The SMS that informed her about her score in the National Examinations found her at home, in quarantine, due to an infection with Covid-19. THE Elizabeth Hatziprodromou, 6th grade graduate Kalamaria General High School, she is one of the almost 89,000 candidates for this year’s national exams, who were characterized as “quarantine children”, due to the special conditions imposed by the pandemic and distance learning during their years of high school education and preparation for admission to higher education. With grades 19 in the Exhibition course, 19.5 in the Antiquities course and 19.8 in the Latin and History courses has accumulated from 19,420 to 19,580 points –according to the course weighting factors of each Faculty of Humanities.

For the full calculation of the points he collected, he will have to wait a few more days, until the announcement – next week, of the scores of the special courses, specifically English, which are included for admission to the Department of International & European Studies of the University of Macedonia, the which he aims to have as his first choice in the computer science program he will complete, without excluding the Department of Psychology of AUTH.

“I ended up in the Department of International and European Studies, because it has a wide range of academic subjects that interest me and additionally the direction of specialization in Diplomacy. Apart from that, I really like foreign languages”, Elissavet Hatziprodromou told APE-MBE about the choice of the school, noting that her parents – private employees – supported her in being able to find what suits her dreams and skills .

As far as her preparation is concerned, she explained that from the 2nd Lyceum, alongside school, she started tutoring classes, simultaneously continuing gymnastics and dance classes, which functioned as a release valve for the stress of the period.

Regarding the period of the pandemic and how it affected her course and that of her classmates, the 18-year-old answered that “any gaps that may have been created during the time that lifelong education and communication were missing were covered, although on a psychological level, certainly what we lived left something in all of us”.

As an encouragement to her friends who will now enter the final phase of preparation for next year’s nationwide exams she says: “If they need to be absent from some classes, e.g. due to illness not to stress. In general, they can not go crazy, give time to themselves, to their needs”.