Pleasantly Lost in Translation

Lost in translation. That could best describe my experience this far on the SUSI program. Lost in a world which offers me experiences every day, and food for thought for a very long time. The value this program has created for me in just a couple of days is priceless!

Each and every day I have a cultural blast which is mainly based on two factors:

1) I get to know 22 European personas more and more, as each day goes by. With them I also get to know, their countries, their values, their mindset and so on. We are all ambassadors in this fully immersive summer experience.

2) All that with the mixture of the American culture, allows me to build a strong “arsenal”, so that I can deal with anything civic related from a 360-degree perspective.

Thanks to our amazing instructor Alisha, we mostly start our sessions with a pre-speaker session which mostly is a mixture of activities and chit-chat on the theme of the day (community service, democracy, etc.). These sessions for me have created the most value because we always start conversations with the American system as a reference point. From there opinions from all over Europe are heard.

My favorite talk this week revolved around whether civic engagement should be mandatory in any way or not. The conversation heated up pretty quickly (in a healthy way), and it actually managed to point me to the right direction. Although I thought that it should be mandatory, I came to realize that this is not feasible because it goes against the very meaning and principles of civic engagement. Whatsoever it can be mandatory for schools to create a curriculum that raises the civic engagement awareness. The American system paves they way towards that direction and that is why the community has such a strong bond holding it together.

So what does the next week have in store for us? Until then let’s all enjoy some southern delicacies (guilty pleasure mode on)...