More than 60 students attended the 2023 EUGLOH Annual Summit in Lund, Sweden. From June 12 to 14, they took part in various sessions, study visits and working meetings and particularly enjoyed this opportunity to connect with one another. Mira studies Business Administration and Management at the University of Szeged and has been involved in EUGLOH as a member of the Szeged Local Student Board since February 2022. This was her experience at the 2023 Annual Summit:
My EUGLOH Story:
As a student, I was lucky to be able to represent my university (University of Szeged) at the Annual Summit in Lund. As this was my second summit, I had friends whom I was happy to see again, but with the four new universities, there was an opportunity to meet new students, researchers and staff.
My time in Lund started with a picnic organized for students, which helped us connect right before the Summit began. The atmosphere was vibrant as we were getting to know each other’s personalities, cultures and backgrounds. From that moment we met, we attended all the upcoming programmes together, eating lunch and dinner, and spent our free time in each other’s presence. It was uplifting to see how quickly a community can come together thanks to EUGLOH.
The Summit helped me grow in an academic way. From my participation I can take away new perspectives of different projects, as we discussed important matters in the work package meetings. Brainstorming with vice-chancellors, researchers, and staff gave me a new view of how to look at a question in hundreds of different ways, how culture affects our choices and what we each represent in EUGLOH. Attending the different sessions presented me topics I’ve never heard about and showed me how health affects fields I would never think of. It was interesting to see how our Alliance is developing thanks to all the hard-working members.
It was incredible to attend all the meetings and sessions, however my favorite part of the Summit was the finishing dinner. Everybody came together, shared stories, laughed, danced, and said one final goodbye to the Annual Summit. The organizers of Lund have really outdone themselves, as they introduced us to local specialties, showed us Swedish traditions, gave us a great jazz show and made sure ABBA was loud enough for all of us at the end of the event to dance to.
During my time in Lund I was inspired by all the stories I heard from my student partners from all 9 universities, and we will keep in touch not just as members of the Alliance, but as friends. To end this article, I can’t sum up my experience at the Annual Summit 2023 other than a quote from one of the WP8 members: “EU stands for the values we share, GLObal stands for the international community, and Health concerns us all. That’s why we are here together. And it’s great to be together.”