My Intercultural Experience

I'm every day more and more excited about my intercultural experiences in Kassel. A long journey ended yesterday, even though I'd say, it is just the beginning.
For the last 6 months, a team of 20 international students in Kassel, from 17 different countries, got together to learn (about) intercultural communication and competence. An amazing group of students, motivated, responsible, highly engaged, straight forward, with a rich intercultural background - each of them enriched our project remarkably! We took the innitiative, found a great trainer - the best I met so far in this area and the best I've met so far in any area in Germany - got some financial support from the university and here we go!
For me it was an amazing experience! We learned to understand intercultural communication by doing this, by getting out on the campus in small multicultural teams, interacting with people, discussing with them, analyzing, sharing, etc. etc. We connected their experiences with ours and put together a great documentary film. It is a short film prepared to explore the theme of cultural interaction between German and international students at the University of Kassel.

Enjoy:

Meet More, Mix More from Carmen Muresan on Vimeo.

Maybe this project ended, but to me, it just opened new doors, gave me new ideas and an area I am highly motivated to further explore.

Wish you all wonderful intercultural experiences and let's "meet more, mix more"!

Sharing Experience

I met yesterday a Bologna Expert from Turkey (this is how he calls himself even if he is questioning the term). During his visit in our Centre this week, he gave a presentation on the current developments in the implementation of the Bologna Process in Turkey.
It was quite interesting to observ the commonalities between the importance of the Bologna Reform for Turkey and for Romania: European integration, globalization of higher education and a framework for the reform of the national higher education system.

I found it amusing when he stated about the change to the new cycle structure: "Well, we have cycles since 1981, so it was not a real challange to design the new structure to 4(BA)+2(MA)+4(PhD)". Probably, Turkey belongs also to those countries who just moved forward or backward the time of graduation from the first cycle. Recently, Prof. Teichler commented, in a TV show, the problem of the new Bachelor-Master structure in Germany. The phenomenon, which in my eyes seems to happen in the majority of the European higher education systems, is that all systems want to keep their previous levels of qualification (e.g. 'Diplom' or Master), sqeeze somehow the former courses into the new Bachelor programmes and make hereby a "Bonsai-Bachelor" (Teichler, 2009).
The story of ECTS is also funny. In Turkey an own credit system is used, based on contact hours. ECTS is mainly an instrument for recognition of mobility periods. Therefore, the calculation of ECTS points for a course in Turkey is very simple: 30 credits a semester for 6 mandatory courses... that means 5 credits per course.
At least, in Germany, they tried to take over some principles of ECTS, but they tend to fall to the other extreme and increased in this way the student workload very much (which is never evaluated!!): papers, presentations, reviews for each session/course and the obligatory TEST at the end of the semester for each discipline.
German students and pupils started a national education strike last week, against the new system, against tuition fees, against grades for behavior, against the 12th grade high school degree, for more authonomy, more student participation and student voice: Education for all and for free!
We discussed this issue with our guest as well and I was surprised to find out about the the different levels of internalisation of students rights among the student community in Turkey: the social dimension is confused with social activities and the opportinity for a student representative to talk to his/her students in an university event, should be given by the professors. I find this quite sad and it will take some time to change the mentality of students and other stakeholders of the universities in favour of collaboration and partnership. Nevertheless developments in this direction start to appear, because our colleague in Turkey was also student representative before he started his PhD and got a job at the university. And he is very much involved in student information and awareness campaigns, as well as in fostering change in the university through several projects: new teaching techniques trainings for young lecturers, trainings for the students' unions, building a student centre where social and learning activities will be combined, etc.

One student... reminds me on my first contacts with this issue, on Traian and then Vlady and then the community of Bologna Instigators...

We change education! ;)

Reference:
Teichler, U. (Author) (June 16. 2009). Prüfungen im Bachelorstudium [Television broadcast]. 3Sat. Retrieved June 26. 2009 from URL: http://www.3sat.de/mediathek/mediathek.php?obj=13231&mode=play.

Am avut o bicicleta albastra ....

A venit primavara si pe la noi

De cateva zile mi-am scos bicicleta de la 'hibernare' si imediat am prins din nou gustul plimbatului cu bicicleta. Am fost la Buga duminica, marti am fost in Vellmar, joi dimineata m-am plimbat pe malul raului Fulda... si uite asa incepusem sa am un program destul de fainutz ...
... pana azi ...
... azi aveam o zi destul de plina: trebuia sa ajung la dentistul care mi-a pus luni doua plombe si care m-a socat ieri cu o nota de plata de 120€ pentru ca nu stia cum e treaba cu (ma scuzati) cardul european de asigurat ; pe urma trebuia sa-i cumpar Oanei 15 prosoape din-alea, de care gasesti numai la Xenos si sa i le trimit maine la TG. Mures si mai trebuia musai sa ajung la lucru, ca nu am mai fost de marti.
Ma gandeam eu asa azi dimineata, dupa ce m-am trezit cu 3 ore mai tarziu decat trebuia, ca as rezolva totul foarte repede daca as merge cu bicicleta. Zis si facut! Ma imbrac sportiv, imi fac o strategie si ies in curtea interioara a caminului.

<--
<--
<-- <--  
<--
<--
<--

Bicileta mea nu mai avea o roata!!!

Stau cateva secunde socata si nici nu stiu daca sa rad sau sa plang. In fine, dupa acele cateva secunde ma intorc putin si ce vad pe pertele opus: roata!!










 
Ma uit din nou la bicicleta, la roata, din nou la bicicleta si ma duc la tramvai. Ce sa si fac? Gata, nu mai am bicicleta ... incepusem deja sa-mi plang de mila.
Ajunsa la dentist si afland ca totul a fost doar o neintelegere si ca ei nu aveau toate actele necesare pentru a intra in contact cu cei de la CNAS si ca acum, dupa ce i-am lamurit, e totul bine si frumos, imi trece si supararea ca nu mai am bicicleta.
Urcata iarasi in tramvai spre Xenos (bine ca circulam gratuit), ma gandesc ca poate era si timpul sa-mi iau o alta bicicleta, ca oricum nu mai era ea sigura. Poate asta e un semn, si asa ma hotarasc sa merg chiar maine dimineata la Flohmarkt.
Dupa ce m-am mai plans la o groaza de oameni, despre ce mi s-a intamplat, m-am decis ca totusi luni sa merg cu ea la service, ca tot avem unul tare de tot in campus, unde niste studenti de treaba repara biciclete asa ca hobby.
Daca va intrebati acum, de ce nu ma apuc eu sa pun roata la loc, vreau sa o citez pe o colega de servici: "Noi suntem 'higher education researchers' si daca am face noi asta, altii inta in somaj!"
Dar totusi mai am o speranta, ca la noapte persoana respectiva se va intoarce si va pune roata la loc...

Totusi, lumea e buna!

What is a culture?

I'm sitting in the train to Dortmund, surrounded by many people, but most of grannies… modern grannies, with mobile phones, digital photo cameras, mp3 players, etc. That's not my image of a grandmother. And if you ask me, why not, maybe I would say… it's not like this in my culture, it's not like grandmothers behave in Romania.

But now I am really thinking if there is not even a grandma in Romania having a mobile phone? I think there should be! At least, having one of those big mobile phones with big buttons, to keep in contact with the young family members. Or there are grannies, having their own satellite antenna, even if it's just a Digi.

Coming back to "it's not like this in my culture, it's not like grannies in Romania behave": It's very common to find this kind of "excuse": this is how WE do it, this is how WE think, this is how WE behave. But who is this WE? Me and my family, me and my friends, me and my university colleagues, me and the people in my city, in Transilvania or in the whole country?

Think a little bit how you present your country, your culture, and your traditions to foreigners? I remember the country presentations at the 2007 EFPSA Congress in Turku. We did a presentation of Romania, including all stereotypes about the 3 regions: Transylvania citizens are slow but very tidy, and are dancing in a circle, when they go out. Moldova citizens are poor, starting the day with a glass of "palinca", and are dancing "hora" every evening, Muntenia citizens are hectically, loud, rich and dancing on the bars. I'm sure my friends from Bucharest will laugh and say, that it's kind of true, remembering my way of saying "Uuunde va grabiti?" (= Where do you hie?) but you got the point. Oh I don't want to think about Germany's presentation

I could tell you tones of stories about Germans, and this only because I always meet so many different Germans that I cannot say anymore: They are like THIS ! (friendly, but distant; clean; tidy; organized; always on time; have good food; etc.)

Although, there is always a group you belong to, a group that has some characteristics. But people don't belong anymore only to one group (Feuser, 2008). You have one nationality, live in another country, study at one certain university, work in a certain company, have certain friends, go to sports, play in a band, or in a theatre, live in a WG etc, etc. And think that all these groups have an influence on you

I always hear from people who get to know me: "You are not like Romanians!" (he? How are they?), or "This is your German part" Do you believe me, that I'm more often on time in Romania then in Germany, and that it happened in Germany, that I couldn't finish a task on time and that nobody killed me?

Well, my train is almost in Dortmund! So… Happy glocalisation! (Ups, my spell checker doesn't know this word)

Ha, can you believe it that I was able to write this post in a German train, because trains in Germany use to have plugs!

Reference:
Feuser, F. (2008). Intercultural Communication. Training for tutors. University of Kassel. Germany