Words of Encouragement

 Dear new members of the CEU community!

Three years ago, in year 2010 I have been standing here just as you do with so many questions, fears and doubts, but also so many expectations and much excitement of what this year will bring. I have seen faces from all over the world; faces that later became one of my most valued, true friends (but of course I didn’t know it that time). It was the first time for me to be part of a group of students of over 20 different nationalities and part of an even larger group of students coming from almost 100 countries. It was a moment of being lost in my own country, or rather kidnapped by aliens and dropped in a planet that was safe and interesting with a bunch of opportunities but also with many challenges to overcome. And here, I remember very well how everyone emphasized how hard this year will be, so we freaked out before actually having a reason to freak out.

I don’t want to lie to you; it was a constant fight with deadlines, readings, power points and more deadlines, exams, midterms, but at this moment we don't really have these 'hard time' memories - just how great it was, how many great people and lifetime friends we have met. CEU is a little bit of a “golden cage” for students, a protective, ideal place to learn, where professors and students are attentive and curious about your opinion, you will not be only welcomed but encouraged to tell your story, your perspective and thoughts in lectures, in classes, during your presentations and your papers, of course within the academic framework. CEU is a life changing experience that will leave a mark on all of you – you have to fight for it and ones you get there, and believe me, each and every one of you will get there, you will not regret all the efforts you will put in it. So, based on my experience as a DPP student, here are my most important advices to you.

1. Listen to your peers. I remember that it was exactly John Shattuck, President and Rector of CEU who said in one of his first speeches that year: most probably you'll learn the most not from your professors or books but from your classmates - and for me this turned out to be totally true. You will develop skills of debate, skills of disagreement; you will work side by side with students radically different than yourselves. Learn from each other’s experiences and talk to them. You never know when you can speak to someone from Jamaica, Pakistan, Nigeria or Albania, among others. Collaboration and debate with people from so many different backgrounds will allow you to broaden your understanding, capacity for analysis, you will learn from differences and more importantly to realize how strong and deep similarities we have. This ability to work in an international environment is a tremendous skill-for-life besides the professional knowledge you will gain during this journey.

2. Do not only stay in your room and library studying in the following three semesters, and do extracurricular activities. CEU offers a bunch of them, but if you do not find the one fitting your interest you can also create yours! This is how the CEU Weekly project, our bi-weekly newspaper or the Blank Pages Society, the creative writing club, or the Sustainable Campus Initiative was brought to live when their funders – now CEU alumni - realized that something is missing from our University.
In our year, together with students from different departments I initiated the CEU Care for the Homeless Project. We organized several fundraising initiatives on the CEU campus, where community members donated clothes, food, books and other goods for Budapest's homeless. We have prepared food and fed around 200 homeless every day in the mornings before school...With the constant support of CEU, we donated vitamins, food, and distributed several vehicles of clothes, blankets and shoes
As one of my volunteering partner, now CEU alumna said Budapest would have been a completely different life and study experience without the volunteers and social workers at the Homeless shelter, as they directly remind her that she, now, has a home in Central Europe and it's not made of concrete, gold or precious stones but simply of love for the other.
Speak to those participating in these Projects and find the one which better fits your interest and personality. By the way, in your future job interview, your future employer will not ask you which courses you have studied, but would call their attention what you have been doing above all.

3. Use all the resources provided by the University, mostly, use the professors as much as possible. Their doors were always available for us to discuss any doubts before exams in the period of writing our papers and thought-out the whole semester. Attend the academic writing classes and go for regular consultations, this is only to mention an amazing service provided by the University.

4. Attend seminars of invited lecturers of your interest and take notes, they can be a huge help for your thesis. Choose a mentor, if you haven’t had one yet. It can be an old friend, an ex-professor or previous colleague, your relative, basically anyone who you can have a chat with every now and then. Support and advises from a person outside CEU will greatly help you when struggling with your papers, and writing your thesis.

5. Do sport, yoga, jogging, swimming or biking, and try to do it every day. It will help you to stay sane and to also pay attention to your physical condition besides working out your brain cells. Plus friendships developed at CEU gym are also precious where you can ally with students from other departments besides getting some muscles. Get yourself a bike. Budapest has developed an amazing biking culture, it will help you to free your mind before classes and on your way home and the best ideas usually do not come in front of a computer.

6. Do not stress because the first semester is hard, in the second semester you will be already used to it! Probably the thesis time will be toughest not only because of the thesis but also because the end of the whole experience is approaching...and the time in CEU really goes fast. You should enjoy all the birthdays and small celebrations together that will just really make you feel as part of a family You guys will study hard, but you definitely should party harder! We organized food party where everyone took its own traditional dish, we organized movie nights at the dorms, we celebrated the birthday of each and every one of us, we were there for each other for a coffee the middle of deadlines to laugh and cry on each other’s shoulder and support in the hard times. Until now many countries have faces of my CEU friends, so in this way we are all ambassadors of the places we come from and that way, especially that to many of these countries probably we'll never go. As an evidence of enduring friendship, in the last two years, I have met the majority of my classmates and two years after our graduation, around half our class meet this May in Budapest and Balaton coming from all over the world to see each other. We really becoame one family during this year and this is one of the best investments one can get from CEU.

7. And finally, you are international students in an international and multicultural university here, but do not lose the context and forget where you are. My advice would be to make some Hungarian friends, travel also to the countryside (a group of CEU students and alumni organizes excursions close to Budapest almost every weekend), learn about the culture and history of this nation, and make attempt to learn some basic Hungarian words As I said here, you are ambassador of your own country, but when you leave you will be a little bit ambassadors of this country as well.
To sum it up, it is up to you to make this a special year and a life-time memory, go for it and make it real!

Ildikó Szabó, DPP alumna from 2011

This speech was first delivered in the welcome afternoon for DPP students.

September 18, 2013, Year 4, Issue 35 / COMMUNITY