#1. ERASMUS PROJECT : a community of sharing using social media
How do Erasmus students live with the social networks ?
The Panteion Lab « News Consumers Trends » led by Betty Tsakarestou is conceived as a discussion around the recent forms of collaborative consumption, social networks and social medias platforms. The goal is to analyse in a widen perspective the practices of those new mediums by a community group, a startup, an association and so on.
Our team is mainly composed by Erasmus students, who are living right now in Athens, along with another former Greek Erasmus student, including Vivien Lobenwein, Mélanie, Ivan Vorona, Lou and Eleni-Boralda Manelari.
Hence, and according to our own experiences, we focus our research on this question : « How do Erasmus students live — as expatriates — with the social networks and the social media platforms ? »
The Erasmus program could be represents as a melting pot, a space of encounters and sharing with people from various nationalities, social backgrounds, cultural contexts. This year 2017, the Erasmus program will celebrate 30 years of existence. Although, during this time lapse, the technologies together with social platforms and applications, expanded considerably and gained a large place in our everyday’s life. Indeed, those medias have changed our ways to travel, communicate, create relationships.
Thus, our idea is to explore 4 main topics : the backgrounds of the Erasmus program, the Erasmus network before and during the mobility, the differents behaviours on social medias as well as the common trends and expectations of Erasmus students.
In order to get a deep understanding of those mecanisms and questions, we will refer to articles, surveys, interviews and our own observations.
- Background of the Erasmus program
The Erasmus program is a European Union student exchange program established in 1987. The program is named after the Dutch philosopher Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam, known as an opponent of dogmatism, who lived and worked in many places in Europe to expand his knowledge and gain new insights, and who left his fortune to the University of Basel in Switzerland. At the same time, Erasmus is a backronym meaning European Region Action Scheme for the Mobility of University Students. By the time the Erasmus Program was adopted in June 1987, the European Commission had been supporting pilot student exchanges for 6 years. The program built on the 1981–1986 pilot student exchanges, and although it was formally adopted only shortly before the beginning of the academic year 1987–1988, it was still possible for 3,244 students to participate in Erasmus in its first year. The Erasmus Program, together with a number of other independent programs, was incorporated into the Socrates program established by the European Commission in 1994. The Socrates program ended on 31 December 1999 and was replaced with the Socrates II program on 24 January 2000, which in turn was replaced by the Lifelong Learning Program 2007–2013 on 1 January 2007. Erasmus+ (2014–2020), also called Erasmus Plus, is the new 14.7 billion euro catch-all framework program for education, training, youth and sport. The new Erasmus+ program combines all the EU’s current schemes for education, training, youth and sport, including the Lifelong Learning Program (Erasmus, Leonardo da Vinci, Comenius, Grundtvig), Youth in Action and five international co-operation programs (Erasmus Mundus, Tempus, Alfa, Edulink and the program for co-operation with industrialized countries). The Erasmus+ regulation was signed on 11 December 2013. There are currently more than 4,000 higher institutions participating in Erasmus across the 33 countries involved in the Erasmus program and by 2013, 3 million students had taken part since the program’s inception in 1987. In 2012–13 alone, 270,000 took part, the most popular destinations being Spain, Germany, and France. Erasmus students represented 5 percent of European graduates as of 2012.
In my opinion Erasmus program obviously helped the European countries to feel close to each other and to exchange ideas and knowledge. This is a great opportunity for a student to live abroad and to attend courses from another university. Students improve their level of English, some other skills and feel more Europeans.
To have an overview of this program, we are going to collect interviews of people from different generations, that have all experienced Erasmus.
2. An Erasmus network before Erasmus mobility
Before even beginning the Erasmus adventure, students can experience a veritable « Erasmus network ». Indeed, they can communicate with each other through social media platforms in order to prepare themselves.
The first thing they can do, is to have information about their future university. For example, in our case there is a special website called Panteion Incoming dedicated to Erasmus Student at Panteion University (www.panteionincoming.blogspot.fr). On this site, it is possible to have all the information you need, related to various topics such as the general organisation of the school, the courses or the procedure to follow for the academic application.
But one of the major point is that Erasmus students can find an apartment through some networks before their departure. For example, Facebook enable a very easy communication between them and the apartment owner. Groups are created in order to make things easy. “Erasmus Accommodation Group @ University of Athens” is for example one group dedicated to exchange program students who are trying to find an accomodation. This way, they can see flats’ pictures and contact the owner to get more information or even to book the room already. But there are also dedicated websites where students can find a place, such as Stay In Athens or Home Greek Home for housing in Athens.
It is also very convenient for students to go on platforms made for them to meet their future classmates. Again, Facebook is a good example. Groups are created and people can reach out to each other. The website Erasmusu is also a very good example, because it connects people but also allows them to look for an accommodation or to see/share their experiences.
3. Erasmus : one or various communities ?
It seems, that at the beginning Erasmus people are trying to find each other from the same country on social media. It might give them safety feeling. However there are big groups of french and polish people (they are in highest number among us), they also mix with non french/polish people. The basic friendships made people at the beginning from the same country, because they already got to know each other on social media before coming to Athens. There are more reasons, not just the safety feeling. There might be a cause, that especially at the beginning somebody is too shy to communicate in english, maybe he has problem with the language itself. So it is easier for him to speak his native language. So they make first friends from their home country and hanging together as we can see on their Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat application.
It is also common, that people, who lives together became friends as well, they add each other on social media and texting about everyday stuffs. It does not matter, if there are from different countries. They go together for Erasmus parties and programs and also leave together, like a new international family, they also post photos to social media together.
Since our lectures and classes started we also make friends in the university as well, and in my examinations, there is the real mix of Erasmus people. We need to make several projects for the classes, so we need to work together and it is also a good way to getting to know others and make friends. Most often we discuss our project on social media, because it is easier to communicate online, everybody has different courses and it is sometimes hard to meet in real life before a presentation.
It depends on the person, what she/he prefers, to hanging out with foreign or homeland friends, we are going to examine and make conclusions of our examinations. Luckily social media shows almost in every case a people and his friends, because our generation lives online as well.
4. Relationships, ways of living, trends and expectations of Erasmus Students
Our 4th topic is about the relationships and, generally, the ways of living of the Erasmus students. It is normal when they join to start getting into a common way of using the media. No matter if they were using them in their country, when they become Erasmus, they do it and they do it often. I could say they start by join all the possible groups on Facebook, which have to do with their daily life in the host country. They want to get informed about events, trips, parties or just use it to share ideas. They feel free to ask any questions to the members knowing someone will know the solution or the best option regarding any topic. Also, there are some other kind of groups they create, such as on Whatsapp, which are a bit more private and are used by smaller groups of friends or even classmates, in order to share more specific ideas and information.
On the other hand though, there is a small amount of Erasmus people who do not like to be part of all those groups, rejecting the concept of “Erasmus groups”. They choose to be more independent and to live their daily life following their own program and style. This is also something that happens but not so often, because Erasmus people usually prefer to belong somewhere, this way feeling safer and accepted.
