Erasmus Turku

Make a presentation of yourself.

I’m a twenty-three years old Italian girl who loves to travel, get to know new people from different countries and cultures, to eat and have fun. I study Medicine and I really love my study field and my future job so I want to learn as much as I can.

Describe briefly the place you are from.

I come from a very little village near Turin( there are approximately a hundred inhabitants, I think there are more cows and dogs than people ;)). Well it’s a very quiet place and everybody knows everybody or  they are even related( my grandparents are distant relatives hahahaha!

Tell us how the city where you study is.

I live in Milan since I started the University. I like it cause it’s a big and beautiful city and it gives a lot of opportunity to young people and students. Sometimes lifestyle here is very stressful, everybody is just running and nobody cares about people around.

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

It’s a mess. I really mean it. The secretaries don’t speak with professors, professors don’t speak with secretaries and students and doctors etc etc. Just one example:  tomorrow I’m supposed to be at the same time at classes, in the ward and in another hospital for the practical activities. Three different places in the same time! Apart from that I think that at least they give us a good theorical preparation and a lot of Professors are really well preapared but I can’t say the same for the practical stuffs…

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

I think I always wanted to go on Erasmus, I can’t say when I started thinking about it. Anyway rationally, first of all I want to move abroad after the graduation so I wanted to see how it works somewhere else. Other reasons are that I wanted to improve my English and I wanted to travel. Money and time spent for travelling are always a good invest and it makes you richer than before ;)

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

I wanted to go on the North cause I like cold weather and I like mentality in the Nordic countries, even if it can seem they’re ‘cold’.  Then the choice was easy cause my university offered to me only Turku in the North, I mean there was no places in Sweden, Norway. But I have to say that it was one of the best choice of my life even if at the very beginning I wasn’t thinking about Finland.

Once you know definitely the destination

a. How did you feel?

Happy!

b. What did you think about the place?

  I knew only that the University was very good but I didn’t know anything about the place. I started to look for information but I have to say that I didn’t collect a lot of…I like surprises J

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

They were happy for me and they encouraged me to go and live all the experiences at the most even if some of them were surprised cause Finland it’s not exactly a common choice. Of course some friends started making jokes of me being frozen or eaten by a polar bear.

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

If I had a choice maybe I would choose Sweden.

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 stayed 6 months. When I was there I didn’t wanted to come back and I regretted that I didn’t stay longer. Now I have to say that with all the exams that I had to do, it’s a good thing that I didn’t stay all the year otherwise I wouldn’t pass them all.

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

It was a NIGHTMARE!! In Italy they almost drove me crazy! It took me months to finish all the paper work and the most common answer to all my questions was:’I don’t know, it’s not my job’. I Finland it was better, they were well organized and very polite even if sometimes it took ages for Professors to reply to emails.

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

Turku is a small city so quite different from the place where I use to live in Italy. I liked it a lot, it was clean, everybody is polite and, as I already said, I love cold and snow . I felt at home all the time. Sometimes I think that I Finland they’re to strict to the rules and, even if maybe it’s why the system it’s working, they should be a little more flexible sometimes.

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

I stayed in an apartment. It was quite big and super cheap( you can’t find something like that in Milan). We had sauna in the building which was amazing, there was a supermarket and the post office very close and it took only fifteen minutes by bus to get in the city center. I was lucky because I had areally good time with my flatmates, we became good friends. It was nice also because in a lot of other apartments around there were Erasmus people so it was easy to spend time together and to become a ‘family’. I really miss them.

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

It was great. We had a lot of clinical practice( almost every day)and the opportunity to train in practical stuff every time we wanted to. Theorical classes were not that much but they were good organized and I found them useful. There was amazing canteens with cheap prices( in Italy we don’t have one so u have to go in bars to eat and it can cost five or more euros for a sandwich and a bottle of water). We had books for free(Medicine books can be more than two hundred euros in u want to buy them) and also the library was great, very well furnished and with very comfortable sofa( just in case u might need to take a nap). Another important thing was that all the Finnish students were really keen on helping foreign students to get introduce and to understand things and also Professors were really interested in making us learning new things and feel comfortable.

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

In Italy we are more focus on theory and from this point of view I think we are better. Then we have to ask to ourselves if it’s more important to know or more important to know what to do. I mean the best is to know both but I think it’s unuseful to recall every single molecules on neurons membrane and then don’t know what to do with a Parkinson patient. A big disadvantage in Milan is that everything is a matter of power. Professors do not care to make you a better doctor, they just care to be better that you or everyone else, they don’t share knowledge. Of course it’s not the same for everybody, there are also good Professors, but in Finland I found them more humble and they were better teachers.

During Erasmus, it iscommon 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 went in Lapland, Tallin, Stockolhm, Saint Petersburg. I regret that I couldn’t go to Norway.

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!).

Well, Erasmus life it’s a bit different from normal life: I had a party almost every day! The ESN was a big help and they were very kind and organized, I mean they were guys and girls like us and they spent a lot of time in working for making our Erasmus better. They organized really nice trip like Lapland, which was gorgeous! Even if I had to say that I lost ten years of life the day of the signing up( after one min and twenty sec everything was sold out)! ESN parties were nice also because you almost know everybody who is attending but I enjoyed a lot also our kitchen parties and parties at the student village. Another thing that I really enjoyed were the trip to the sea sauna( I went every week) and all the occasions to make some sport like climbing or skiing, canoeing, dancing and so on. I think I did more things in six months than in three years of normal life ;) Also the atmosphere with the other Erasmus was cool cause everybody is keen on trying new experiences and knowing new people( well not really everybody but almost) and, even if we are far away, I think that I made some good friendship that will last during the years. Since I came back I already had the chance to see a lot of my friends from Erasmus( I’ve been in Prague this summer and then other ppl came to Milan to visit me). 

As a conclusion I would say that Erasmus can change your life, makes you more confident in yourself and more open-minded: it should be compulsory for all students all around the world!