Pasquale Tereshkin, 3rd year student of the educational program “International Economic Relations”:
A few years ago, when I first came to the Concordia society, I was struck by the culture of this university. UACU tries to pass on the culture of America to its students while keeping in mind our Ukrainian identity.
The entrepreneurial spirit is one of the main components of U.S. culture and from the first days we absorbed this spirit, especially during the lectures on the principles of entrepreneurship, where Paul Thomas and many other Western experts were sharing their experiences with us.
Of course, the university still has a lot of work to do. It seems to me that in terms of cultural development we lack some interaction between us, some national American games, even online, etc., in order to imbue our team with the American spirit.
But most importantly, our culture is based on trust and fairness, as evidenced by the total lack of corruption in our university.
Approach to motivation of students
The Dean’s Office tries many different ways to motivate students to study, beyond the standard motivations such as getting a diploma.
Concordia has several incentive mechanisms for students. They are mainly divided into financial and educational. Let’s look at an example of financial motivation: a student who finished school with a gold medal gets a discount from Concordia, but this student must have an average grade of at least 90%, which is an A. Also a person who wins an Olympiad also gets a discount. Moreover, for example, when there was an all-Ukrainian radio decant, students received prizes for winning places.
Now let’s look at my favorite example of educational motivation from Concordia. Students who are at the top of the university in terms of GPA have the opportunity to participate in international student exchange programs Erasmus+ or World Exchanche.
Also, don’t forget about grades. This is the main tool that helps us determine how well the student has learned, how he or she has studied the subject, and whether he or she has paid any attention to this or that subject at all.
Students understand that the diploma will indicate the grades they received during their studies, it is a good motivation to study well. I would also like to add to the financial motivation – a minimum threshold for passing the course. At Concordia, a student cannot complete a course if they score less than 60%.
Concordia, together with other Ukrainian and foreign universities, conducts video conferences on global topics; if a student participates in them, he or she receives a certificate that can be used as a grade increase for a certain subject. This is also an example of motivation to learn.
Organizational communication
Our university is doing quite well in this area, but it is probably one of Concordia’s weakest points.
UACU keeps us informed of everything we need to know through emails and Moodle messages. For example, when we have exams, schedule changes, etc. But, the problem is that very often the dean’s office staff chooses to phrase their thoughts in such a way that not everything is immediately clear. I’m used to it, I’m on the same page with the dean’s office, but for example the first year, they have a problem with it. As a result, students are massively writing to the dean’s office asking them to repeat this or that point.
I would advise our dean’s office to spend a little more time drafting proposals for students, so that they don’t waste extra time answering to students.
Group and intergroup relations
If we are talking about communication within our team of students, then in our group and in some others (that I know) everything is at the highest level.
Ukrainian people, especially teenagers, are very communicative. Literally from the first minutes of being in Concordia, even at the first welcoming lecture with Paul Thomas, we in the chat room at Zoom cooperated and created a group in Telegram to communicate with each other, it speaks for itself.
It is very important for us to interact and help each other as part of our lives. Most of the friends I have are my classmates at Concordia.
In fact, it is a merit of our university, because it is university that selected such communicative, interesting and sociable people (of course there are exceptions) to be students.
Also I want to note that we did not stop at communication within our group, we communicate with many members of other groups of our year. Moreover, we are always in contact with our Freshmens in case they need some advice or help.
Every year (except for the last one because of the war) students of the 3rd and 4th years organized a Freshman Party where all first year students and their friends were invited. This is a very cool event, because this way you can get to know everyone at once.
Back when we all attended university on campus, after the end of the academic day we almost always got together with classmates and went for a walk to the botanical garden, which is near Concordia. Also, before the full-scale war, we tried to celebrate every birthday with the guys. All of this confirms that our interaction within the group is at a high level, both during our studies and in our free time.
Handling of individual differences
It’s always good when an educational institution has an individualized approach to students rather than a generalized one. Concordia does very well in this regard.
If a student has a problem, the dean’s office responds within a few hours (no more than 3 days) to any question and tries to help solve it as quickly as possible. For example, when a student has a power outage, the university sympathizes with this and can pass a deadline for the assignment. Another example, when I was in my first year, I got coronavirus and could not attend exams, but I had no problem providing the dean’s office with the relevant certificate and I was allowed to write the exam on another day.
There are elective courses in our system of study. This means that the student is able to choose which subject he or she wants to study. This system of individualization greatly helps students feel comfortable and free.
Human capital development
In general, education is the main tool in the development of human capital. Our university specialty is aimed at improving students’ skills in international economic relations, management, administration and business. Each subject or lecture is aimed at the development of individual qualities of the student, which is the development in the sphere of human capital. How students use this knowledge and tools is another matter.
Different exchange programs such as Erasmus+ are very helpful for students to develop human capital.
EQ development
This is a very important part of a person for successful personal development. Understanding how to show, direct and manage emotions is the key to a thriving team.
A community of students, especially our students who come from all over the world, is a great place to test themselves and learn how to properly manage emotions. Increasing your emotional intelligence in the context of study and interaction with your classmates is easy and rewarding. All you have to do is attend lectures, have discussions with your peers in class, or even in class chats. You may not even notice, but over time a person improves, develops his or her emotional abilities.
I believe that the best way to improve EQ is to communicate with teachers than with peers. The point is that with a lecturer it’s much harder to find the emotion you have to show, or that you want to show. A student needs to analyze a huge amount of factors before saying something to a teacher, or taking an action.
For example, a student may want to make a joke about some topic in class. In this case, you need to think carefully about the teacher’s response so that she or he doesn’t think the joke is rude or inappropriate. Even now I am typing an answer to this assignment and thinking about what emotion I will evoke in the teacher, how the professor will react to this or that sentence written by me in this assignment. All of this is developing our EQ every second.
