“Good teamwork can turn a small idea into something great”
ELTE Faculty of Economics and AVANS University (The Netherlands) have been collaborating since 2019. The cooperation focuses on local and Dutch students solving problems related to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) using such methods as ‘Design thinking’ and Human-centered design. The one-semester work culminates in a three-day hackathon (which is also the central part of the spring semester free-elective course ‘Business Case Studies II’ offered by our faculty).
Two participants representing ELTE GTK (Mila Johanna Cornelia van Kuijk, an Erasmus student from the Netherlands and Dávid Szepesi, who is a sixth-semester full-degree Hungarian student on the Trade and Marketing programme) were happy to share their experiences. All students also had to submit a self-reflection essay as part of their coursework, and some of their ideas are also worth sharing with the public.
While both Mila and Dávid learnt about this opportunity from an email promoting the course via Neptun, their aims to participate were very different. Mila was primarily motivated by the fact that this was a sustainability course, and this was one of the few such courses offered by ELTE during her mobility semester in Budapest. Dávid’s main motivations were the chance to speak English, to connect with new people, and to explore different cultures — three things he truly enjoys. As he put it: “The opportunity felt like a natural fit.” Other participants were drawn to the course “to discover my hidden talents”, “to strengthen my soft skills in an international environment”, “to experience a different learning style”, “to break free from traditional, more supervised teaching methods”.
As every year, all the participating teams used the methods called Design Thinking and Human-centred design but while Mila’s team of six people worked on the topic of gender inequality (UN SDG 5), Dávid’s group (made up of three Avans and three GTK students) addressed the topic of health and well-being (UN SDG 3). By interviewing fellow students on campus, they came to realise that many people were aware of the benefits of a healthy lifestyle yet still lacked the motivation to take action. Their goal was to explore ways to encourage and inspire fellow students to care more actively for their well-being.
It may sound strange to the reader that Mila, who is Dutch herself, registered for a course that involved working with Dutch people. She acknowledged that she enjoyed the course partly because it felt “a little bit like home” to collaborate with other Dutch students. However, she also emphasised that learning more about Hungarian culture and the Hungarian way of thinking was also very exciting and a highly useful addition to her exchange experience. Dávidemphasised: “What I enjoyed most was seeing how effectively motivated students from different cultural backgrounds could collaborate and work as a team.” This message is also supported by several other students’ reflections. One participant, for example, put it this way: “I became better at working in a team, solving problems, communicating, and being creative. I also learned to be more flexible, patient, and understanding when working with people from different backgrounds”. Another student wrote “I learned a lot about teamwork. Working in a group with different people from different backgrounds taught me how to listen better, communicate clearly, and be open to new ideas. Sometimes we had different opinions, or some language barrier between us, but we always managed to find a way forward by working together”.
Mila found the course and the project fairly easy and practice-oriented, which is typical of applied higher educational institutions in the Netherlands. Mila, who comes from Utrecht University (one of the most renowned Dutch research universities) is more used to university-style education and expected the course to be more demanding. Yet, she enjoyed the practical side of the course very much. Dávid underlined the fact that the hackathon was “very focused on work” so he felt a little disappointed that unfortunately, when it came to socialising in the evening, many people left early. “I think if social time had been a bit more structured or encouraged, it would have made the three-day experience even better.” Others, however, also commented on how they had been able to share their knowledge of Budapest and our culture with the guests and how this had given them a whole new perspective of the city, its sights, and the locals.
When asked about what they learnt from this experience, Mila emphasised how much better she now understood Hungarian culture. As a result of the hackathon and the course, she has also become “more open to methods I wouldn’t otherwise use”. For Dávid, the experience confirmed his long-term desire to work in an international environment in the future. Some immediate benefits mentioned by the other participants included ideas like “solving real problems needs more than just technical skills, it needs real care for people and their needs“, learning “how powerful it is when people come together to solve real problems” and “ I realized how important it is to really focus on the people we are trying to help, and not just jump to quick solutions. Building a prototype was also a big learning moment for me. I learned that ideas don’t have to be perfect from the start. They can grow and improve through feedback and testing. I think this will be truly important throughout my career.”
The whole event can be summarised shortly as a motivating and fun learning experience in a positive and supportive environment, which all participants agree to recommend to future cohorts as well.
