IP Erasmus Summer Course

The final day of the summer course arrived faster than anybody expected.

A little sad but still excited, the students shared their experiences and feelings about the lectures, teachers and anything concerning the summer course. Passing a ball of string from one to another, we formed a beautiful communication network!

After the feedback session, all the posters made by the students for the final project were brought in the conference room and had to be voted, in order to choose the winners. It was a very tough choice, because everybody did a fantastic job!

Later in the night, everybody dressed up and had a lot of fun at the gala dinner.

New Media was again the star of the day.

Uğur Gündüz, from Istanbul University, talked about Social Media and Globalization and gave a special attention to Facebook and Twitter. The main idea of the lecture eas that with easy-to-use social media, people contribute and consume contents, leading to a new form of human interaction and the emergence of online collective behavior. Social media such as Facebook and Twitter faciliates people of walks of life to express their thoughts, voice their opinions, and connect to each other anytime and anywhere.

Later on, Cristina Nistor, from Babeş-Bolyai University held a very interesting presentation about media communication from an educational point of view. She stated that professional media communication system has been changing rapidly during the last years due to both new trends in traditional journalism and also due the more and more diverse communication tools that became generally available. Therefore, a cross-disciplinary approach is mandatory when addressing professional media communication.

Monday was the day of new media at the Erasmus IP Summer School.

Dr. Nilüfer Pembecioğlu, from Istanbul University held a very interesting lecture and an entertaining workshop about self image and privacy on the net. The students sang, drew and talked about themselves and everybody was extremely involved.

The discussion about new media continued with Corina Saftescu‘s lecture, called Web 2.0:A Step Closer To Transparency. The lecture approached subjects like transparency on social networks, blogs and how they can improve corporate communication.

In the evening, the students made the final editting to their posters and submitted their portfolios.

DAY FIVE, Friday, July 22th 2011

Friday’s star was Professor Alma Feenstra from Ede Christian University of Applied Sciences, The Netherlands, who was also the chair of day. She managed to amaze the students with a very interactive lecture and workshop, focused on the idea of the Dutch Dialogue, which is a powerful tool of communication in The Netherlands, rather than the debate.
The workshop involved participating in a contest based on answering a few questions related to a fictional case related to the globalization theme, whose main idea was to use models of communication to explain it. A prize was also given to the best team. The contest received very positive feedbacks from the students. ”The winner of the contest received a prize and it was a surprise to everybody”, said Andreea Stăicuț from Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca.

After so much brainstorming it was time for a well-deserved lunch.
Then, Professor Claudiu Mesaroș from West University of Timisoara brought up a very interesting subject: the connection between Philosophy and tribes. Probably the most controversial lecture of the day was Assistant Professor Oana Barbu’s lecture about the philosophy behind a brand and also how you can relate branding to the Roma integration, which raised a lot of questions from the public.
“It was a very nice and modern presentation and it turned into an interesting debate”, concluded Alma Pajer, from the Karoli Gaspar University of Budapest.

Next, we had the pleasure to meet Denisa Iovan, a student at Advertising at the West University of Timisoara and a proud descendant of a family of Geambasi gypsies. She clarified all the questions related to gypsies and brought a touch of colour and magic to one of the most busiest days so far, by organizing a contest of gypsy fashion and make-up. The winner received a traditional gypsy necklace, made of golden coins.
What a creative way of ending a very tiresome day!

An article written by Simona Bartha & Miruna Stefancu, West University of Timisoara

The fourth day was so interesting! The moment of the day was given by Damlasu Temizel, from Istanbul University.

She talked about universal values and how language and art can tell much about our cultural identities. We also watched a genuine Turkish short movie, in order to notice in what way a form of art can express a country’s cultural identity and values.

Then, Dr. Bozsonyi Károly, from Károlyi Gáspár University, held a very intersesting lecture concerning social determinants of TV viewing habit of Hungarian children which brought about a lot of controversy and discussions among students.
In the evening, the students carried on with their work for their final project. Some of them explored the city in order to find their muse, others took pictures and brainstormed for the perfect message.

A fresh new summer course day and more experience to come!

The chair of the day was Peter Jansen, from Ede Christian University of Applied Sciences of Holland, who also held the first lecture called “Between Losing Cultural Identity and Expressing Current Culture”.
Mr. Jansen gave us a brief introduction of Holland, focusing on the problems regarding the lack of so called places for nature and the struggle with water because the Netherlands has turned from an unstable river delta into an orderly country with a strong agricultural image.

As a practical exercise we had to find differences and similarities between our cultures and to determine if there is a cultural bound between them and communication. So, all we had to do was find these common things which are present in every country and also the specific ones that are influenced directly by traditions or maybe religion.

The second lecture of the day was about “Re-Articulating the East-West Dichotomy in Europe” and it was conducted by Lucian Vesalon from West University of Timisoara. The discussed topics were highlighting the meaning of globalization, especially from the social sciences point of view and also how capitalism favors globalization and viceversa.

After lunch, we went to the Romanian National Television Studio and the Romanian National Radio Station in Timisoara. Even though the weather was a little unfriendly and it started to rain, we left for the studios where we were expected by their staff. We split up into groups and visited both the radio and television studios, taking many pictures.

This busy day ended with a relaxing evening in the city.

An article written by Simona Bartha & Miruna Stefancu, West University of Timisoara

DAY Two,July 19th 2011

The second day started with a lecture held by Professor Ton Veen , from Ede Christian University of Applied Sciences,the Netherlands.The presentation topic was about The Right to KNOW?Transparency & Governance in Civil Society.
The lecturer managed to catch our attention with a very interactive discourse about the meanings of the concept of transparency approached from different perspectives and in different fields.In short,if in the past the meaning of transparency was associated with truth “HEARING is believing”,nowadays in our civil society the concept is more related to trust “EXPERIENCING IS BELIEVING”.

Thrilled by Professor Ton Veen’s ideas we refreshed ourselves on a coffee break ,which was a great opportunity to interact and share impressions….Every day these refreshment breaks are a chance for us to get to know each other better and find out more and more about our colleagues.

Afterwards Professor Oana Soimu from West University of Timisoara invited us to Re-Name Ourselves in an exercise In Postmodern Thinking.The first part of the presentation was a bit more theorethical trying to point out the capacity of renaming our experiences as intelectuals or scolars.So, the discussion focus fell on how research and scholarship are political or what naming really means.This led to a practical assignment which implied dividing us into mixed groups and trying to figure out some arguments for
cultural participants naming themselves or in what ways is this naming process helpful to defining identities.

After so much food for thought, lunch was appreciated by everybody!

The afternoon began with a set of films about Hungarian culture,places and traditions,presented by Professor  Tari Janos from Karoli Gaspar University of Budapest.The first film was mostly about Jewish traditions and especially Jews from a small town in Hungary called Mako. The following films referred to culture,specific local customs but also outlined facts of development and progress ,and even exposed some aspects from a spiritual reality such as spiritualism sessions or dancing tables.

The last presentation of the second day was held by Professor Elena Abrudan from Babes-Bolyai Univesity of Cluj-Napoca a about The Operating Mechanisms of Media Metarealism. At the end of this lecture we participated at a group work in teams and evey team had to find some famous characters,well known symbols from different fields and present them within a metarealistic way. We had a great time in discovering that so many ads are using this theoretical concept in their practice!

As we headed to the end of the day,the last topics discussed were about our final task,on the OpenFloor session from last day of the Summer Course and Assistant Professor Oana Barbu gave us details about how should we work and helped us decide what do we want to present.

Also it was Italy’s branding day and so we played with Corina Saftescu kind of a ‘true or false game’ based on little post cards that we had to find in different places during the whole day and which contained media stereotypes about Italy and Italians. We found out that Cappucino is not only for girls and not all Italians are Casanovas :)

An article written by Simona Bartha & Miruna Stefancu, West University of Timisoara

…was a great experience!

Each team was heavily involved in preparing their national booth presentation and by the end of the night we realized we learned a lot about each other’s culture, symbols and traditions.

Many thanks to all involved in this beautiful event and we believe that everybody deserves a first prize in this intercultural exchange:

1st prize for improvisation goes to Italy!

1st prize for the tastiest sweets goes to Turkey!

1st prize for the best traditional dance lessons for foreigners goes to Romania!

1st prize for the best singers goes to Hungary!

1st prize for the best quiz and interactivity goes to The Netherlands!

There  are to many things to say about our cultural evenings, but surely words cannot describe the fun, the interest and gustatory delights we felt. And because images count more than 10.000 words, we leave you the pleasure to discover our Intercultural Evening.

Surely, our first day of this year’s IP Erasmus Summer Course was a very busy and overwhelming one.

We started early in the morning welcoming our guests and getting to know each other, exchange impressions at a coffe and waiting for the program’s presentation.

The official opening of the IP Erasmus Summer course started a little  bit late because our colleagues and friends from Istanbul had an almost 24 hours flight delay because of a storm in Bucharest. But as everybody was sound and safe, our project manager Claudiu Mesaros opened the presentation session!

Mister Dan Radu MOGA, Cancellar of the West University of Timişoara and Professor Gheorghe Clitan, Dean of the Faculty of Political Sciences, Philosohy and Communication held a welcoming speech. After that Professor Mesaros presented our goals, expectations and methodological insight… we realized then that this summer course was not a vacation, but the beginning of an unforgettable experience!

As a cheerful host, Assistant Professor Oana Barbu was in charge with introducing the organizing team members from West University of Timisoara (Claudiu Mesaros, Sebastian Petrisor, Alina Babolea, Corina Saftescu and herself) and our partners from Netherlands (Ede University), Turkey (University of Istanbul), Italy (University of Padua), Hungary (University of Budapest), and Babes-Boyai University of Cluj-Napoca. We had the pleasure to discover beautiful and sparkling people taking part at this 10 days adventure!

After a lunch break, Oana Barbu and Corina Saftescu presented some of the surprises prepared for the participants: Day branding, Nation day and the most expected Cultural evening! We practiced some ‘Get to know Games’ where even the teachers took part.

Still, after all these intense activities everybody was looking forward to prepare the branding presentation of their own culture for our cultural evening…