By Kiev Martinez
To the entire Student Body of McDaniel, congratulations on another successful semester completed! To those of our fraters and sorors that will be leaving us to pursue employment, post-graduate education, travel, sanity, life – we as a student body give you our respect and admiration as you lead the way for us in this ever more challenging world. You will all be missed, and we hope that you continue to join us as Alumni in our events and activities. To the administration, we as the 2017 – 2018 McDaniel Budapest Student Body give you our respect and gratitude for allowing us the opportunity to have an education at such a wonderful institution in such a magnificent city.
We have had an exciting year and are looking forward to having another one during the 2018 – 2019 School Year. The school has some exciting news to share with the students!
McDaniel will be hosting a student Welcoming Day with a picnic in a beautiful countryside setting, replete with fishing lake, covered gazeebo, Hungarian stew as well as vegerarian options, as well as games and activities to keep you busy and introduce you to the new students, on Saturday, September 8. We will meet at Bethlen Gabor Ter 2 in front of the school building at 11am, and take buses up to this beautiful location in Nograd County! We will be having sign-up sheets for sports and activities that day posted before the first week of class, so make sure that you get in and have some fun. We will have frisbees, volleyballs, soccer balls, and all kinds of food! We will be arranging for lunch and beverages. That evening, we will have our McDaniel Student Pub Crawl, with announcements to come. What I can say is that we can rely on the awesome Party Bookers© crew to help us plan our events and get us into the coolest venues!
Another exciting event coming up is our first school wide trip to ::drum roll:: BRUSSELS! We are expecting to depart the evening of October 18th or early on the 19th, and return the 22nd or 23rd – depending on what prices we can find for accommodations. WizzAir also gives a great group discount on airfare (FYI) for groups of 11 or more. Please note that you should factor about 230€/HUF 73,000/ $275 to cover for your flight and housing. Here is handy price guide for Brussels: https://thesavvybackpacker.com/city-guide/daily-costs-visit-brussels-belgium/. Things to know:
1) Deposits can be handed in as soon as the first day of class, and must be paid by September 14th, 2018 at the latest. Final payments must be made by September 25th.
2) We are trying to find the best experience for price value (i.e., cheap but good!) for accommodations – so know it won’t be a luxury hotel, nor will be a dump! We’ve got some good leads on renting out an entire hostel.
3) We will have one group “tourist” activity, and one group dinner – the rest of the time, enjoy! Wouldn’t it be cool to get on one of those giant red buses as a group and ride around Brussels like a bunch of tourists! (oh, wait…)
Here’s another handy guide! https://www.likealocalguide.com/brussels/things-to-do
4) If you are interested in the trip and want to receive updates, please add or message Kiev Martinez, Chahinez Haddad, Mubarak Aliyu or Blecham Iqalasenshen on Facebook in order to be added to the group: McDaniel Budapest Autumn 2018 Brussels Trip.
We are so looking forward to this trip! Remember your cameras – we would like to have a school mural or art something with photos of our bi-annual trips!
On to further news, we recently had a poll to organize a formal student body council, and the results came in for Mubarak Aliyu, Blecham Iqalasenshen and Kiev Martinez. Together, these three students, along with Chahinez Haddad and others who were interfacing between student activities and the administration will establish a better-functioning student council. We look forward to having elections at the end of the next school year for the following term’s student leaders. These positions are being crafted to provide experience and hands on training in a professional education atmosphere, valuable for a CV. The “Student Advisory Council”, as it will be known, will work on many things, including:
1) Establishing a working Student Advisory Council to help the both the school and student body have a richer and more efficient experience.
2) Organize student activities, trips, performances, and other events.
3) Assist with securing internships and volunteer opportunities.
4) Building and maintaining a sense of school spirit and pride in the education and experience we have at McDaniel College.
5) Creating bridges between the McDaniel community and other education institutions in Budapest and Europe.
6) Facilitating any issues with other student run organs and the administration.
7) Providing the students with a way to voice their opinions and ideas and the knowledge that they have been heard.
We are also excited to welcome not only the new students from our Westminster sister campus, but also the new students to our small but growing family! Let’s show them how we do in Budapest!
Since this is a lot of information to process, please keep an eye out for updates and postings over the summer break on our Facebook page – McDaniel College Budapest, or the Facebook group – McDaniel Budapest Fall 2018.
May the road rise up to meet you. May the wind always be at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face, and rains fall soft upon your fields.
