Have you heard about the Competence and Talent Development Center-TalentSpot? If the answer is no, it’s worth reading our article with the co-workers of TalentSpot to learn about the great opportunities, which are available for students of UP-FBE.
Firstly, I would like to thank you for taking our interview. Please, introduce yourself with a few words and the work of TalentSpot.
My name is Emese Braun and I work at the office as a student. There’s another colleague, Dorottya Anna Szabó, who also works here as a student co-worker. Our Head of Office is Ildikó Hargitai and our professional leader is Dr. Gábor Balogh. The four of us deal with the operative administration. Besides us, we have professional mentors, who organize workshops and work as coaches and mentors. We all try to help students if they have difficulties in something and those, who are in need. ,,Our goal is to help you to find your place in UP-FBE, and to help you to discover your talents so that you can become a great and confident professional.”
In which cases can students turn to TalentSpot?
Students can turn to us with both personal and professional issues. Our office is always open. If we can’t give an answer to someone’s case, we’ll help by giving a name, who knows how to deal with the problem, so we try to find solution to every upcoming problems.
What services does the TalentSpot offer for international students?
Basically, all of our services are available in English. We organize group consultations at the end of every semester. We ask teachers and PhD students to give tutoring in these consultations. Moreover, we offer mentoring for students. You can request mentoring if you have a specific problem (eg. you want to switch courses, you have a personal issue, you want to get help to write your CV) or if you want to develope skills (eg. time-management, dealing with stress, creativity development). We offer you coaching services, as well. But the coach can only help you in decisional situations.
Can you please tell us more about the coaching system and the mentor programme?
Mentoring is a counselling, when a mentor supports you by sharing his/her own personal experience to find solution to your problem. We have both teacher and student mentors. This way you’ll get a specific solution to your problem.
On the other hand, the coach doesn’t give you a specific solution. The trained coaches only ask you questions and they try to get you to observe the issue, so that you can find the solution yourself. So basically they put you on the right way, but you are the one, who find the answers.
You mentioned the workshops before. Which workshops are available in English?
We organize workshops in English language in every semester and share the date of these workshops at the beggining of semesters. We always try to update the workshops, so they are not always the same. But there are also returning ones. The workshops are free and free to visit (if we need previous registration, eg. in trainings, we mark this at the event’s ad).
Where will you inform the students about the timing of the workshops?
The dates are generally in the safe time span on Wednesdays and Thursdays from 1 PM- 2.30 PM, when noone has courses, so everyone can come. You can find the specific dates on the posters in the coridors and online, on the Facebook page of TalentSpot (Competence and Talent Development Center-TalentSpot). Sometimes date switch occurs, so it’s better to get information from our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/UPtalentspot?locale=hu_HU
Which colleague can help international students at the TalentSpot?
All of our colleagues in the office speak English and you can request mentoring in English language, as well.
How do you run your office hours?
Usually, we are available in the office from 9 AM-4 PM, except for the lunch break, which is from 12 AM-1PM. We have an open door policy: when our door is open, feel free to come in.
How can students contact the TalentSpot?
We prefer personal consultation in our office (B129). If you can’t come in, you can always write us an email to the following email adresses: talent@ktk.pte.hu hargitai.ildiko@ktk.pte.hu
Is there anything else you would like to share about the TalentSpot?
We have an optional course, called Soft Skills, it’s a three credit course. To pass the course you have to attend ten workshops and write an essay about one workshop’s topic.
If you visit our workshops in your freetime (so not in the Soft Skills course) then you can get microcredits for your attendance. One workshop is worth 25 microcredits. 100 microcredits worth one regular credit. These are called additional credits.
We made a video about the work of TalentSpot (with English subtitles). You can check this out on this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeer_oDwdYc
We would like to talk a little bit about our plans for the future. We have a competence test, and we would like to translate it to English, so it’ll be available for international students, who are interested.
Last but not least: our door is always open, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Thank you very much for answering our questions.
You can read more about the TalentSpot on our website: https://ktk.pte.hu/en/faculty/development-centers/talentspot
Written by: Zsófia Tőke
Faculty of Business And Economics, University of Pécs
