Erasmus Turku

1. Make a presentation of yourself.

Hi, I’m Martin from Germany. I’m a quite open-minded guy and interested in many things like cultures, languages, music (also producing/DJing such) and psychology, the subject I’m studying. I love to meet new people from all around the world and get to know their ideas and discuss things from different points of view.

2. Describe briefly the place you are from.

I’m born in northern Germany (the town is called Rotenburg (Wümme) which is close to Bremen) where I lived for 20 years. With its 20.000 inhabitants it’s a quite small one, but, well, it’s my home town and for sure I appreciate it.

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

In order studying psychology, I moved to the south west of Germany, to palatinate where they cultivate almost only wine. My town is called Landau and with time, I enjoy it here quite a lot. It’s definitely a university town and since it is also quite small you have rather flat parties than you enjoy the few, bad clubs here.

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

My home university is quite small and offers only a few subjects. We have a splitted campus which is why I only hang around with people studying social science and stuff :D

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

I wanted to get to know something new. I wanted to go to a place I had never been to before in order to totally immerse in that culture and get to know the life peple are living there. On the other hand, I simply heard that going on exchange is one of the best things one can do so I trusted those people.

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

I had only Finnland in mind, cause there were not that many possibilities. I heard a lot of good storys about the country of the sauna lovers and since I would go there for a holiday trip, I thought, this is it.

7. Once you know definitely the destination

a. How did you feel?

Excited! Curious! Looking forward to it!

b. What did you think about the place?

I thought it would be cold and dark.

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

Since I always make my decisions on my own, no one could ever stop me. But they said, go your way, it will be the right one. Some wondered if they could do the same, because being away from home seemed weird for them.

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

Another country could have been Sweden or Norway.

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 stayed in Turku (Finland) for 5 months. It’s not really enough.

It should have been longer. Like 1 year.

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

There was not that much to do. Germany should take a page of Finland’s book concerning the paperwork :D

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

The city is called Turku. It’s awesome though people outside of Turku say “Turku on Suomen perseenreikä” – Turku is Finland’s asshole. And this is definitely not true. I’ve fallen in love with it and the people there, though the Finns in eastern Finland are a bit more open-minded.

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

I stayed in the student hostel in Turku. It’s organised by the university. It’s quite cheap and the awesome thing is that you live with up to 11 people from all around the world on one floor. That’s definitely amazing.

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

I studied at Turku University. I guess it is a quite good one and I felt well looked after. But the lectures held by Finns could be a little bit better… you know, Finns are no experts in communication :D

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

The advantage is definitely that Turku University offers different courses from my home university. The have a different point of view from the subject psychology what made the discussions there with the students quite interesting. For example, there was a lecture about sleep and deaming which was incredibly interesting. Unfortunately, my home university doesn’t offer such courses.

14. 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 traveled to:

- Åland

- Stockholm

- Lapland

- Tampere

- Helsinki

- Whole North Karelia (one of the places, I definitely recommend)

- St. Petersburg

- Moscow

- Several cottage trips

- Estonia (Tartu and Tallinn)

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!).

Turku is definitely THE place to go on exchange. The organisation is perfect and there is sooo much to discover that one semester is definitely too short. Take one year off and immerse in this awesome culture, meet the locals there and discover your love to this awesome country. After this time, you will know why the happiest people on earth live there, although the nightlife is a bit too regulated in my opinion.

Going on exchange is not only meeting internationals. But this is the first experience you will make and you’ll be confronted with the whole world which definitely shows you another point of view onto your home country. The next step is to get to know the real Finnish way of life and the best thing you can do is to hang out with some locals who take you to places a normal tourist would see. You should definitely enjoy the Finnish Student Parties. Plus, go to a random place in Finland and find out how the people there are. You can’t do any better.