Mentor System

It is always not easy to go to study in abroad and to get used to the new environment, especially when cultural and other differences between your country and Lithuania as well as language barrier are significant. For this reason at Mykolas Romeris University we have launched Mentors’ programme to help foreign exchange students to adapt in the new environment. Since academic year 2006/2007 Mentors’ programme is organized by the Committee for International Relations of Students’ Representative Body where students working to ease some worries of students’ life.

Mentors are Lithuanian students volunteers – your contemporaries. Most of them already have been Erasmus students so we know with what kind of problems exchange students face and peculiarities of Erasmus traditions. All incoming exchange students get personal mentors which can answer most of the questions about life, entertainments and places to visit in Lithuania. They are helping for students to do all the necessary things:

meeting arriving students at Vilnius International Airport, Bus or Train stations;
housing in the Students’ House;
finding a flat to rent if it is necessary;
arranging documents for Migration Office;
applying for LSP (Lithuanian student ID);
paying for the dormitory or opening an account in the bank;
solving health problems and etc.

Students’ Representation also organizes various entertainment events for all students and some special events for foreign students such as City Quiz, Sauna Party, X-mass Party, trips to neighboring countries, ect.

All of this is to make foreign students to feel more comfortable in Lithuania and to bring home the best memories about Erasmus studies at Mykolas Romeris University.

ELECTIONS

On the 29th of April one of the last meetings of members of ESN MRU Vilnius was held in order to elect a new president. Besides this, there were a few reports presented as well as discussed about future issues.

First of all, Jurgita Bataityte, a former president of ESN MRU Vilnius, introduced her report on two past year activities. During this time the Mentoring program has developed into an ESN section. Therefore, the program includes now not only every day life help to coming exchange students, but also lots of cultural events, trips, social projects and of course collaboration among ESN sections. What’s more? ESN MRU Vilnius is represented in the international level as well!
For this reason, due to cope with a bunch of new issues there was a vice president (Laura Vaiciakauskaite) elected who became responsible for the social integration of coming exchange students. Three more coordinators (Justina Kozlovska, Martynas Juska and Alisa Grebinskyte) started to take care of such specific fields as Human Resources, IT and Public Relations. So by this way, they are unofficial Board Members of ESN MRU Vilnius.

Laura Vaiciakauskaite, a former vice president, was elected to lead the section during a following year. In her speech Laura presented herself, her competences and future strategy. Laura mentioned that now her number one priorities are a selection of new members, implementation of ESN Sattelite webpage and the National Mentor Days. Afterwards, she will promote further social projects, as well as collaboration among ESN sections, and tide international relationships.

Many former members are coming back fr om their Erasmus studies and are willing to join the section with brand new ideas! So as all the time we are there for you to make sure that your Erasmus Period is colourful and meaningful, or in other words to say, a life time experience!

Jurgita Bataityte

ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING OF THE ERASMUS STUDENT NETWORK

On the 8-12th of April, the metropolian city of Istambul was colored by one of the largest student events in Europe: the Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the Erasmus Student Network (ESN) wh ere around five hundred participants fr om 33 member countries participated. ESN Lietuva was represented by President Milda Aleknonytė (ESN Vilnius University), National Representative Ieva Vezbergaitė (ESN Vilnius University), section Presidents Giedre Gelšvartaitė, Rūta Želvytė and Jurgita Bataitytė from ESN KTU, ESN KK and ESN MRU respectively.

Erasmus Student Network is one of the major interdisciplinary student associations in Europe. It was founded in 1989 and its main objective is to develop and maintain student exchanges. In other words - to take care of them during their stay abroad, integrate them in the new culture and develop their cultural awareness. Students Helping Students is the main working principle of ESN.

ESN Lietuva is slowly but steadily gaining grounds in the interational arena by implementig projects such as ExchangeAbility – which encourages the mobility of disabled students, PRIME – Problems of Recognition in Making Erasmus, ESN Survey – which brings to light the student point of view about their study abroad, Social Erasmus and many others.
By all means did the AGM let the delegates of ESN Lietuva gain valuable knowledge about the network and encouraged to strengthen their stand, because it provides one of the major possibilities to attract foreign students to study in Lithuania.
ESN Lietuva congratulates the new International Board of ESN and is looking forward to the Nothern European Platform, which is going to take place in Turku, Finland this coming fall.

Jurgita Bataitytė

MEETING AT MRU

On 23th of February ESN MRU, a section of Erasmus Student Network, had the honor to welcome guests: President of the ESN Lietuva Milda Aleknonytė and National Representative Ieva Vezbergaitė.

Ieva Vezbergaitė, who is also a member of ESN Vilnius University, prepared an informative presentation about the Erasmus Student Network. It was one of the first ESN meetings at our university, which introduced mentors the Network, its sections, values, structure, rights, and obligations, while the idea out of it was to encourage mentors to do their best in their work. As a fact, ESN MRU is very enthusiastic to be a member of the Erasmus Student Network.

This meeting was also colored by different team-building games which helped mentors to know each other better and to understand the importance of the efficient team work.

Edita Budryte

ESN LITHUANIA MEETING

On 20th of February 2010, the sections of the European Student Network (ESN VU, ESN KTU, ESN VMU, ESN ŠU) and two candidates ESN MRU and ESN KK (Kauno kolegija) gathered at Kaunas kolegija. Mykolas Romeris University was represented by Jurgita Bataitytė, Martynas Juška, Justina Kozlovska, Laura Vaičiakauskaitė and Rūta Vasiliauskaitė.
First of all, everybody was introduced with the Study visit results at MRU and KK. The ESN MRU section-candidate made a very good impression about their hand in hand work with the Directorate of International Relations and Studies, strong mentor program and shared areas of coordination. After ballet voting ESN MRU and ESN KK candidate-sections were officially confirmed as full and equal ESN sections.
At the second part of the meeting there were members elected into the ESN National Board. The ESN President became Milda Aleknotytė (ESN VU), Vice-president - Romanas Šarpanov (ESN ŠU) and the Treasurer - Eimantas Matulaitis (ESN KTU). The new section ESN MRU congratulates all the new elected members!
During the meeting National Representative Ieva Vezbergaitė also presented National Board Meeting (NBM) in Besancon and International Board, Council of National Delegates (CNR) Warsaw and the following CNR Vilnius in September. The ESN sections wh ere introduced to the following projects: PRIME – Problems of Recognition In Making Erasmus, Social ERASMUS, Exangeability, ESN Survey, ESN cards, SUMMER CAMP Katoniškėse and et al.
What is the most important, members of all the ESN Lithuania sections were able to meet, discuss and exchange their experience, problems and successes of the mentoring program and Erasmus students. Taking everything into amount, it was a day of useful work and experience for all the ESN members.

Rūta Vasiliauskaitė

SEMINAR FOR ESN MEMBERS

The event which was dedicated to the members of ESN Lietuva sections (ESN VU, ESN VGTU, ESN VDU and two candidates ESN MRU and ESN KK) took place on the 28th January at Vilnius University. Most of the participants were fr om our Mykolas Romeris University ( ESN MRU). The lecturer of the seminar about leadership and successful team work was given Algirdas Karalius. He encouraged us to set long lasting aims, not to avoid responsibility for your action, since we create the future ourselves.

One of the purposes of the seminar was to motivate the members of ESN Lithuania to work together and build a successful team. Participants were given not only theoretical knowledge, but also practical tasks. They had to work in teams in order to achieve a common goal.

The members of ESN were satisfied with the event. The lecture was informative and full of examples of real life situations. That is why it is a priceless experience, which will be useful for our organization so that it could expand and improve.

CONFERENCE ON ERASMUS STUDENT NETWORK

November 25th, 2009 menthors of Mykolas Romeris University, Jurgita Bataitytė, Ieva Balinskaitė, Alisa Grebinskytė and Martynas Juška, together with the Coordinator of Academic Exchange Programmes Ieva Tondrykaite participated at the conference “Erasmus Student Network: Development and Problems of Erasmus Exchange Programme” which was held in Kaunas. The aim of this conference was to introduce activities, tasks, goals of “Erasmus Student Network” (ESN). Also activities of mentors and ESN in other universities of Lithuania (VU, VMU and ŠU) were introduced by students of those universities: ESN VU Coordinator Gintarė Gedrimaitė, VMU Officer of International Relations Jurgita Pilypaitytė, ESN ŠU Coordinator Algirdas Tamoševičius. We were also informed about the ESN activity in our neighbour countries by the member of ESN Riga Santa Jastrebova and by the member of ESN Tallin Kadi Kallas.
Ilona Kazlauskaitė, Head of Higher Education Programmes Unit at Educational Exchange Support Foundation, has told more about Erasmus student programme, its statistics, mobility, scholarships in her presentation “Erasmus Student Exchange Programme: Implementation in Europe and Lithuania”.

The conference was very useful for Mykolas Romeris University mentors because we got acquainted with ESN work and activities. University mentors want to establish the same section at our university. ESN activities will help to integrate foreign student who come to study at Mykolas Romeris University under Erasmus exchange programme, to get them acquainted with Lithuanian life, studies, customs. Also University mentors will be able to collaborate with other Lithuanian universities, which have ESN sections, arrange common events and other activities.

Mentor Alisa Grebinskytė

MENTORS' DAY 2009

On 16 October, Erasmus students organized an event "Mentor's Day". It was meant to bring students together not only to work in the academic environment, but also to get to know each other better. Mentor's team has set a task for Erasmus students to organize an event for them. The task was executed perfectly. The topic of the evening, chosen by Erasmus students, was hippies. The evening was colourful and innventive like Erasmus life. Foreign students were grateful to the mentors for assistance and activities. Each mentor got a diploma as a sign of appreciation.

Edvinas Beikauskas

ERASMUS MENTORS' DAY 2008

Mentoring program in many European universities functions already for a long time. Lithuania’s universities and colleges students also develop it. Firstly, mentor is a helping hand, a tutor and friend for a foreign student. A mentor by taking care of foreign student’s arrival, settlement and bureaucratic issues, also his/her social or cultural life is creating an image of Lithuania, so that is why we could call a mentor as an youth ambassador at the university. Therefore, this year the Education Exchanges Support Foundation and Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Lithuania organized national event “Erasmus Mentors Day” wh ere invited members of mentoring program from many Lithuania’s higher education establishments. Mentors from Mykolas Romeris University also took part in the event.
The program of this event was divided into two parts. In the first one there were some discourses to expand members’ knowledge in intercultural communication competence, to widely present voluntary work, principles, aims and importance of being a volunteer. Also some Lithuania’s universities and a guest from Turkey shared their experience of implementing mentoring program in their universities. Moreover, the European Students Network (ESN) was presented, while the aim of it is to motivate collaboration among those who participate in mentoring program in national and also international level. The second part was based on work in groups to discuss questions: how ESN could work in Lithuania, how to attract more voluntaries to mentoring, etc.
To sum up, the meeting of mentors was decided to promote collaboration between higher education establishments in national level, to share experience, participate in international projects. Also the importance of motivating people to join this program was highlighted and benefits of being a mentor were discussed without forgetting that volunteering is a value in itself.

Valda Karnickaitė

Mykolas Romeris University