Общеуниверситетская подготовка ЕГУ: Что такое симпозиум? (2017)

European Humanities University
A symposium is quite an interesting thing, which is new for us – a new form, something different.
Usually, symposium is understood as a scientific community, scientific report.
For us it is really the result of students' research.
The students are given different tasks within the framework of the course, which helps the students to get more information to learn.
That means that students have to read additional texts, fiction,
and then they have to prepare presentations and performances, which can help them to show, how they see the topic,
how they got the given knowledge and how they can use it for real processes.
The filling of the course, the texts we are given, they are good,
but, nevertheless, they’re not enough to cope with complicated and controversial questions we are asked.
We have to get much more information about authors,
for instance Tolstoy, Hesse or Nietzsche, like in our case.
‘Ecce Homo', which we were given, was not enough.
I had to read ‘The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music’ to get into this aspect.
Reading of any of these texts is a job, first of all a mental one.
I think, now the majority of people feels a headache,
and it means that it works.
I think, it is a great advantage of this course.
This is the area of students’ responsibility,
i.e. their perception of the texts,
their interpretation of the readings,
their understanding of the ideas of the texts we worked with
and new information.
It's a difficult task, because, for instance, the poem by Hölderlin
or the painting by Holbein weren’t simple for students to understand.
It was a serious challenge. The challenge is also connected with the fact that there was no possibility of plagiarizing during the preparation for the symposium,
no possibility to look at others,
so we get absolutely different results.
Sometimes there is some naivety, sometimes it's incredibly interesting,
but any way it is always independent and new.
You have to get impregnated with all of that.
If it concerns Nietzsche, then you have to learn all his works in details,
his biography, a particular text which was given for the symposium.
The knowledge is necessary, there is no other variant.
The preparation for the symposium is a group and collective job.
It is almost impossible to model it individually or to imagine the situation
where different people from different cities, boys and girls, come together,
read the composition by Hölderlin or listen to the music by Wagner or by Strauss
and decide to create a performance, connected with that.
It seems to be unreal.
So we created an artificial environment of learning to give students the chance to interact together as one.
Sometimes you can just be stunned.
When you have a team, you can just propose your idea and someone will catch it, supplement
and finally you will reach a result.
You have to be more open-minded.
You have to be unbiased about the texts,
not to say that you can't, you won't and you don't understand anything.
If you just try, you will achieve everything.
It was difficult. I couldn’t understand what I was doing there,
but then I understood, that it was developing me in a sphere of humanities.
That’s really great. It is especially important for those, who have just come from school.
It is easy to enter the university, but it is difficult to study.
Believe in yourself, and everything will be good.
Communication, the development of communicative skills is what really important for them in the future.
Self-presentation, the possibility of introducing yourself and the possibility of asserting your personal views,
the possibility of defining your position in this small group during the symposium –
all of these are invaluable lessons. And I am sure that they will remember it as the brightest experience in their lives, at least for now.
European Humanities University

Общеуниверситетская подготовка ЕГУ: Что такое симпозиум? (2017)

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