The youngest student was 15 and the oldest 75 at this year’s Summer University
A total of one hundred and eight received certificates at this year’s Debrecen Summer University. The majority of the students passed the written and oral final exams of the course with flying colors, announced on Monday hirek.unideb.hu.
– This year, the group of students was also very colorful, with different motivations. Many people came from Polish universities, where they major in Hungarian, and chose Debrecen to improve their language skills, director Péter Szaffkó told the university portal.
There was a South Korean student who applied for the DE summer course in order to work for a Korean company in Hungary. A former American missionary couple who serve in the Baptist church in Debrecen are teachers in Lendva, who are required to know Hungarian in bilingual schools.
There was a Serbian student whose great-grandfather was Hungarian, and family ties led him to Debrecen. The course also included a girl from London who was born in Australia and whose mother is Hungarian from Slovakia, and a Dutch student who promised her Hungarian friends that she would learn Hungarian.
– The students could participate in extracurricular language development, conversational, sports and cultural programs. In addition to the language lectures, they could practice pronunciation in the phonetics class, expand their knowledge in the vocabulary development class, and improve their oral expression skills during the speaking exercises, added the head of the institution.
According to the organizers, the “extra” professional and leisure programs of the course were also very successful; in addition to the classic city tour, the students could take part in a night visit and a church tour, and they could also go by bike to the Zelemer church ruins. In the framework of traditional folklore events, they were able to learn about the food, clothing, songs and dances of each region.
– In addition to the language classes and special language sessions, the students could also visit the castle on the trip to Zsáka, try archery, and decorate gingerbread figures. And those who wanted to do handicrafts could learn about beading and braiding. Those interested had the opportunity to visit the Jewish quarter of Debrecen twice in one month, and both times 20-25 applied for the program, Péter Szaffkó added.
The “Modern Hungary” program of the Summer University also ended successfully, in the framework of which the students could listen to lectures on the history and culture of Debrecen for two weeks in English. Many of the participating students were also interested in the Hungarian language, so they joined the language students after the history course.
The language course was organized for the first time in 1927, so this year was the 95th Summer University of Debrecen. Summer university students of different cultures, ages and motivations come to Debrecen from all over the world for the four-week course.
The youngest student of this year’s Summer University was 15, and the oldest was 75.