Student Challenge “Digital ERASMUS Feeling”

The EPICUR Alliance will meet between the 9th to the 11th of December in Karlsruhe for its first annual forum. Bringing together companies, external organisations in addition to students, teachers and staff from our 8 universities from 6 countries, this event aims to connect our 8 communities through numerous activities, workshops and conferences during 3 days.  

Among many activites, the “Digital ERASMUS Feeling” challenge is set up to encourage students to think up about and ways how to develop innovative approaches to European mobility in a virtual exchange semester. 

During the forum, groups of students from the 8 universities will form teams of 5 to 7. Together they will brainstorm to define the important factors contributing to the Erasmus feeling by capturing small facets. On the last day, each group will have 3 minutes to present a solution by giving a lecture, showing a video, photos or even making a musical presentation of their ideas. The best ideas will be rewarded with various prizes.

This challenge will take place in three steps:

• The kick-off session with the creation of the groups and an introductory speech by Oana Dumitrescu, Director General for Education and Culture at the European Commission.
• The following day, the activity will continue with tutorials and discussions in the morning and an Erasmus quiz in the evening.
• On Friday, the final presentation of the « Erasmus Feeling Challenge » will take place in the presence of Kostis Giannidis, President of the Erasmus Student Network, followed by the award ceremony.

Due to Covid-19, travel and physical student exchange have come to a grinding halt in 2020. We want to take this as an opportunity to reflect and identify the most important experiences, competencies and skills that ERASMUS has brought to participants over thirty years

 Providing European exchanges and intercultural experiences for three decades, the ERASMUS program has acquired an almost legendary status and promises to its participants what we deem the unique ERASMUS feeling. To aid students in their thought process (during the Challenge), we want to collect stories and insights from former or current ERASMUS students.   

Join us on this journey to find out what makes and breaks the ERASMUS feeling as well as some of its most valuable lessons.  

Until 27th of November, we also invite ERASMUS students and alumni of all ages, to send us short videos (10 min max), in which you respond to some of the following questions:  

• What is the “ERASMUS feeling” for you?  

• Why did you choose to take part in the ERASMUS program? What was your motivation / what were you hoping for? 
• What was your expectation before you went abroad? 
• What did you take away from your ERASMUS time? 

• What was the most important experience for you during your Erasmus exchange? 
• What is the one thing that you remember most clearly, by yourself or talking to others about your ERASMUS experience? 

• • How did Covid-19 change your ERASMUS experience? 
  • What helped you overcome obstacles in the beginning or throughout your stay? 
  • What would you do differently? What would you recommend to prospective ERASMUS students? 

Format: 

Each student/alumni or group of students/alumni films themselves and answers questions in a short video (1-3 min per question, maximum 10min). The EPICUR team will cut these videos into a coherent response, reflecting the diversity of experiences and perspectives on ERASMUS mobility. 

Instructions:  

Whether you get together in small groups to chat about your ERASMUS or use this as an opportunity to reunite with some of your ERASMUS friends from decades ago, or simply take a moment to reflect on the journey of the past term, there are no limits to your creativity. In order to help you get started, we have created a short set of instructions nonetheless.  

1. You are welcome to record the video in a language of your choice. 

1. Please keep your video shorter than 10 minutes 

1. State your name and the year, home university, and place of your Erasmus 

1. Please answer at least 2-3 of the 7 questions listed. You can choose those you feel most apply to you, and they do not need to be in the order provided.  

1. Please read out the question itself before answering it on your video, the questions do not count towards the time of the responses.  

1. Please use mp4 file format if possible 

1. Send your contribution as a WeTransfer link to contact@epicur.education 
   before Nov,26, 2020. Instructions on how to use WeTransfer can be found: https://wetransfer.com 

When you submit the video, we ask you to attach a signed scan of the form giving us both or either 

1. a) rights to use your video for the internal use at the ERASMUS challenge 
2. b) rights to use your video for the EPICUR website. 

The videos you provide will be used according to your data preferences. If you have any questions regarding the EPICUR Forum or the “Digital ERASMUS Feeling” Challenge, please do not hesitate to contact us: contact@epicur.education 

LEGAL DISCLAIMER: 

As part of EPICUR events in order to disseminate information about the EPICUR European University, the EPICUR Team organises a Challenge on a “Digital ERASMUS feeling”.  Unistra, represented by its president currently in office, as data controller, provides you with the following information: 

A Data Protection Officer has been appointed who can be contacted at the address: 

Université de Strasbourg 

Direction du numérique de l’Université de Strasbourg 

14 rue René Descartes CS 90032 

67081 Strasbourg cedex 

Mail: dpo[at]unistra[dot]fr

Should EPICUR carry out further processing of personal data for a purpose other than that for which the personal data were collected, EPICUR will provide you with information about this other purpose and any other legal information beforehand. 

Bringing together companies, external organisations in addition to students, teachers and staff from our 8 universities from 6 countries, this event aims to connect our 8 communities through numerous activities, workshops and conferences during 3 days.