In the art and culture course "My speaking body", the participants experienced to perform personal conditions and abstract situations, for example, in states. With installations, dance, theater, pictures and dialogues, the students dealt with new kinds of expressions.
The elective courses offered a mental balance to the main courses. From the wide range of ten elective courses, each student chose two courses. In addition to musical improvisation, contradance, theater improvisation, JPC! paper folding art, graphic novels, and blogging, a mathematics course, discussion rounds on freedom, justice and sustainability, gender and society were offered. Both in musical and in theatrical improvisation, the students came together within short time to form sounding, speaking and pantomimic ensembles whose performances were impressive. The paper folding art JPC (Julian's Paper Craft) is a new genre from Korea, which only uses scissors and paper – no glue, that inspired the students to paper works with wow effects. In the graphic novels course, the students were introduced to a special form of comics that offers new opportunities to artistic self-expression as an alternative to the well-known mangas. The blogging course created an academy blog, which was filled with various stylistic means such as reports and comments on the academy's everyday life e.g. the excellent catering from the kitchen. The mathematics course approached the world of numbers in a philosophical and relaxed way. While the students were lying down, obvious questions were discussed e.g., why is a square a rectangle? The answer is a definition that is as stringent as it is clear. In the courses ‘Freedom and Justice’, ‘Sustainability’ and ‘Gender and Society’ the undogmatic reflection with one's own and others' argumentation was of primary importance. The students proved that they master the art of unideological debate without a missionary urge. May they keep this gift.
At the closing session, the academy's management, Benedikt Weygandt and Ferenc Kréti, emphasized the value of the student academy, not as a substitute for or supplement to the conventional school system, but as a place that may lead to positive personal changes in the student’s life. As Kréti said: “We do not know the future, but we must be prepared for it. I don't know whether we elderly people have the necessary qualifications for this, but it might be a good starting point to promote creativity and alertness.” Overall, the students turned out to be curious, young researchers with very creative minds. A compliment to the organizers and the participants!