✏️ Ever wonder about the lives of faculty and staff outside of the classroom? Please welcome our fifth guest – Tamás Meszerics, Assistant Professor at CEU Political Science Department. ⠀
Scroll down to check out the weekly spot from our MA students Burcu Kısaç and Dauren Koptleuov: interviews, in which our dear faculty and staff tell about the other part of their lives – the one you’ve always been afraid to ask about.
Q: What are your hobbies and interests?
A: My interests are all over the place. I enjoy all art forms, from literature to contemporary dance, but my oldest love among arts is the theater. Whenever I’m abroad I try to squeeze in at least one show that I would watch, even if I don’t understand the language.
Q: Please describe in three words or phrases your experience as a Member of the European Parliament?
A: Exhilarating, sobering, sometimes frustrating.
Q: What is your favorite city in Europe and why?
A: St Petersburg, for which I have a strong childhood nostalgia (I lived there as a kid for a year). It is a place the map of which is still in my head even though I haven’t been there for forty years.
Q: What is your ideal Friday night-out?
A: Either meeting my friends from my university days, or, you guessed it, theater.
Q: If you had a chance to invite anyone to a dinner party, who would it be and why?
A: Up until four years ago it would have to have been Oliver Sacks the psychologist. I really, really would have wanted to meet him once. For no other reason then because of the person he was. Since he died in 2015 I have no one who could even remotely raise my personal interest that much. OK maybe Jim Carrey. But not for the laughs. For a serious conversation.
Q: Describe yourself as a student.
A: We were a hard partying bunch. The source of prestige was to earn a strong GPA without ever being seen to work for it. (Which of course we did, but in hiding). I fit that bill reasonably well.
Q: What are your guilty pleasures, if you have any?
A: Gradually I got rid of all of them. Maybe one: binge watching The Big Bang Theory in a lazy Sunday afternoon.
Q: What one advice would you give to our students?
A: Don’t stress out. Do whatever it takes for you to get back to your normal chill level. Music, friends, walking, sports, you name it. Nobody, really nobody ever produced at the top of her abilities under serious stress.
Thank you very much for your time!