College of Dunaújváros has laboratory working with the NASA and the ESA

Several foreigners live in Hungary, who have contributed to the country’s development with their mental and financial capital. The “Study In Hungary” education service made an interview with Katalin Gyöngyössy, the Head of the International Relations Office at the College of Dunaújváros.

Study in Hungary: Please introduce yourself to our readers.
Katalin Gyöngyössy: Hello and Welcome from the College of Dunaújváros, Hungary! My name is Katalin Gyöngyössy and I am the head of the International Relations Office at our university. The priority in my work is to help our foreign students to find themselves home here in Dunaújváros, even if they are far away from their real home. Me and my colleagues are continuously working on the well-being of our international students regarding their educational programs, cultural integration or daily problems, as well!

A fully self-sustained building from the campus – it is using only solar and geothermal energy

Study in Hungary: How would you briefly define College of Dunaújváros in 3-4 sentences?
Katalin Gyöngyössy: The College of Dunaújváros is a University of Applied Sciences with a modern, European level campus, with vivid student life and high quality educational programs. Our school is focusing mainly on Engineering and offering (one of) the best Mechanical Engineering programs and Material Engineering programs in English language in Hungary! In the last year we had more than 150 international students from all around the world through our different English language programs.

Study in Hungary: What are the competitive advantages of your college compared to other Hungarian and European colleges?
Katalin Gyöngyössy: This one is my favorite questionsas in my opinion we have so many features which could be considered as an advantage. Let’s start with the geography: we are 60 kilometers away from Budapest which is 1 hour with bus or train. This means that both the capital and the airport are easy to reach. Budapest is a great city – some people even say that it is the best city for young people. Dunaújváros is a middle-sized town in Hungary on the bank of the Danube, with so many calm and green places for relaxing and studying. In Budapest, you can always find a place for more party, in Dunaújváros you can always find a place for comfortable study – which does not mean that the student cannot find parties here – and when we are talking about fee paying educational programs, I think the second one is more important.

The entrance of the library

We are not a big institution – with so many teachers and even more students – which means, our teachers know their students – especially the international students – personally! In the big Hungarian universities the students are usually just names or even just Neptun codes (an identification code for the official electronic study system). In our school we have a view, that the professors and the students have a more personal relationship – students usually accepted as colleagues in different research projects – and they can solve their problems within a friendlier atmosphere.

About our student life: we are one of the four proud keepers of the Selmecbánya heritage in Hungary. Selmecbánya is a city now located in Slovakia however before the World Wars it was the part Hungary for a thousand years. Selmecbánya was a famous and rich city with hundreds-year- old mining and metallurgy traditions. After the World Wars, Hungary lost Selmecbánya however the teachers and professors from there moved to the new, small Hungary and they established new schools – one of them in Dunaújváros – on the base of the Selmecbánya traditions. This heritage is a living cultural tradition: our students have groups based on their study programs and every group has their official ceremonies, uniforms for celebrations, songs and poems, competitions, parties and life-long memberships. Our foreign students can join these groups with the willingness of learning some basic Hungarian language.

However theseare not the only features we are proud of. The College of Dunaújváros has great laboratories, as well. In cooperation with the Bosch Company, we have a life-term examination laboratory, one of the four in whole Europe! Another laboratory of ours working with the NASA and the ESA creating and testing materials for spacecrafts. Some of our language laboratories equipped fully with Apple Macintosh computers and we have a fully equipped TV studio – an exact copy about second largest commercial TV company’s studio of Hungary – where our students can practice every aspects of the media profession.

Study in Hungary: Which programs does College of Dunaújváros offer for foreign students and what are the languages of instruction?
Katalin Gyöngyössy: Right now we have 6 first cycle degree programs and 2 second cycle degree programs taught fully in English language.

These are the:
– Business Administration BA
– Communication and Media BA
– Computer Engineering BSc
– Technical Management BSc (this one usually known as Engineering Business Management)
– Material Engineering BSc (in Hungary we are one of the 3 schools that offers this program but we have the greatest tradition and experience)
– Mechanical Engineering BSc
– Mechanical Engineering MSc
– Teacher of Engineering MA

For our English language programs we offer a 1 year preparatory program for those students whose English language level is under the requirements (below IELTS 5.5).

The main park and the main building of the campus at night

We are also offering a wide range of study programs in Hungarian language as well, however till this moment no international student applied for those. This does not mean we would not gladly accept a student with a moderate good Hungarian language level! J

Study in Hungary: Could you give information about your campus to us?
Katalin Gyöngyössy: The campus of the College of Dunaújváros is a very modern one, most of our buildings were built after 2005. They are well equipped and very easy to approach as it is located in the center of Dunaújváros: close to the bus station, the shopping centers and the entertaining facilities. Every facility of the campus – study halls, laboratories, campus restaurant, dormitory, library, etc. – are close to each other which provides comfort for our students (so being late from a class is hard but not impossible J) Our students can use the Internet through Wi-Fi everywhere in the campus for free. Our indoor and outdoor sport facilities offer several kinds of sport but if the school did not offer student’swish, there is always a chance that the city offers it – in the past years Dunaújváros was considered as the sport capital of Hungary!

Study in Hungary: What are the tuition fees, dormitory costs and other living expenses of College of Dunaújváros students?
Katalin Gyöngyössy: As you probably know, the living cost of Hungary is way under the European Union’s average which is a great advance for the higher education institutions in our country. Many foreign students chose us based upon this feature even from Brazil, as well! Moreover our tuition fees also quite favourable comparing to other universities in Hungary. Our tuition fee (for the students of our bachelor degree courses) is 3550 euro per academic year (2 semesters).

We think that the accommodation is one of the most important question for and international student that’s why we offer places – unlike any other universities in Budapest –  for every foreign student automatically in our dormitory. The price for the accommodation is 120 euro per month.

The main entrance of a building from the campus

Study in Hungary: Do you plan to launch new programs in near future – upcoming September?
Katalin Gyöngyössy: We have plans of course however our programs always based both on our strengths and the demands of the market. Right now we can offer the programs I mentioned before but with a proper number of applicants we can start new programs on the fields of business, engineering and computer studies.

Study in Hungary: Do you have any scholarships or discounts for prospective students?
Katalin Gyöngyössy: The Hungarian government recently started a scholarship program called Stipendium Hungaricum. This scholarship offered to students from many countries for full time education programs, project-works and research-works as well! We also started the negotiations with Azerbaijani officials to consider our school as an optional destination for the Azerbaijani state scholarship on education abroad (“State Program on study of Azerbaijani youth in abroad for 2007-2015”).

Study in Hungary: What are the current and new target countries forCollege of Dunaújváros to recruit new students?
Katalin Gyöngyössy: Our traditional countries where from we usually recruit students are China, South Korea, Turkey, Cameroon, Nigeria and Ukraine. The leadership of the school recently started a new project – called Opening for the East – which targets new markets for our recruiting work. These countries are Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan from western and central Asia; Iran, Saud-Arabia and the United Arab Emirates from the Middle-East; Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay from South-America.

Source: http://www.study-hungary.com/