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Eastern European Guide to Writing Reference Letters

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Re: Eastern European Guide to Writing Reference Letters

#21

Post by mistrial9 »

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…

armchair reader here - but I have 100 year old demographic information from the Hungarian region, in an article about language history. Each Hungarian province sub-division is split between four (or more) language groups - and the splits are quite uneven. Many of those groups had mass conflicts over the last thousand years.

Re: Eastern European Guide to Writing Reference Letters

#22

Post by oblio »

krn wrote: post #11
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...

Nobody lives in Eastern Europe and the Balkans. Everyone is Central European.

Re: Eastern European Guide to Writing Reference Letters

#23

Post by oblio »

bonzini wrote: post #17
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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

> also present in Slovakia and Hungary

And Bulgaria, and Serbia, ...

Re: Eastern European Guide to Writing Reference Letters

#24

Post by dekleinewolf »

tchalla wrote: post #13

> 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…

The university is not directly in contact with the specific professors of its prospective students though?

When the Eastern European students ask their professors to write them a reference letter to Cambridge, the prospective students can point their professor to this guide. I'm not sure how else Cambridge is supposed to reach 'potential professors of potential prospective students'.

Re: Eastern European Guide to Writing Reference Letters

#25

Post by Swizec »

oblio wrote: post #22
krn wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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...

Nobody lives in Eastern Europe and the Balkans. Everyone is Central European.

Now now, we Slovenians change that depending on who’s asking. Also time period.

Wanna talk economic prosperity, work ethic, and things of such nature? We’re Central European, basically German. Wanna talk partying, good food, sense of humor, and having fun? Proudly Balkan. Unless you want healthy food, then we are definitely Mediterranean. Oh good pizza and pasta? Yeah we’re basically Italian.

Funfact: It is unknown quite how large the Slovenian diaspora is because many emigrants wrote down “Austrian” before WW1 to escape slavic stereotypes in their new home.

Re: Eastern European Guide to Writing Reference Letters

#26

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

bonzini wrote: post #17
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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

What are the issue with Hungarians in Romania? Besides political FUD.

Re: Eastern European Guide to Writing Reference Letters

#27

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

anovikov wrote: post #15
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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...

Why? GP made some pretty bold claims on some nationalities("Romania has too many issues with minorities").

I expect some clarifications for those claims on what those issues are, so I can tell if knows what he's talking about and got right info from reputable sources or if he's just puling stuff out of his ass based on stereotypes and FUD he read on the internet.

Without any details or sources, such comments should be flagged.

Re: Eastern European Guide to Writing Reference Letters

#28

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

Swizec wrote: post #25
oblio wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody lives in Eastern Europe and the Balkans. Everyone is Central European.

Now now, we Slovenians change that depending on who’s asking. Also time period. Wanna talk economic prosperity, work ethic, and things of such nature? We’re Central European, basically German. Wanna talk partying, good food, sense of humor, and having fun? Proudly Balkan. Unless you want healthy food, then we are definitely Mediterranean. Oh good pizza and pasta? Yeah we’re basically Italian. Funfact: It is unknown q…

> economic prosperity .. basically German

> Slovenia

I don't know mate, if Slovenia was so prosperous, then their workers wouldn't be driving 2h/day commuting to work and study in Austria for the chance of making 2k Euros/month. Or just moving to Germany, UK, Ireland, etc. for more. Every slovene I talked to seemed very unhappy about the wages/CoL ratio back home.

Re: Eastern European Guide to Writing Reference Letters

#29

Post by bitL »

dontlaugh wrote: post #8
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.

It’s tragic so many of us have had to leave after 89. And I completely agree with you that this trend must be fought. However, I also think helping students have better lives is good overall. Many of us come back later. Perhaps if in the future there is a political change back towards worker power, many more of us will come back. And we’ll have useful skills honed in the meantime.

So your students in some provincial eastern European university can barely get a C on an exam, trashing their GPAs in the process, closing life-long opportunities, because of the "only the professor deserves an A" attitude that then translates to reference letters and everywhere else. The same student then gets a 3.8+ GPA at a top 10 US university with glaring reviews of their work and 10x higher compensation the moment they decide to enter the industry. How are you going to stop the brain drain?
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