He is someone who enjoys an inspiring challenge. In fact, he is a participant in the E2TOP program. His latest project will have him researching coatings for space use, which should come as no surprise: Maciej is an enthusiast of aeronautics and emerging technologies. He takes part in the European Space Agency's Fly A Rocket! and Direction Earth/Space programs.
Just what are the benefits that students reap from TUL's membership in ECIU?
‘ECIU is something of a federation of European universities, growing more integrated every year. Any ECIU student, including all TUL students, are welcome to avail themselves of the micro-modules and challenges offered by partner universities. They are offered in an online, hybrid, or in-person format. Students may use the Erasmus+ grant to cover the cost of taking advantage of the latter two’, Maciej Szulczewski explained. ‘These learning activities can be compared to optional courses that cover a great variety of topics, e.g., from power engineering, to AI, to foreign languages, media, and improving accessibility.
He went on to add: ‘Micromodules are generally shorter and less intensive, with a focus on more traditional ways of teaching and learning. Challenges, on the other hand, are larger projects grounded in tackling a real-life problem of a community. Importantly, ECSTs are assigned to ECIU activities and they are recognized at TUL without any issue.’
As an ECIU student, Maciej Szulczewski participated in a unique initiative of collaborating to find innovative solutions to real-world challenges. This is how he described the experience:
Create Tomorrow is organized by the University of Twente in the Netherlands, a member of ECIU. It is a student think-tank working on company case studies. Although the event was prepared by students, it wasn't the scale of it that would have given it away: more than 80 teams, 9 themes, and 9 hours to sort out the problem. Create Tomorrow spanned one day, but, as ECIU students, we spent a week in Twente. Our stay was filled with experiencing the university's campus-city and workshops to facilitate our work during the Create Tomorrow itself, e.g. team-building, prototyping, brainstorming. On campus accommodation gave us the opportunity to meet amazing people from other universities in the ECIU consortium.