Erasmus Turku

1. Make a presentation of yourself.

I’m a girl from 21 year. I’m quite a social person and I like to meet people. I like to hang around with others and have new challenges. I do most of the times  things I really wants.  Travelling is became more and more important to me.

2. Describe briefly the place you are from.

I’m from Belgium and my hometown is in Antwerp. Now (after my Erasmus) I live in the week at my student place in Leuven.

3. Tell us how the city where you study is.

I was studying before my Erasmus in Merksem (next to Antwerp). It was a nice place for a few weeks because there were some little pubs and a shopping street. But after a few weeks you get a little bored and go by metro to Antwerp (10-15 min).  This was really nice place, but something you didn’t had time enough to go there or it was crowded on the train. Now (after my Erasmus) I’m studying in Leuven. This place is really amazing for students and almost everyone loves this place. It’s quite small, so walking is my favorite transport here. Something I take a bicycle but it depends. The city is so cozy and has a lot of places to have fun. It has different market places and a lot of pubs. Most of the people that are living here are students. So everywhere you go, on any time, there are students around you!  

4. What do you think about your home university? (Before you go on Erasmus) Be honest ;)

Most of the teachers in my home university where nice! But the organization of the school was most of the time quite bad! We needed to complain quite a lot. The accommodation was really old, but they are building now a whole new campus and then they will move to there. The knowledge we did on that school was quite ok comparing with other school with the same courses. The bad thing is also that we never met the international students at school.

5. What encourage you to go on Erasmus? Reasons, etc..

I wanted to go away from everything here. I wanted to live by myself, make my own decisions, discover new things,… I wanted to meet new people, I wanted to travel, I just needed a new challenge, I wanted to go away from the stress we had here,…  I was hoping to learn a lot of that different country as well from the persons that were living there. I wanted to know what I could to by myself without the help of someone else… I just wanted to be myself!

6. When you decide that, what countries / destinations you had in mind and why?

I wanted to go on Erasmus already when I started college. We needed to decide it in our second year, in the second semester. First I wanted to go to a country that was still developing, something like Afrika, Peru,… But it was impossible to arrange everything by yourself in the one month we had. So I choose then for going on an Erasmus program instead of free mover and stuff because we had only one month to make everything ready so they said with Erasmus you don’t have to make so many paperwork. So I wanted to go on Erasmus, it was more save, because if something is wrong schools helps you to fix it, with free mover you have to do it by yourself. Then we had only few option (Spain, England, Denmark en Finland). So Finland was the country that I wanted to go the most. I heard and found some information about the beautiful landscape and stuff so I really wanted to go.

7. Once you know definitely the destination

a. How did you feel?

So exiting. I couldn’t wait anymore. I was just making all plans, all the time I was looking for more information about the place, I couldn’t concentrate anymore on my exams.

b. What did you think about the place?

That the landscape was so beautiful. That the people there are shy but really friendly. That the people are really handsome there. And that Finland had an amazing sauna culture.

c. What your closest people (family, friends, colleagues ...) told you or thought about it?

That it was really something for me and that there were jealous. But a lot of times they just said you want to go there for party, but you should study as well.

d. If you had a choice to choose another one, what would have been?

I don’t know, I just want to have more experiences like I had in Finland. I want to go as well to countries that are still developing, but I want to go to Australia, Norwegian, Canada,… as well so.

8. For how long is / was your stay? Do you think that's enough? Would you have liked to have stayed longer? / Would you like to stay longer?

I have been for 4 months. For me it was to short! I would have loved to stay longer, but it was impossible. I think if you go on Erasmus you should go for at least one year. One year is flying so fast already so if you are in a different country even more. I think with one year I could have been satisfied, but even longer should be something for me.

9. How did the paperwork, formalities, etc..? What do you think about all this?

The paperwork for me was too much. Probably as well because the school didn’t work in a good and easy way. A lot of problems where made with the organization of full in the papers so. Also the information we got was really late.

10. How is the city where you live or you used to live during your Erasmus?

The city was small but I really liked it. More was welcome, but was not necessary. I think maybe if you will be there one whole year or more you would love to have something else maybe. Especially the bars/clubs are a little bit bad, but anyway, with your friends there you have fun everywhere! Further we lived a little out of the center so we needed to take always busses or taxis. That was too expensive for a student sometimes. But the place where we were living was amazing.

11. Where did you stay (residence, apartment, dorm)? Explain how it is.

I was staying in an apartment with two other girls I didn’t know before. The room was big enough and furniture was there, we had a big kitchen what was really nice. Also we had 2 bathrooms, one with only toilet and sink (but quite big as well) and one with toilet, sink and shower. The apartment was perfect and when something was broken they had a good service. Only the organization about the renting by themselves was a problem I noticed by myself and others. I get to know the two girls. One of them was not really talking a lot and was staying a lot in her room. Almost nothing could change that. But the other was really nice and we are still really good friends.

12. Well, what about the Host University? How it is? What do you think?

I liked to people and they were so nice to us. We could ask everything and stuff. Only again the paperwork went wrong. I applied for 2 courses and a specific practical training place. They told that it was ok, but when I arrived they told me that I couldn’t do anything of that anymore, I needed to change everything. This had give me a lot of problems with my home university because the things I was supposed to follow there was for making my thesis. I couldn’t change the subject anymore of the thesis as well because half of that was already than and graded.

13. Compared to your home university, what advantages and disadvantages do you get when compared to the host university?

I can’t tell so much about this. I think in the host university there was (bad) food at school, mine didn’t have it. Further I think the course in the host university didn’t had really new stuffs to learn us. We saw almost everything already in the years before. Further I was to less at school to see more differences between the two. I saw at my practical training that the people/supervisors looking at you not as a student but as a person that really knows already a lot, or in a way like, you have to learn but they don’t treat you like a student.

14. During Erasmus, it is common make trips taking advantage of the staying in other countries and places. Did you already make a trip? Got one in mind? Where do you want to travel? Where have you gone?

I think that you should travel when you are in Erasmus. And I think a lot of students to it. A lot of time I was wondering where some students get all the money from to travel so much. But travelling you should to, you make more friends, you learn more about the country are the countries next to. It gives you a lot of live experience that you will not get when you don’t do it with other Erasmus people. I have been in Lapland, it was amazing. Then I did two time a traditional hell cruise, I did a pirate cruise where I’ve been visiting Stockholm (Sweden). I have also been in Lithuania to visit my flat mate that left almost one month earlier than me. And I have been in Helsinki.

15. Finally, the most important. Tell us as Erasmus generally is in the place you are or were (as applicable). How the partys, the other Erasmus, social life, student organizations, associations Erasmus, are and so on (The more you can write, the better!).

Other Erasmus people: They are amazing one by one! Al of them (almost) have the same minds or ideas about live and stuff. They are easy going, enjoying the moment, helping each other with everything (making friends, doing stuffs of school, cooking, cleaning, problems,…). They are sharing everything, what’s mine is yours as well, it’s amazing. I can’t describe but the friends I made in my Erasmus are more special to me than anything else! I love them and I still speak them and I saw already a couple of them back.

Social life: No lack of social life on Erasmus! I was almost never alone! I liked the fact that they are just knocking on the door asking to drink cup of coffee/tee, go out, just talk a little,… It’s really from doing nothing together to cooking together to go out together. It’s impossible to feel lonely.  We had in Finland the overall. Every student has it and the color is depending of the faculty you study, but Erasmus people has a blue one. This made a sort of community between us, I felt something like a family with them.

Student organizations: I liked a lot what ESN offered to students. Still sometimes I missed a little bit there. They didn’t convinced so fast people, It needed to come mostly out of yourself. Also in a trip we mad they promised a lot of activities but there almost everything was cancelled. But ESN offered a lot of discounts what was really nice.

At least Erasmus changed me as a person. I want to take care for myself, I can speak better about my feelings, I’m not getting angry so easy, I’m even more social, my love for travelling is growing and growing, I’m getting better away with stress, and a lot more. You get older so fast. But most of all, inside you feel something special about it that I will never be able to describe!

Big love for Erasmus! <3