‘’Erasmus Mania’’
Nowadays, we are living a new student generation! One beneficial factor of globalization for students has been the worldwide education system which provides us the opportunity to be part of a new country, a new culture, a new team. Luckily for us, Erasmus program has already built its own empire. Specifically, Erasmus is a new program helping students to move into another country in order to study there or practice their work! Its aim is to make a globalized, equal for all education, not only focused on studies but also on sports, culture and most importantly the collaboration and the exchange of ideas among young people. Our future!
That’s how my class of Ad Discovery and Creativity Lab was filled of new faces, interesting languages, beautiful ideas. Suddenly, the teacher says ‘’go outside and talk to each other, meet, make friends’’. It was the first time I had to communicate with someone total foreign not only about my language but also about my civilization and way of life .Much laughing and much talking was enough to make me believe that we welcomed all the Erasmus students very warmly. Maybe the sun also helped a little bit!
We had the chance to talk and collaborate with young people coming from China, Russia, Poland, Hungary and many others. Even if you have visited these countries, the experience of interact with these students is something new. Something that makes you to want to learn, to listen to their odd to us language, to talk and make questions like a 5year old child. So, let’s have a look on our, the Greek one perspective of meeting with those people.
First of all, awkwardness I have to say was playing a significant role in the beginning, as long as we could not find out how to approach and socialize with someone so different. Although, later our Greek spirit of joy and hospitality stood out and started talking…a lot. As we always do, anyway! Question like ‘’how do I say this in your language or do you like Greek life’’ were very usual. It was just a casual chatting among young people! Moreover, as the time goes by, we feel like we want to learn more and more…Starting with fashion, sports, music, culture ending up to education, politics even philosophy and comparison of our countries. The casual chatting then became an interesting discussion.
Now, let’s find out what Erasmus students were thinking when they had to literally be interviewed by us. Obviously, it was very difficult to them trying to talk while being surrounded by at least ten students. They felt like famous, however I am not sure if they liked it! Also, when both sides started to loose, Erasmus students were happily and proudly introducing us to their country culture. It was their time to welcome us in their world. In the end, we always ended up talking about Greek life and that they are going to have the time of their life. We are students after all!
To sum up, I believe collaborating with these people gave all of us a chance to spread our horizons. It made as wonder when the new Erasmus applications are, because this experience not only offered us another way of thinking but friends also.
