidized and this is not the true cost per student, but if I had to put a dollar value on how much you are worth to me it would be many multiples of that. I also realize that part of the appeal of the school is its comparable affordability, so this figure may be (reasonably) fixed for now.

Student Mentors

Your student mentors ABSOLUTELY held everything together, I am not sure why I left it so late in the letter to mention them.

Since your (secondary) purpose is to help us make friends and have some good experiences, a little bit of social lubricant does wonders. Your mentors did a great job with the easy stuff like giving us meal tickets, walking us to class, being a positive smiling face, and generic help with finding X or Y.

But the real value came from the groupchat with our class in it and our class’ three mentors taking turns to every day to lead an activity for us. Something as simple as going for a walk or to the spa and opening the invite to the group. This made it SO much easier to connect with the others in my class and get out of the dorm, because the mental load of having to find something to do and asking for people to do it with was eliminated, and the mentors were so personable and friendly they were more than capable of bringing the fun on their own (not that we would let them).

If we didn’t have the mentors, I don’t think I would have spoken to half the people I did or do half the things that I was pushed to do. You would have been a very different school, much more academic and less fun. It made the social stuff genuine and not just a lame uni arranged event. The mentors make me think of someone that studies at Pecs as relaxed, confident, and enjoying their student life.

My mentors went as far as spending their own time with my friends and I, inviting us out and accepting our invites to hang out. It didn’t feel like they were stingy with time at all. We really struck gold with the three mentors assigned to our class. I got to spend time with the other mentors too, here and there. This program would not have been nearly as successful without them, my best memories were out-of-schedule side quests that the mentors took me on.

This was the entire student mentor team

Constructive Criticism

• I did not really enjoy the lecture on Cultural Sensitivity by Dr Pozsgai. I didn’t understand it and it didn’t fit into European Studies at all. It wasn’t political or historical or cultural. I remember most of the content of this lecture as stuff that was taught to us in primary school. I would have liked this lecture to have been replaced by another more traditional politics/history class.
• The teacher who gave the dance workshop on Hungarian folk dance, I cannot remember her name, but she could benefit from giving a few more classes as she seemed inexperienced and unconfident. I’m sure she was a wonderful teacher, I just think more practice might make the class more cohesive.
• I am conflicted about the library/museum class- on one hand, I think it was a critical cultural and historical lesson, but the summer heat and standing on my feet for so long (and 10 days of sleep deprivation) made it very hard to focus. I think more than half the class fell asleep during the museum portion of the lecture, when we sat down.
• I regret Professor Tarrosy not being able to DJ for us at the dance night.
• My least favorite activity was basketball. I think everyone was just really tired from the dance night before, so the turnout wasn’t great. I also thought that the “Intercultural Evening” where we sat in circles and answered the prompts was a bit dry.

The intercultural evening reminded me of peer support meetings in school

Personal Impact

I can’t understate the effect you had on me. You really did alter the trajectory of my life and fully convince me to pursue higher education- potentially in Pecs, but in a student town for sure. A large part of this is due to everything I have written here, the concrete tangible stuff, but equally this is due to the friendships and experiences with people that I had that I can’t really capture in words or attribute to anything more than chance, and something special in the lovely Hungarian air.

Please consider this letter proof of your immense success from the perspective of a student, and appreciation for your team and their efforts.