Why and how to do Erasmus, part 2
- Document preparation. My university could be a bit disorganized. When I finally saw the there was an informational meeting about the Erasmus program, I was extremely happy. The meeting was supposed to inform us on the procedure we had to undergo in order to become Erasmus students. The most interesting point was the fact that due to lack of enough personnel our Erasmus office had found out an interesting way to have less work. They were going to distribute the places in alphabetical order (based on the language). For example, inglés (English) starts with the letter “A”, so universities that accepted students with English would be distributed first. Crazy, huh? I had to attend two or three informational meetings. I also had to register online and fill in some forms. After that I needed to provide the online form, my grades, and some other stuff, signed by me at the university. Some universities use only an online system, but mine does not.
- Did I get a place or not? One of the most exciting and scary parts of being an Erasmus applicant is waiting for the results. In my case I had a competition of four hundred students. That is right! Four hundred students had applied for the Erasmus program in my faculty only. I know it is a lot. I was not sure what I wanted: Italy or Slovenia. I was interested in both. On one hand, I wanted to improve my Italian. I also like Italy, its culture and traditions. One the other hand, Slovenia was a lot cheaper (Italy is expensive-nissima) and I liked the fact that the university was near a ski area. As I said before, I love skiing. Also, Slovenia is very beautiful and its culture and language are similar to my own culture and language. Believe me; if you are an international student somewhere, this thing matters a lot! I got a place at the University of Maribor. I was extremely excited. Not to mention that one of my best friends and flat mate was also going to Slovenia, but in another city.
- Final arrangements. The most difficult part in my case was signing the final documents: a contract and some other documents. I had bought a ticket to go home. Tickets get expensive if you buy them in the last minute. I bought mine for after my last exam. Then I found out that we, future Erasmus students had to sing those very important documents on a date, which was after my departure. I was disappointed and scared. What was I to do? I asked my flat mate to help me. She said she would, but she could not sign the document for the scholarship. I had to find another way. It seemed very complicated. Then I went to the central Erasmus office in my university and they told me I could just sing the document before I left. Can you imagine? All it took was for the employees at my faculty to print it. I cannot believe all the difficulties I went though just because they did not know they could just print it. Anyways, it is over now. I am a happy Erasmus student. I wish all of you who want to be Erasmus as well, that you achieve this dream of yours!
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