The Summer Schools: A Trend or a Necessity?

Either they change the appearance of a resume, offering to the students the possibilty to travel, to meet other students from different parts of the world, with similar hobbies and interests, either they increase their chances to study abroad, the students are increasingly excited about the summer schools.

In the last two years, the summer schools have become an activity that offers to many students the possibility to fill their summers between the years of study. They start searching for summer schools a long time before taking a decision; they ask colleagues or previous participants and try to accomplish the requirements of the organizers. After they find an event, the students start asking to their teachers for letters of recommendation, they give an exam of reasoning and conciseness in drafting the letter of motivation and, if necessary, they search for that academic transcript, a mirror of their academic activity until that time.

They add a full resume, eventually an essay and put all their hopes in an envelope with the 'summer school' destination. Their emotions get higher when they think about the deadline required, which can easily disqualify them. The deadline is well set in stone.

The students continue for a while to check their mail box three times a day, waiting for that so important answer. Once they receive the good news, some students start searching for a source of funding if the resources exceed the possibilities ... Others wait to end all their exams and to start preparing their luggage.

But before seeing what's the opinion of those who participate, of the teachers and organizers of such events, let's talk about what is a summer school and who's behind all those activities involved.

What are the summer schools?

The summer schools are academic projects for students, consisting of classes conducted by certain representative persons for a field of study. They often focus on a very specific subject of study.

They have the structure of a university course - lecture, seminar and eventually a list of the texts required.

The summer schools organized by universities or cultural centers can offer to the students transferable credits to the university where they study (from 2 to 6 credits).

This kind of schools were initially organized by universities, cultural centers (The French Cultural Institute from Leipzig), or associations of students who deal with such events.

The sponsors are either universities or different companies that wish to support the students, while strengthening their initiatives.

It mustn't be ignored the fact that the participation to a summer school is directly related to the study abroad, building the necessary experience, which is very important for getting hired in a big company.

Why to attend to a summer school?

Participating to summer schools is a great opportunity to know more and to improve your communication and debate skills. Besides this, the participants can meet people from other countries, can make a lot of friends and can encourage each other in common initiatives, while changing information about common events and hobbies. They can improve considerably their knowledge, by the intercultural dialog, their critique way of thinking and the capacity to assimilate new information.

Moreover, a summer school offers many important things that happen outside the classes: the informal conversations, trips and new situations. The students have the change to depth their knowledge, and skills for the study of interest, to adopt a multidisciplinary approach. It's a very important issue for a society to have an extended knowledge on several fields of study.

That being said, we should hope that in time, more and more students will understand the importance of summer schools for their personal and academic development and for an extra line on their resume.

Sources: www.helsinkisummerschool.fi, www.cont-ed.cam.ac.uk/intsummer, www.ncl.ac.uk/nuiss, www.summerschools.ro, www.summer-schools.info,