The first Hungarian holder of the the university association’s diploma supplement talked about her semester spent in Germany.
As we have reported on bme.hu, at the September graduation ceremony of the Faculty of Chemical Engineering and Bioengineering, Kata Sára Szabó became the first BME student to receive the diploma supplement issued by the EELISA university association. The member universities recognise cooperation at three levels, the second of which is the diploma supplement, a document of participation in joint educational programmes. It is the official document of the mobility programme for an integrated european engineering education which recognises multicultural professional competence.
We asked Kata Sara Szabó, who now works for one of Hungary’s largest pharmaceutical companies, about her experiences and feelings concerning the EELISA programme.
Sára Kata Szabó and Gábor Hornyánszky, Vice Dean of the Faculty of Education
„I spent five months at the Friedrich Alexander University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, participating in a project focusing on environmental awareness. Our multi-ethnic student team was mainly working on polymer recycling, i.e. plastics processing, and renewable energy sources. Everything was done in English, but sometimes I had to speak German, which was very useful because it allowed me to brush up on my somewhat passive German. As a pharmaceutical engineer, it was interesting to broaden my knowledge with a project that focused on green solutions and environmental awareness,” she said.
| Sára Kata Szabó was born in Budapest in 1999. She attended the BME’s bachelor’s programme in chemical engineering from 2018 and then the master’s programme in pharmaceutical engineering from February 2022, graduating this summer. He works as a quality assurance officer at Egis Pharmaceuticals, where he has already spent one and a half years as a trainee. |
She added that, in addition to the professional aspect, leisure activities were also paid a lot of attention to during her time there. „The local tutors organised everything from sightseeing to company visits, we visited Berlin, Dachau and the site of Nuremberg trial. There were university sports days, dorm nights, film screenings and other events, where mainly the Erasmus students came together. We were able to meet a lot of students and it was easy to make friends,” recalls Kata Sára Szabó.
All in all, she described the EELISA programme as very useful, saying that it not only gives a lot in the professional field, but is also great for building international contacts. „I’m still on good terms with the people I met there. Besides, one has to know their way around in a foreign environment, to manage issues independently in a culture very different from their own.
So I think such a journey is good for personal development as well,”
she noted.
She did not hide the fact that first it can be quite difficult, being thrown in at the deep end, but she believes that this should not be a reason to be afraid. „Sometimes you can feel a bit lost at the beginning, because there are so many new things, but you have to experience that and then next time in a similar situation it will be much easier. So if you’re considering it, I would advise you to go for it, because it’s a great adventure and you can gain a lot of experience and make friends”.
gp
