Hungarian University Staff Team Spirit Soars

We were thrilled to welcome nine higher education staff members from the Faculty of Economics at Gál Ferenc University last week. They were at Atlantic Centre of Education to participate in our Team Building Skills Course. For some participants, this wasn’t the first visit and by all accounts won’t be the last.

Monika Csefkó and Dr Zoltán Árpási took time out to speak to us about their experience and how the course content will impact their work after their return back to work.

Monika, Institutional Erasmus+ Coordinator and English Lecturer, started by explaining how the project came about:

I’m an English teacher, and I’m also the Institutional Erasmus+ Coordinator for Gál Ferenc University. Our university is quite small. We have four faculties in four different cities in the southeast of Hungary. The group we have here at the moment all work for the Faculty of Economics in Békéscsaba, which is a small city also in the southeast of Hungary. This is my fourth time here.

Before we came here, I thought, well, even if it’s very good, that’s enough. Let’s look for something else. But I visited a class on Irish culture, and now I think I should come again and take the Irish culture course.

Last year, we came here to prepare a project together with Atlantic. We had a fantastic time. We were just sitting in a pub one evening and thought, it’s so nice here. People are so friendly. The school is fantastic. We should show this whole thing to the rest of the colleagues. And here we are. First, it was just an idea, and then we made it happen.

Dr Zoltán Árpási, Dean of the Economics Faculty echoed Monika’s sentiments:

I’m the Dean of the Faculty of Economics, Gál Ferenc University. I am happy to be here. As Monica said, first of all, Atlantic is a long-time partner for us. Many of our colleagues have already been here.

It was around 11 months ago that we had that drink and wonderful time during the week, and here we are. Every organisation consists of different teams, and teams and team members need to work together. Therefore, we need some team building.

The Team Building Skills Course is a wonderful week that’s almost over. But we think this is just the beginning. Of course, we need to work on this process. It must be a process. We need to work on it when we go back home. But it was a wonderful start of this process.

Our teacher, Purva, is incredible. She’s amazing. The whole crew is amazing. The whole team is amazing. John (Director), he’s great, and everyone, Ceren (Customer Experience Manager) too. So everyone is fantastic and this is why we love here.

This is my second time at Atlantic, but definitely not the last.

When asked about Galway as a course location, Zoltán said:

We’re coming from a city called Békéscsaba with a population of around 60,000, which is roughly the same as Galway. We probably feel more comfortable because it’s the same size. But I also think that you can get to know the real face of a country in smaller cities. The capital city is always different. It has always a different vibe, like in Budapest or Dublin.

I think we just simply feel at home and Galway has a lot of history, a lot of cultural things, a lot of wonderful pubs and good beer and good whiskey. What else could we wish for?

Circling back to the course benefits, I asked both participants to pinpoint their core takeaway from their Erasmus+ week in Galway. Monika didn’t hesitate to share her appreciation of course teacher Purva:

I think it’s her personality. I had never attended her course. She spent a week at our university about one and a half years ago. I knew more or less what to expect. But now she is the teacher and I’m the student. That was a bit different. But I think I could learn a lot from her, using her methodology. And her attitude, I think it’s amazing.

Zoltán also valued both Purva and the course content, but wanted to add another course/Galway highlight:

Of course, these are important and I share the same view, but I would also mention live music every night.

We were having a drink last night with our German colleagues, friends from another group, and we were discussing that we don’t have live music (at home). Not every day, probably not even once a month.

One place closed at midnight. We went to another bar, and it’s just so good.

It was a real pleasure for us to have the Gál Ferenc University staff attend our team building skills course and we look forward to welcoming them again.

Monika and Zoltán’s last day was hampered by Storm Éowyin, a storm more severe than most over the last few hundred years.

We have been in touch with them since, and Monika wanted to stress that despite the unique and frightening circumstances as the “storm of the century” approached, they felt in no danger at all, thanks to the way the situation was handled by Atlantic and the detailed information provided by Aoife and John. She added that it was comforting to know that they had someone to turn to in an emergency.