ExchangeAbility

Did you say Erasmus?

That sounds like an amazing experience!

Erasmus+ is indeed a fantastic opportunity for you to broaden your horizons, explore different cultures, and make lifelong connections. It provides a platform for personal and academic growth, fostering understanding and appreciation for diversity.

Through Erasmus+, you can study, train, volunteer, or engage in various educational activities abroad. The program promotes international mobility, enabling students to immerse themselves in new environments, learn new languages, and gain a deeper understanding of different societies.

The chance to visit beautiful cities in Europe and experience local cultures is undoubtedly one of the highlights of the Erasmus+ program. Each city offers its own unique blend of history, art, architecture, and traditions, providing a rich and immersive experience for participants. It's an incredible way to expand one's perspective, challenge preconceived notions, and develop a global mindset.

My last say is "Once Erasmus, Always Erasmus !"

Written by Hasan Canbulat 

I participated in the Erasmus + program in Maribor, Slovenia between October and February. Maribor is a small city a little far from the capital city of Slovenia. Life in Maribor was usually calm, and the city was beautiful, especially its nature. Before going there I had no friends or acquaintances who went to Maribor for Erasmus so I was clueless about a lot of things. At first, it was hard to adapt there but after a few days, I was all fine. Seeing other Erasmus students experiencing the same things as me was a relief, and I think it helped us connect quicker and at a deeper level.

I studied at the University of Maribor, Faculty of Economics and Business. In the period I was there, the University of Maribor had more than 200 Erasmus students and most of them were from my faculty. Because of that, pretty much everyone whom I took classes with was also an Erasmus student. In some of my classes we worked on group projects, which I enjoyed very much. I think this environment made the group projects a medium for socializing with other international students.

With the Erasmus + program, I found a chance to travel to many countries and met amazing people along the way. Slovenia shares borders with Italy, Croatia, and Austria. Because of its location, it was very easy to travel to other countries. I choose to spend a good amount of my time and energy on Erasmus while traveling, which is exhausting from time to time, but definitely worth it. I have learned plenty of things both from the process of traveling and the countries I have been to. I feel like aside from moving to another country, my travels helped my personal growth a lot. I was able to experience different holidays, cuisines, and cultures while traveling, and those experiences are valuable to me.

Being constantly in an international environment taught me a lot about other countries, not just about their cultural values and way of living but also their way of thinking. Moving to another country is not always easy. Even though such disruptive change seems like a scary thing, it is worth going through all those processes. In that sense, my Erasmus experience made me step out of my comfort zone and explore what is beyond it.

The Positives And Negatives Of Erasmus+

Erasmus+ is once in a lifetime experience where you get to see another European country, experience their culture and study in a university in that country. It sounds like a dream, it may sound as if nothing can go wrong but you should always keep in mind that it is an experience with both positive and negative effects.

You are in your home university, you are thinking about packing up your stuff, but first you need to make your “Transcript of Records” This step can be stressing even by itself, checking the subjects and finding their equivalence is important if you don't want to re-take some of the courses when you return back. It can be very frustrating to re-take an important course even though you technically passed.  I do not remember how many times I had to print out this document. Thankfully I do not have to do this in a near future *phew*

Probably one of the most exciting feeling is to pack up your luggage. Choosing clothes to put inside the luggage, looking at YouTube tutorials for efficient ways to fold them, so you have more space, looking at the weather when you have your flight, weighing your luggage over and over again to make sure you do not exceed the limit... You may feel as if everything is set when you are done with it however before packing your stuff and buying your plane tickets always keep in mind that every country has a different visa process. One country can give your visa in a week while in another country you can wait months to receive it. This can change by how many documents they require, how many documents that are in process and if they changed a condition recently. So always keep in mind that everything is not going to go as you planned. Do not get upset easily, this is also an experience so enjoy

The moment you step on the plane your Erasmus+ experience is going to start, so buckle up for an emotional roller-coaster. While on the plane do not get surprised if you see people around your age and excited as you are, they are also on their way to their Erasmus+ experience. On my flight there were at least 10 people like this, do not be shy and go say hello! For me the best part of Erasmus was the first weeks after my flight. You are on your own on a different country, you are trying to learn how to survive and everything is happening so fast. One moment you are searching for a public Wi-Fi to text your parents and the next you know you start acting like a local, know which place is the best to hang out with your friends and know when the next event is.  These little things make you realise that you have another place that you can call “home”. These experiences are priceless, everybody is going to say that too but like I said before Erasmus is an experience with ups and downs. You can experience some unfortunate things that can even make you want to go back home. I thought about all kinds of stuff that could have happened to me during Erasmus, some happened some did not (thankfully). There were times I felt like I was not going to be able to handle the situation, with “Covid-19” and lock-down I thought about returning back. In the end after looking back I am glad that I did not. The things that worried me during my stay seem funny to me now. I spend a lot of time with my friends in the dorm, we tried everything to entertain ourselves and I believe that my bond with them became stronger during the quarantine. Plus I have a cool stamp on my passport which says “Emergency Situation Covid-19”

During your stay you are going to be able to meet people from all parts of the world and get together with the locals as well. This means being exposed to all kinds of new cultural values and even new languages. One word, one dish, one holiday you have can be very new and exciting for some people and for some people you might realise they have something similar in their country too. The excitement in their face when they recognize something that is also done in their country is priceless. You get together to do fun activities for some holidays and eat all kinds of different food made by friends. During my stay I had friends who could bake and cook all kinds of delicious meals, even tried their experimental food. We spend a lot of time together and learned some new words in their language too. One of the hardest part is coming to the end of Erasmus, you know you have to say goodbye to your friends and watch them take the bus but one thing you do not know is how hard it is going to be. It makes you realise that this adventure had ended and makes you feel empty after they are gone. However, we made promises to visit each other, and hopefully we might in the near future.

Written By Elif Güleç