Ágota Kovács
I am Ágota Kovács. I am 21 and am studying International Relations and European Studies in English at the Babes-Bolyai University. I visited Beacon in the summer of 2016 and stayed with the DeMizio family. My brother Dávid visited Summit in 2019.
Before the pandemic, I was studying in Kolozsvár. To be honest, academic life was challenging because almost all my classmates and teachers were Romanian. It was a bit difficult to study in a different language rather than Hungarian. At the same time, I really liked being in Kolozsvár, meeting old acquaintances and getting to know new ones. Life was constantly going on around me.
Not long after the virus broke out, I moved home, and it was good at first after the stressful exam period. But then a more difficult time started: For the first six weeks of the lockdown, classes really didn’t take place. After that, I studied from home, and to be honest, I struggled to get through the fall semester.
Then in January, I got into the EU’s Erasmus + exchange program to study at a university in Hungary. I came to Budapest on the 1st of February. I’m still homeschooling, but I live together with a bunch of other girls. My classes here are much more interesting and interactive than classes at home, much more colorful and more international in nature. In Kolozsvár, we focus on the EU and its economic, monetary, security and decision-making systems.
Here I really appreciate that we have a course that focuses on the language policy of the EU. It’s important for me to understand how the EU manages language diversity, since I speak a minority language in Romania. I met a Spanish girl who speaks Catalan, and we had a really interesting conversation about how our situations are similar but also so different.
As for my future career, I took courses in ethical management and international law, and I enjoyed them. I am considering law, but I don’t think this is my path. For the summer, I would like to stay here in Budapest and take an internship at UNICEF.
Thank you so much for the material and emotional support. I can’t be more grateful that I can be part of the Beacon-Barót scholarship program.