Board of European Students of Technology

Looking back to my BEST Course in Graz and bearing in mind all the other internships and seminars I have made so far, I clearly declare in front of the justice of God this BEST course is the best-ever I have had.

Starting from the very beginning, the title ‘A photon in the dark – Fluorescence and sensor technology’ was promising; the city of Graz, a synonym for centre of education in Europe of 19th century (particularly, many well-known Serbians have studied there, like Nikola Tesla for example) seemed to be a great choice; finally, the winter in Graz sounded even better.

All of a sudden, I found myself in the family of 25 students from about 20 countries, and Europe has never been smaller. You live with them 24 hours 7 days a week, taking shower, eating, studying, partying, sharing basically everything. The features of Austrians have come to light first, much before the ‘Austrian evening’. The sense for punctuation was shown for example by waking up the sleepy participants at 7:00 am every morning, no minute later (no matter if any party was ended just a few of hours ago – so, thanks Philip! As very early already fresh, I was ready for the lectures! Joking aside, I have got indeed a great experience in this course. It has been a challenge listen to the
lectures held in English and work in new labs. Preparing a presentation with students whose nationality and background knowledge differs a lot, was best exercise to improve tolerance.
I loved the way the Graz and Austrian culture was introduced to us. With lots of walks, language lessons, games and snow of course. I have learned, for  example, that there are NO kangaroos in Austria! Also I hope you got that Serbia is not the same as Siberia. Now I know as well that wer nichts weiß, und weiß dass er nichts weiß, ist klüger als der, der nichts weiß und nicht weiß, dass er nichts weiß. I cannot skip to mention the absolutely creative Pub  science night or maybe even better the amazingly-unique-sex-change-party: it should be experienced, not paraphrased.

In the end what remains, it is not the perfect organisation, great food we had or crazy wild games. But it’s these people that once you have met and never will forget. It is all in the energy which was spread around in the Elisabethstrasse 93 from 6th to 14th of February 2010. One should know – it is thanks to the guys whose hearts beat for BEST.

“Picture This! Dive Into a Sea of Colors!” – sounds like fun? It was!

I spent twelve days in Bucharest with great people from all over Europe and two ones even from Mexico and China, learning about photography, how to compose your pictures right, what to think of when you do portraits or landscapes. And we also built our own pinhole-camera! The good thing was that we were able to practice what we learned all days long and of course also on our two weekend trips, once to the mountains and once to the Black Sea.

Romanian organizers did their best job to show us their country and I always had a lot of fun. I made new friends and I will never forget this experience!

(Ines)

Imagine yourself sitting in a dark room, in front of your computer, writing your application for a BEST Course on Food Technology and Nutrition. Imagine yourself, three months later, stepping off a plane coming home from the most incredible event you have ever been to.

The course in Reykjavik, titled “Eat That: Innovations in Food Technology and Nutrition” did its name justice. During almost two weeks we had a variety of lectures about everything related to food science, we visited two companies in this field and had practical exercises.

Add to that the incredible scenery of the land of Ice and Fire: waterfalls, geysirs and endless lava fields as well as incredible parties spent with some of the nicest people from all over Europe and you can be sure you won’t regret writing that application.

(Ralph)