European Student Assembly
TU student Fatma Souissi for Unite! in Strasbourg
2022/02/25
On March 3 and 4, 2022, Unite! students will participate in the European Student Assembly, which will bring together 200 designated student representatives from the 41 European University Alliances (EUAs) at the European Parliament in Strasbourg. This begins a series of meetings to give students a public voice in the European Union. TU student Fatma Souissi represents the alliance together with students from the other Unite! partner universities and talks about their objectives in an interview.
What are you studying at the TU Darmstadt?
Fatma Souissi: I am studying Electrical Engineering and Information Technology in the master's program. I also completed my bachelor's degree at the TU Darmstadt.
What motivates you to get involved with Unite!?
Fatma Souissi: The opportunity to get in touch with students from other countries and cultures. Also, we have the unique opportunity to communicate our ideas, criticisms, and suggestions at such an early stage in the creation of a new university.
How are you preparing for the Inaugural session of the European Student Assembly and what do you expect from it? What goals have you set for yourself?
Fatma Souissi: I am attending the Inaugural Session of the European Student Assembly (ESA) in Strasbourg as part of Panel 9: Climate Refugees. The other students from the panel and I have already had several meetings where we strategized and set small goals leading up to the session. We want to learn as much as we can about Climate Change and Climate Refugees. There are many points related to legislation. Our main goal is to define actions for the EU as a remedy for the Climate Refugees crisis. These will be presented at the Conference on the Future of Europe.
What was the application process like?
Fatma Souissi: I applied online on the EUC website and then got an email a few months later that my application was accepted! The process was smooth and easy.
What opportunities do you see in Unite!?
Fatma Souissi: In my opinion, Unite! is a stable foundation to promote intercultural exchange, diversity and internationality in Europe.
What is your vision of the future of Europe?
Fatma Souissi: For me as an international/non-European student, a society is like a political union where all people are on an equal footing and where everyone is actually treated equally, no matter where they come from or what kind of passport they have. I very much hope that one day this vision will become a reality.
That is also one of the reasons why the issue of Refugees is very important to me at ESA.
What are your personal goals?
Fatma Souissi: The main goal of most (if not all) people is to become successful. The difference is in the definition of success. For me, it is to be satisfied; with my performance, with my contribution to social and intellectual life, and with my positive impact on others.
The questions were asked by Mareike Hochschild
About Unite!
Alongside TU Darmstadt as the coordinator,Unite! (University Network for Innovation, Technology and Engineering) also includes Aalto University (Finland), KTH Royal Institute of Technology (Sweden), Grenoble Institute of Technology (France), Politecnico di Torino (Italy), Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (Spain) and Universidade de Lisboa (Portugal).
The seven partner universities aim to use the European University to create a trans-European campus for students and researchers with the involvement of regions and companies. The partners have a total of 167,000 students, already cooperate closely in more than 80 EU projects and have exchanged more than 2,000 students in the past five years. The alliance has set itself the goal of combining courses for the benefit of students, breaking down existing technical and administrative hurdles, and thus significantly increasing student mobility. Research will also benefit from the conditions created for larger and easier cooperation, which will strengthen the competitiveness of the European Higher Education Area overall.
