Erasmus Turku

1 Make a presentation of yourself:

I am from the USA, Studying International Hospitality Management. I was part of the Erasmus group in Finland in the spring of 2012

2. Describe briefly the place you are from.

I am from Oklahoma in the United States

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

It is a great place and I meet many different people from around the world.

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

I like my home university very much because it is unique and it is very familiar to me, but I still like new experiences and going new places.

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

I wanted to go to new places and meet different kinds of people.

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

I was willing to go to plenty of places just to get the experience of new areas.

7. Once you know definitely the destination

a. How did you feel?

Great it was a beautiful city to visit. It was cold but I got used to it after a while.

b. What did you think about the place?

I felt that it was a beautiful place to visit.

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

My family was very happy for me and wanted me to go and get the experience.

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

I would have loved to go anywhere else if I had the possibility.

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?

My stay was for 4 & ½ months and I liked it very much. I believe that it was a perfect amount of time for a study abroad program.

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

I do not like filling out paperwork and I wish that there was a streamlined way of doing it for students.

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

It was a great place to live just took a while to get used to the place and the weather.

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

I stayed in an apartment but it was a student accommodation and it was a nice place to stay.

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

The university was nice and very welcoming to me and my other classmates.  I think that the teachers were very understanding of us and the fact that we didn’t know finnish and helped us when we had problems with  the language.

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

 I think that the host university had a much better system of grading than my home university.

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?

Yes. When in Finland there were plenty of opportunities to go to Russia and to Sweden as well.

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!).

 I think they were great they let all of the other study abroad students meet each other. It was a great way to meet new people in a new country.