Last weekend GZAAT School Culture Committee along with one of the juniors, Liza Dugladze, organized a communitywide event - ‘The Alumni Weekend’. The purpose of this project was to enrich the future graduates’ knowledge about life as a university student abroad. The alumni guests talked about various topics, including, their own experiences at universities, how they adjusted to the new environment, the opportunities they got, and more. They also discussed specific majors, possible career paths and gave some advice to the students. The guest list consisted of recent graduates as well as some older ones, all of which had different experiences throughout their time in the school and out of it. The sessions were divided into four main fields of study including, Business and Economics, Social Sciences, Natural sciences or STEM, and Art. These were further divided into two categories - students from American universities and European ones. Due to the current circumstances, the meetings were held online, allowing students not only from GZAAT but from all schools nationwide to attend. To get more information about the event, its success, and organization, we asked one of the organizers, Liza Dugladze, a few questions:
-How did you come up with this idea?
I was volunteering for a project called “Helping Hand” and needed to come up with an idea of a useful activity. Considering I am a junior myself and know that one thing that worries students my age, especially in GZAAT, is choosing the right university and degree, I decided to organize meetings with our alumni and make it available for everyone, including people outside of the American Academy. After listening to the opinions of my peers and the college counselors, I decided to carry out the plan. It turned out that the school culture committee previously had the same idea so we united our forces and made it happen.
-Why do you think these kinds of events are important?
This is an educational event that provides students with some very useful information for their future. From my point of view, these types of events make students’ lives easier and reduce the pressure of making important decisions as choosing their future career. In addition, listening to other people’s experiences and taking their pieces of advice, prevents students from making some crucial mistakes. Obviously, it is always nice to have a competent person to talk to.
-Will there be future projects/events like this?
To tell the truth, I have not planned anything yet, but considering this event turned out to be very successful, there is a chance of repeating it or organizing something new. Moreover, I am also one of the heads of the charity organization called “Motus”, which is planning to hold more educational events in the future.
-In your opinion was this project successful? And why?
I think this project was definitely successful for several reasons. First of all, the alumni, as well as, the students took this job with great responsibility, attended the sessions, and made the discussions interesting. Secondly, there were no technical difficulties. And finally, all the guests were satisfied, which was our main goal.
-Thank you, Liza, we hope there will be more educational projects like this one in the future.
-You are welcome.
As Liza mentioned, this project was a big success.”This was a very good experience for me since it was interesting to meet people who went to the school I am currently in years before me, see how they are doing and what path they chose, as well as ask them different questions and interact with them face to face. I definitely learned many things that I did not know before, for example, the recommendations that they had, as well as some additional information about the admission processes to universities in Europe and the US. I think that it is very important to organize such meetings because most of us are inexperienced, we are not really sure about what we want to do with our lives after we finish high school,” says one of the attendees, a junior, Natalia Gvindadze. It truly was a great opportunity for future graduates. This event gave students from GZAAT and outside of it, a better perspective on what their futures might look like.
Edited by Elene Berelashvili
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