„The Student Hub is for everyone” – interview with the new Foreign Affairs Officer Éva Glöckler

Ladies and Gentlemen, let me introduce you the new Foreign Affairs Officer, Glöckler Éva. She is currently a second-year student at the faculty of psychology, whom you may have already met during the „szakest” (university pub quiz) or in the last Freshman camp as a Senior. Being a Foreign Affairs Officer is a really multifaceted role with the aim of supporting the international students, among many other tasks. I could talk all about it with Éva.

Could you please tell us some words about yourself? 

I’ve been living in Pécs for a while now, I already studied here in high school. It broke me down that I wasn’t brave enough to apply to university outside of Pécs – for e.g. to Budapest – so at the beginning I was afraid of regretting my decision. But I did not! Although my first year was hard because I’ve taken myself out of the circulation of the university’s life. I didn’t participate at the Freshman camp, neither at the Orientation days, so I managed to go completely under the radar. This loneliness ended when I applied to the Foreign Affairs Committee, everything accelerated from then on. I met my classmates and a lot of new people.

Have you ever been in a position like this before?

Before the university not really, I wasn’t a student president for e.g. To be honest this is the first time I’m actively taking part of a work like this. I’ve been the member in charge of the operational affairs of the Foreign Affairs Committee, since September.

I hoped to be able to climb upper, but I’ve never dreamed it would happen so soon. It is a great honor for me!

How came the idea of applying to this position?

I really wanted to get involved in the university’s life in a way or another, that’s what I was missing. At first I applied to the PécsiBölcsész Magazine as writer, but I wasn’t accepted. After that a dear friend of mine form my faculty, Pinke Dia send me the post of PécsiBölcsész about this position and told me to give it a try. It was hard to take the rejection of the magazine but I have to admit it was the right path for me. I’m glad it turned out this way, because I’m in a great place now and I’m really enjoying it all. 

Can you tell us how you became the Foreign Affair Officer?

Ádám Keresztes (the current foreign affairs officer) and Jázmin Jászai said that Ádám graduates this year and he wanted to hand over this position to someone and they immediately thought of me. I was really happy, but I’ve never expected it. It is a good story how this all happened. The day before, I went to the Mozaik bar with the Senoirs where I talked to Shermi (Fábián Patrik), the Communication Officer. I told him “oh my god they just said they wanted talk to me, does that mean they will fire me?” (Though they had no reason to do so, I don’t know why I thought that.) He just laughed because he shouldn’t tell me the reason behind it. Therefore, I arrived to the meeting with butterflies in my stomach, but the next day I happily told Shermi that I was asked be the Foreign Affair Officer. 

How can we imagine this position, what will your tasks be?

 The Foreign Affair Officer is not only responsible for the Foreign Affairs Committee but for the Student Hub and the main task is the advocacy of the international students. This will involve the coordination of the Student Hub alongside the committee, allocating tasks, taking care of scholarships. Also collaborating with many organizations for e.g. ESN, Tripod or PSA that recently asked us to collaborate with them.

Thus in addition to the communication tasks, the work also includes creative projects just like organizing events.

However, the whole Committee take part in this, so it’s not a one-person job. Moreover, the Foreign Affairs Officer is part of the Erasmus Committee, so there’s plenty of things to do. 

What do you do now that you are a Foreign Affairs Officer?

Well my work will start in September. Officially Ádám is still the Foreign Affairs Officer and I’m the member in charge of operational matters. What already changed is that I spent time and worked at the Student Hub. It was a really good experience, I can work with them easier now that I’ve walked in their shoes. Another thing that changed is that I work in the Diák Centrum (Student Center) every Thursday morning. It means that I come to the Diák Centrum with Ádám and he explains the actualities. Also I started the learning procedure for the position, he shows me how to communicate, negotiate and write official letters, etc. 

What are your plans for the future?

It is a complicated question, because it is way more difficult to organize the events, cooperation and maintaining relationships than it seems. The number of the international students is increasing exponentially, I would like to keep those events that were popular and worked well so far. Like the Quiz Night, Pumpkin carving or the Easter Egg Hunt – which is an egg hunt racing event.

I certainly will keep these but I have a lot of ideas and plans.

For e.g. I would be happy if we could organize more events – even smaller ones with minimal or zero expenses – so practically we would organize a community. It would be great if our committee could be more than an entertaining organization and the students could come to us with trust and goodwill anytime, with any problems. Therefore, our new student in the Foreign Affairs Committee and the members of the Student Hub will participate in a training. We aim to ensure that when it’s time for them to work they will be fully prepared and well trained. These are my plans so far. Perhaps as an innovation: I would like to organize at least two events every month and spice up the social media communication a bit. I need to note that it’s working well right now as well, but I wish to organize some games and sessions that can only happen through social media. For this the post for the Poetry Day are good examples, so there is an interest in it already. 

As a closure what message would you say to the students as a future Foreign Affairs Officer?

A lot of students – especially the Hungarians – think that these events are only for the international students and they shouldn’t come. But that’s not the case! They also can come, in fact please come because integrating the Hungarians and the internationals would worth it! The current Cultural Officer, Anna Hidegföldi, is already trying to do this, there is a desire for it. It would make us happy if the Hungarian students followed not only the PécsiBölcsész but for e.g. the Student Hub on social media, and even reach out to us with their questions. There are so many everyday things we could help them, as much as we do for the internationals. For instance, a lot of students can’t find the university’s building at the Rókus street. Anyone can go to the student hub, even the Hungarian students. Feel free to come to us with questions like “where can I buy ticket to the international evening?”. We are doing our best to help in all matters or at least give some advices. Come to our events – especially to Quiz Nights and team events – don’t let the fact that it happens in English hold you back! I think nowadays a university student can speak English well enough to enjoy these events. You can make friendships, connections and the international students could do with some Hungarian friends as well. So also our goal is to encourage the Hungarian students to come to our events and befriend with internationals. They are much more open as we could think and are always happy to share their culture with us. There can be so many questions to ask and they would be happy to answer. I think usually Hungarians tend to worry that they say or ask something wrong, but I’ve never seen such thing happen to lead to conflicts. We deeply would like to experience that our events are not only visited by internationals but Hungarians. It’s true that we are primarily committed to helping international students, but it would be nice if Hungarian students could also actively participate in these events.

The Student Hub is for everyone, that’s the essence of being a multicultural organization!

Helping foreign students, organizing events, fostering contacts, official affairs, cooperation, integration of Hungarian students. I think we can say that the new Foreign Affairs Officer won’t get bored doing such a multifaceted and important job.

Interview: Jáger Luca , Translation: Csenki Janka, Photos: Czicza Szabolcs