Focus on Water multidisciplinary summer course with the University of Tokyo
Intercultural multidisciplinary summer course was organized by the Hungarian Rectors’ Conference for the undergraduate students of the University of Tokyo. The „Go Global Hungary: Focus on Water” summer university program was held at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics between 9 and 22 August 2017.
‘Focus on Water’ summer course was a two-week program providing a great variety of interdisciplinary lectures, skills sessions, site visits, and social activities, focused on diverse topics and challenges related to water use, management and sustainability. Daily lectures covered subjects closely linked to water, such as sustainability and innovation, health, sport and environment, recreation and tourism, transportation and natural disaster management.
After the lectures, students had the chance to participate in different site-visits, eg.: at the Flood protection wall in Szentendre, Budapest Central Wastewater Treatment Plant, Gellért Thermal Bath and Szemlő-hegyi cave. During the weekends, students visited Tihany, Lake Balaton and explored Budapest through different thematic walks.
Also, during the program, participants worked in Water Focus Teams, in which they identified the essential role of water in the 21st century, and created presentations to introduce their ideas in the framework of two Hungarian-Japanese Scientific Forums.
The summer university was organized by Dr. Zoltán Dubéczi, Júlia Morován and Fanni Komlós; and altogether 20 Japanese and 16 Hungarian students participated in the program under the leadership of project lecturer Yusuke Sakurai and teaching assistant Misato Nasukawa.
In order to make the program even more interactive, Hungarian students also attended the lectures, the cultural programs and the Forums as ‘mentors’. Most of these students came from BME or from Hungarian universities that have Japanese relations, such as Eötvös Loránd University, Szent István University, Budapest Business School and even from ELTE Radnóti Miklós School. The participation of the mentors helped the Japanese students gain deeper and more comprehensive experiences concerning the Hungarian culture and social life. At the same time, the Hungarian participants had the opportunity to deepen their knowledge and interest in Japanese culture from first-hand, while some of them could even develop their Japanese skills.
The course aimed to grow global citizens – who identify themselves as responsible members of the world community – with deep understanding and broad perspective on global issues. Critical thinking and intercultural communication skills was developed through collaborative work with Hungarian students.
Course Description_Go Global Focus on Water_2017
