Cambridge: Centre of Academic Excellence and Insight

“People who know what they’re talking about don’t need PowerPoint” (Steve Jobs). A strong statement. Dr Lorand Bartels, our lecturer, does not use any kind of support except by his memory. It is marvellous to see someone who has such a profound knowledge about all global happenings of the past 50 years. We literally touched in our lectures every global issue that is connected to trade – ranging from the Cuba Crisis to the Cold War or from the Ukraine- to the Greek Crisis.

Our lecture today started with a student-debate about the “Container Security Initiative”. Its main purpose was to increase security in the whole world after 09/11.

The two parties of the debate were the US and New Zealand. Another student from Singapore and I were the representatives of the US. The representatives of New Zealand were from China and the Philippines.

New Zealand accused the US of discriminating them. They will suffer under the implementation of the initiative because goods will take more transportation time, small countries will experience a greater financial disadvantage and there could be a shift of terrorism to small countries – like New Zealand – which were not included in the initiative.

Because of the international environment – surrounded by an audience with people from all around the world – I felt like the debate took place in the headquarters of the WTO in Geneva.

The discussion – under the direction of Dr Bartels – ended with the conclusion that no one wants to be responsible if there happened a terroristic act because of less security measures. Hence, the US have won the debate!

I published a book last year. Its title is: “The Conditions about Happiness – an Intercultural Comparison between the Philippines and Germany.” Cambridge reminded me every day of this wonderful experience. I travelled for the book through whole East Asia, conducted studies and tried to find the core of happiness.

A quote that accompanied my travel time is the following: “All travel has its advantages. If the passenger visits better countries, he may learn to improve his own. And if fortune carries him to worse, he may learn to enjoy it.” (Samuel Johnson)

Cambridge is academically definitely the best place I visited so far. Learning here feels like traveling – traveling to make my home in a better place.

Thanks Cambridge, thanks Dr. Bartels.

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Although Cambridge Summer Institute is not being offered this year, we'd still love to invite you to our sister programme, Summer Institute at Oriel College, Oxford!

This is an exclusive academic study abroad programme offered by Oriel College, one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford!

Visit Summer Institute at Oriel College Website