JENNIFER Lowe and Tayla Berger got the “worldly” experience that is part of Deakin University’s brand when they did a recent study tour to Central Europe.
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Ms Lowe said the three-week tour to the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Austria was an example of the great opportunities local people had to broaden their horizons by having a Deakin University campus in Warrnambool.
She and Ms Berger did the “World In Transition and Central European Transformation: Lessons Learnt” tour in late June and early July as part of their studies for a law degree at Deakin’s Warrnambool campus.
The two, both fourth-year law students, were part of a group of 22 from Deakin and international universities.
Students go through a selection process to join the tour and Ms Lowe said she funded her trip through a HECS loan.
She said the course taught her about the legal and political aspects of the transition of the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary from communist regimes to democracies.
Among the places the two visited were the Terror House in the Hungarian capital of Budapest that commemorates the victims of Nazi Germany’s and the Soviet Union’s periods of power in Hungary.
They also spent time at Radio Free Europe, a United-States funded service based in the Czech capital of Prague that broadcasts information to European countries where the free flow of information was suppressed.
Ms Lowe said she was inspired at how people’s movements had eventually overthrown communist regimes.
The two also visited the United nations office in Vienna and learnt about the UN’s global activities.
Ms Lowe, a candidate in October’s Warrnambool City Council elections, said the tour was “brilliant” and fuelled her interest in creating good government.
She said her main area of interest with her studies was government accountability and administrative law.
However the trip had also got her thinking about what constituted a true democracy, she said.
“We are a free society but we are also dictated by bureaucratic red tape,” Ms Lowe said.
“We are over-regulated,” she said.
Among the initiatives that impressed her was the strong focus on people in the built environment that she saw in the university city of Brno in the Czech Republic. In Brno, pedestrians got priority in modes of transport, followed by cycling, public transport and cars.
She encouraged other students to take part in Deakin’s short-term programs.
