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Eastern European Guide to Writing Reference Letters

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Re: Eastern European Guide to Writing Reference Letters

#11

Post by krn »

rmind wrote: post #9

I have to say "Eastern European" is a quite poor and unhelpful generalization nowadays. It is ethnically and linguistically diverse: Slavic, Baltic, Finno-Ugric, Romance (Romania) as well as Albanian and Hellenic. It is religiously diverse: Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, Muslim and even the bastions of irreligion/atheism (Czechia and Estonia). There are significant cultural differences, especially comparing the more…

> Many generalizations really don't work for such a vast and diverse region.

I think the right solution here is to divide the region into Central Europe, The Balkan Region, and The Western CIS and Caucasus:

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/The-Map-of-Eastern-Europ...

Re: Eastern European Guide to Writing Reference Letters

#12

Post by izacus »

rmind wrote: post #9

I have to say "Eastern European" is a quite poor and unhelpful generalization nowadays. It is ethnically and linguistically diverse: Slavic, Baltic, Finno-Ugric, Romance (Romania) as well as Albanian and Hellenic. It is religiously diverse: Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, Muslim and even the bastions of irreligion/atheism (Czechia and Estonia). There are significant cultural differences, especially comparing the more…

None of that is really relevant for the post as written though, what were you trying to say?

I had a lot of experience working across mentioned boundaries and the post is very spot on with cultural differences between US and most cultures in Eastern European region. I'd also argue that Germans/Austrians easily fit into the same generalization and would benefit from reading it.

Re: Eastern European Guide to Writing Reference Letters

#13

Post by tchalla »

> Poor reference letters hurt students. They give us no insight into the applicant's true strengths, and no ammunition to support the best candidates in scholarship competitions or the admission process in general. I decided to write this guide for students so they can share it with their professors when asking for reference letters.

How about the university itself sharing the guide with professors when asking for a recommendation? Students have enough to do and adding more one on their list sounds ... odd.

Re: Eastern European Guide to Writing Reference Letters

#14

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

anovikov wrote: post #10
rmind wrote: post #9

I have to say "Eastern European" is a quite poor and unhelpful generalization nowadays. It is ethnically and linguistically diverse: Slavic, Baltic, Finno-Ugric, Romance (Romania) as well as Albanian and Hellenic. It is religiously diverse: Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, Muslim and even the bastions of irreligion/atheism (Czechia and Estonia). There are significant cultural differences, especially comparing the more…

In my perception (i come from Soviet Union), the most "East European" Eastern European country is Slovakia. When someone says "Eastern Europe" that's what comes to my mind. Czechia is too rich and too liberal, Poland is too religious and too conservative, Romania has too many issues with minorities and simply does not constitute a single picture (different parts of country look like different continents), Serbia is h…

>Romania has too many issues with minorities

What kind of issues and which minorities?

Re: Eastern European Guide to Writing Reference Letters

#15

Post by anovikov »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #14
anovikov wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my perception (i come from Soviet Union), the most "East European" Eastern European country is Slovakia. When someone says "Eastern Europe" that's what comes to my mind. Czechia is too rich and too liberal, Poland is too religious and too conservative, Romania has too many issues with minorities and simply does not constitute a single picture (different parts of country look like different continents), Serbia is h…

>Romania has too many issues with minorities What kind of issues and which minorities?

I think that will be politically incorrect to discuss in detail and will drive us way into downvoting territory...

Re: Eastern European Guide to Writing Reference Letters

#16

Post by wirrbel »

arka2147483647 wrote: post #5

This also has the other side that an American style cv, for example, might be seen as "too positive" from eastern European perspective, and thus be ignored. That is; you read 10 CV's, all go through the roof of your superlative scale, therefore you ignore all of it, or consider all candidates as more-or-less equal and/or mediocre.

A common reaction is: It cannot all be positive.

Or, as a colleague of mine put it: "When I first interacted with americans, they were smiling so much I suspected they were trying to trick me in some way".

Re: Eastern European Guide to Writing Reference Letters

#17

Post by bonzini »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #14
anovikov wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my perception (i come from Soviet Union), the most "East European" Eastern European country is Slovakia. When someone says "Eastern Europe" that's what comes to my mind. Czechia is too rich and too liberal, Poland is too religious and too conservative, Romania has too many issues with minorities and simply does not constitute a single picture (different parts of country look like different continents), Serbia is h…

>Romania has too many issues with minorities What kind of issues and which minorities?

Roma (also present in Slovakia and Hungary) and Hungarians mostly.

Re: Eastern European Guide to Writing Reference Letters

#18

Post by paganel »

pastage wrote: post #7
paganel wrote: post #4

I appreciate the author of the article wanting to do good, but the last thing we need here in Eastern Europe is even more brain drain.

You just described how to get brain drain, by limiting the development of your students you will for ever be stuck with no outside influences. Students will often come home even if they get education abroad.

> Students will often come home even if they get education abroad.

Nope, that "often" part is false, at least when it comes to most of Eastern Europe (maybe in other parts of the world things are different).

Re: Eastern European Guide to Writing Reference Letters

#20

Post by aliqot »

izacus wrote: post #12
rmind wrote: post #9

I have to say "Eastern European" is a quite poor and unhelpful generalization nowadays. It is ethnically and linguistically diverse: Slavic, Baltic, Finno-Ugric, Romance (Romania) as well as Albanian and Hellenic. It is religiously diverse: Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, Muslim and even the bastions of irreligion/atheism (Czechia and Estonia). There are significant cultural differences, especially comparing the more…

None of that is really relevant for the post as written though, what were you trying to say? I had a lot of experience working across mentioned boundaries and the post is very spot on with cultural differences between US and most cultures in Eastern European region. I'd also argue that Germans/Austrians easily fit into the same generalization and would benefit from reading it.

>what were you trying to say

I see this type of behavior a lot as of late, especially on HN. Mostly when someone says "I donated to X charity" then inevitably a brave contrarian comes out of the wood works to say that they could/should have done XYZ

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