As you may already know I came to Ireland five weeks ago to start my Erasmus exchange programme at the University of Limerick. I’m doing my second year as a communication and media science student, specialized in journalism. I really enjoyed studying this subject at my home university, but to be honest the Irish education system is different and after a few weeks I can say I like it better.
The first and maybe the most important difference is that every module is built up of two or three classes. There is a lecture where we just learn about the subject and we’re listening to a presentation, and a Lab and a Tutorial which are more interactive and we can work on the projects we have to do during the term. It was a little bit surprising because before I came here I thought I will have only 4 classes a week but it turned out I have 8 haha. At least I’m never bored. In Hungary all of the modules are just one class, some of them take place in a huge lecture theatre with a lot of students and there are some with smaller groups and are a little bit more specific. Here in Ireland in those labs and tutorials we have the chance to talk a lot to our teachers and to ask for their help, discuss about the projects.
So the other thing that I like is the communication between the lecturers and the students. I think I’m lucky because at my home university in Budapest we also have a good communication too with our teachers and we can discuss about the subjects during the classes which is really important. But here as I experienced the teachers work a bit harder to start conversations with us but students are more responding in Hungary.
The third difference and the one which is the hardest for me to get used to is homework. In Hungary we don’t really have to do homework weekly just read something or rarely we have to write essays or do projects but mostly in the end of the semester. But here in Ireland I have some homework after almost every class. To be honest I’m not used to studying before the exam period starts (maybe at this point I have to mention that it’s not necessarily because I don’t have to…) but here I have to. I don’t want to lie, of course it’s not my favourite thing but I wouldn’t say it’s a bad way to educate. Because of this I think we study here in a more practical way which is important in every field but especially in journalism. You can’t learn how to write if you don’t do it. It’s missing a little bit at my home university and that’s why I feel that my knowledge and writing skills or experience is under the average compared to Irish students. But we’ll see it after the end of spring.
And as the last one let me mention this, the blogging. But it’s just one of those handy tasks we have to learn here. I think blogging, creating and designing a website is a basic knowledge that a student in the media field has to know but I haven’t realised it until I started doing it. So I want to say that it’s really good that we have to try every platform where writing appears. Sometimes it’s scary to publish my practice my practice on the internet because as I already written, I’m not used to it and it’s a weird feeling that in a “smaller version” I do what real journalist do but it’s definitely one of the best way to study. Even if you get some negative feedback.
So by and large I can say that there is some differences between Hungarian and Irish journalism studies of course, but I like both. I don’t want to say that the Hungarian one is bad because I think my university is still better than others in Budapest (maybe I’m a bit biased) and they provide us a lot of opportunities and I enjoy being there. But as I said the Irish one is more practical and even if my Hungarian one is really good and professional it can’t be the same and as good. But maybe that’s the point of the Erasmus programme that students bring home their experience and use it at their own university. I think I will.
Journalism studies in Ireland 