{"id":23443,"date":"2014-06-13T11:30:09","date_gmt":"2014-06-13T09:30:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/?p=23443"},"modified":"2016-11-18T23:03:07","modified_gmt":"2016-11-18T21:03:07","slug":"the-fantastic-five-of-summer-universities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/2014\/06\/13\/the-fantastic-five-of-summer-universities\/","title":{"rendered":"The Fantastic Five of Summer Universities"},"content":{"rendered":"

This year, a total of 3312 SU applicants made their choice amongst the 80 available Summer Universities. Among those, five of them stood out, having far more than 100 applications. It won\u2019t be a surprise that we are talking about AEGEE-Cagliari & AEGEE-Napoli\u2019s \u2018La vita \u00e8 bella: Mediterranean coast to coast\u2019 managed to gather 184 applications, but AEGEE-Peiraias’ ‘Sea Wars: The Port strikes again!’, AEGEE-Catania\u2019s \u2018The treasure island vol. III \u2013 The origins of the crew\u2019, AEGEE-Helsinki & AEGEE-Tartu\u2019s \u2018FinEst Way to Push your Limits\u2019 and last but not least AEGEE-Tarragona & AEGEE-Valencia\u2019s \u2018Touch the Sky Under the Mediterranean Fire\u2019 did a great job too! The AEGEEan spoke to the organising teams of this Fantastic Five to find out more about their methods.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Of course, the first thing we were wondering is how these Summer Universities managed to attract so many participants. The Fantastic Five agree that it\u2019s thanks to the unique program they offer, for example exploring the Nordic antennas, Greek islands or the Italian culture, but another important aspect is formed by the good ratings given in earlier years. As AEGEE-Cagliari and AEGEE-Napoli summarize: \u201cWe think it\u2019s probably due to what we can offer during the event: wonderful cities full of history and art that appeal millions of tourists each year, fantastic seasides and last but not least our typical folk spirit, that fascinates all people.\u201d AEGEE-Peiraias adds to this: “Our positive thinking and belief that we could make it, along with the dedication and hard work we put in this project resulted in this positive outcome.”<\/p>\n

Also, a good use of promotion never hurts, which is a tool the Fantastic Five used extensively. Pictures are a popular tool, but most of the Summer Universities also made a promotional video to share with their applicants what they could expect. AEGEE-Catania showed off their earlier held treasure hunt<\/a>, while AEGEE-Helsinki & AEGEE-Tartu made a series of videos<\/a>, AEGEE-Peiraias used video<\/a> too to promote their SU and\u00a0AEGEE-Cagliari and AEGEE-Napoli filmed a short summary<\/a> of what to expect. Next to this, another popular method was the creation of a Facebook page, where regular updates about the Summer University were given.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>After the successful promotion, it was time for a hard task: deciding on your participants, while having more than hundred applications waiting. How did the teams deal with this? \u201cWe first looked at the motivation letter, since our goal was to select participants who really wanted to be here and who would take part in every activity and opportunity to offer\u201d, AEGEE-Helsinki and AEGEE-Tartu tell us. \u201cSince most of them were pretty awesome, we also decided based on the country of residence to have cultural diversity and we also selected participants by gender, to have an equal amount of boys and girls.\u201d The other three use a similar method, also AEGEE-Catania adds that an original and funny motivation letter together with pictures and a video is the way to get through their preliminary selection.<\/p>\n

Asked about their tips for organising teams next year, the Fantastic Five have different tips ready. \u201cWe just recommend them, first of all, to be a group of very good friends. Having a strong friendship, with confidence in the people you are working with, is the best weapon for facing a challenge like this one. Apart from that, the team has to be motivated and ready to work during some months, with patience, but also enthusiasm.\u201d AEGEE-Helsinki and AEGEE-Tartu add to this that it\u2019s mostly important to imagine yourself being a participant in your SU. As AEGEE-Peiraias summarizes: “Together we stand, divided we fall. Our good cooperation and the respect and love we show for each other are the main ingredients of our team.”<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Since three out of five Summer Universities were done in cooperation, we were also curious what the benefits of joining forces are. \u201cWe think it\u2019s a good idea, because it brings the possibility to know the people from another antenna better, learn to work with another group of people who can teach you new things for your antenna and also to spend some days in another city\u201d, AEGEE-Tarragona and AEGEE-Valencia says. Another important reason is having a good chemistry between different teams, which happened to AEGEE-Cagliari and AEGEE-Napoli. Still, a Summer University can also be organized by just one local, as AEGEE-Catania and AEGEE-Peiraias proved us.<\/p>\n

Either way, whether you do it alone or together, organising a popular Summer University seems to be a mixture of good and extensive promotion, an awesome team, great plans and a lot of enthusiasm to make it happen. For this summer the plans have already been made, but let\u2019s create magic again next summer!<\/p>\n

Written by Svenja van der Tol, AEGEE-Nijmegen<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This year, a total of 3312 SU applicants made their choice amongst the 80 available Summer Universities. Among those, five of them stood out, having far more than 100 applications. It won\u2019t be a surprise that we are talking about AEGEE-Cagliari & AEGEE-Napoli\u2019s \u2018La vita \u00e8 bella: Mediterranean coast to coast\u2019 managed to gather 184 applications, but AEGEE-Peiraias’ ‘Sea Wars:… Read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":117,"featured_media":23444,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[5,17],"tags":[729,416,639,605,39,1109,390,1935,42],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23443"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/117"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23443"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23443\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37998,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23443\/revisions\/37998"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}