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ELITE ISSUE 16, FEBRUARY 2020 PAGE 15

A SEMESTER From Berlin:

OUTSIDE FEPS Running thoughts ask us at least once why you are still there? W hy not getting back to your
comfort zone? Why not just leave all that in a less than a second without giving a try? And I felt
Nouran Hossam
like prey to that for some time. The more you keep fighting these thoughts by engaging yourself

in brand new activities the more they fade away; it is either you find your real self in that battle
FEPS Political Science Student- Fourth
or you just get used to it. Leaving your place, and your people for a while is not a mere decision
Level
Studying at Freie Universität Berlin but a challenge where you have to accept it genuinely till the end or just quit it all before it
She is also a Founding Editor of ELITE
starts. But sometimes you just need signs or omens that tell you; “you are on the right track ”.

Like many students at Cairo university especially FEPS, I have bee n thinking about how the
educational systems in the developed countries work and how do they differ in terms of many
aspects. Through the previous months, I have been faced with different cultures that I could not
have anticipated their issues before. In the first week at the host univers ity, I have been assigned
the same amount of the readings that we are entitled to finish in a we ek at FEPS or a bit more
which made me feel less suspicious of our educational style at FEP S. From various books, and
articles the first one I picked to read is prepared in cooperation with a group of notable
professors from different continents and one of them is Dr Amal H amada and the work was
wholly arranged between a foreign research Centre and the Cen tre for middle eastern and North
African politics with the logo of FEPS on the cover page which left me astonished at the first
sight but content, and proud for the rest of the day. Through the discussions, the students were
not talking about outsider matters but things that we have tackled o n the gradual basis for the
past 4 years, they are no different as we may think at some p oints but students who have
passion and commitment just as we do.

Also, for the part of the Academia ’s environment, I have never felt the differences between the
developed and the developing countries as I have expected bef ore. In FEPS we are up to date
when it comes to the researches arena and we have the same ability as any entity else and even
more if we pushed ourselves to.
Expecting any less from my faculty was not a real thought throug hout my whole academic
years, I have always thought how our place is unique and ho w are the surroundings and the
people different in such respectable way. But I had that feeling there could be better things even
though, not all the upgrading processes happen immediately, there are a lot of things that could
be modified in a positive way.
Being in new surroundings would lead you to think about your orig inal place and compare it to
others not for the sake of disaffection but for the sake of improve ment. One of the issues that
we need to reconsider it is the evaluation system criteria, in which it ca n totally change how we
perceive the educational system as students and how we look at ourselves as human beings.
where the grading system in other developed countries differ fro m ours in terms of the aim or
the goal behind the evaluation which is reflected upon it on the g rading mechanisms in the
educational systems where the grades could not be the only genu ine criterion of the students
understanding and absorption degrees but the practice and exp erience not only exams and
quizzes. That is something completely perceivable when we conside r that our real scope in
sciences is researching which depends mainly on the practices of academic research, especially
in the political science department.

I believe that we could go on in our ways continuing in enhanc ing our situation, not solely by
comparing ourselves to the others but by having our own unique and original vision of
ourselves and what we need to be as well as the will of being committed.

ELITE ISSUE 16, FEBRUARY 2020 PAGE 15