Erasmus Reception, 11 October 2016

We held our annual Erasmus Reception on 11 October at the Centre. The event is an opportunity to introduce the objectives and services of the Cardiff EDC to students visiting Cardiff University on an Erasmus+ study exchange. In addition, UK students intending or considering a similar exchange to another participating country are welcomed.

In all about sixty students attended the reception, coming from Austria, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Latvia, The Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden Switzerland and the UK, plus guests from other countries such as Colombia. The students were from a wide range of academic departments – in addition to Modern Languages and Law and Politics, there were people from Business, Biosciences, Engineering, Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies, Pharmacy and Healthcare.

Cardiff EDC Director Ian Thomson welcomed the students and talked about our unique information service European Sources Online, internship programme and events, while stressing that the centre provides a totally professional and neutral information and enquiry service on all topics relating to Europe.

Assistant Director Frederico Rocha previewed our next event to be held on 17 November 2016, when we will examine how other EU Member States have reacted to the result of the June 2016 referendum in the UK to leave the EU. There will be a series of short presentations from our current batch of interns and then a general debate.

David Hughes, the Head of the Representation of the European Commission in Wales, spoke to welcome incoming Erasmus exchange students and to extoll the benefits of the programme to UK students. He spoke of the great success of Erasmus and about how, in these troubled times, participants also have a role as international ambassadors working for better mutual understanding.

We also welcomed Rachel Harper, who is a final year languages undergraduate at Cardiff University. Rachel has become the FCO (Foreign and Commonwealth Office) Student Ambassador at Cardiff University for this year. In this capacity she spoke of the FCO Know Before You Go (KBYG) / Travel Aware campaign, an ongoing initiative to make sure that British students and others are well prepared for their travels and stay safe abroad.  [For more information: https://twitter.com/hashtag/travelaware]

As is usual at our events we offered a delicious buffet and drinks to our guests. The event raises the profile of the Cardiff EDC and encourages students to make use of our services (enquiry service, ESO, study facilities etc), attend our events, and even apply for one of our part-time internships. One of the student attendees sent a message to us after the event saying ‘I shall definitely be making use of the centre for studying as I really loved the friendly environment and people’.

We are grateful to the Representation of the European Commission in Wales for their support of the event.

More photographs can be seen on our Facebook page.

Ian Thomson
13 October 2016