Nowadays Erasmus is a very common experience in many European’s Universities. Every year millions of students move to other countries living some months in close contact with other cultures, languages and other students who are attending the same experience. Now, what does it mean Erasmus and in which way it can affect the student?
Erasmus (European Region Action Scheme for the Mobility of University Students) is an European formative program which was born in 1987 and it promotes intercultural education, increasing the sense of equality and the acceptance of the “other”.
Every student who decides to “make this step” is going to totally change is live, and he won’t realize it until the end of the experience.
The Erasmus programs foresees that during the day the student attends the lessons at the hosting University – which is compulsory – but for the rest of the day he is free to visit or to have fun with other students.
Granada for example, is considered to be one of the most famous cities in Europe for students who attend the Erasmus; In Granada there are lots of different Erasmus organizations, which offer the students day trips, parties, meetings, holidays all over the country, etc.
As a consequence, usually, in less than a month a motivated Erasmus student can already be perfectly integrated with a group of friends. Granada offers so many opportunities to meet people, that is almost impossible to spend even one day at home.
However, Erasmus presents two faces of the same coin.
From one side the feeling of freedom is powerful. The willing to learn about new cultures. The amusement factor. The satisfaction of expressing an idea in another language.
From the other, there are also difficult moments in which the situation becomes difficult to support, when the student needs his family or a “friendly face” but he is far away from home. This is normal, it is part of the experience. We can’t become better people if we never deal with bad moments.
As in the real life, everything has to come to an end, and the student finally understands that all the people he met and that he probably won’t see again, all of them will always be in his memory.
To conclude, in a certain way the Erasmus reflects the real life: they both are a cycle, for every beginning there is an end. We only have to learn how to take all the positive aspects that life and Erasmus offer to us.