30 years Erasmus+ Program
“You meet the greatest people you can think of”
On the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the Erasmus student exchange programme, two international students share their experience about their life abroad. Let’s dive into the world of Nacho Sanchis, a Spanish student on Erasmus in Hasselt (Belgium), and Maurine Giet, a Belgian who went on Erasmus to Seville (Spain), to know more about language, culture and live experience!
The Erasmus program is an exchange program for students and teachers from European and international universities. This program was established in 1987. It is part of the European Higher Education Area. It is a subset of the Lifelong Learning program. And let’s not forget that the name of the program comes from the Dutch humanist and theologian Desiderius Erasmus.
Lots of paperwork
Before going abroad and enjoying the experience of a lifetime, students have to go through a heap of administrative paperwork and a long period of administrative procedures. Maurine and Nacho agree on that point. Maurine said that “she had to wait weeks to get a specific paper, which at the end wasn’t the good one. She also had to go from office to office to speak to the right person or, again, have the right paper to complete. But, at the end, it wasn’t that bad, all was taken care off and sent on time, and she did not have to worry much.”
On this subject, Nacho said that “the procedure is quite long but it is the least that we can do because we get to live in another country and learn a new language and moreover, we get paid to do so.”
Cultural immersion
Most of the time, the hosting universities organize “Welcome Days” or “Welcome Weeks” during which Erasmus students get to meet each other, talk and also meet other cultures. The first day in their Erasmus school can most of the time be compared to a hotbed where students coming from really different parts of the world can learn what their cultural differences are and what brings them closer to each other.
But this international encounter does not get organized by itself, fortunately there are Erasmus coordinators to supervise the whole Erasmus journey. The two interviewees agreed on the fact that coordinators and even teachers are really helpful during the adaptation period and during the whole stay of the Erasmus students.
As Maurine said: “In Seville, there was a Welcome Week. Seville is a city where a lot of students go to do their Erasmus. A lot of activities, as meetings, city and faculty tours, are organized to make the new Erasmus students at ease. It was really great. I participated at nearly everything and it helped me a lot to know the city, to know my way around and also to meet people.” The first days of the Erasmus are therefore crucial for the Erasmus students and coordinators to help those students with the adaptation to their new city.
No language barriers
The Erasmus experiment allows students to be totally immersed in the culture of the language they learn abroad. After overcoming the fact that Erasmus students miss their family, friends and sometime their dog (as Nacho said), they have to face some other difficulties. And at some point, mostly at the beginning of their journey, Erasmus students might come across some cultural differences that can become difficult for them or surprise them. But they do not have troubles to finally get adapted to those cultural changes.
As Maurine said, “When I moved there, in Seville, I already knew a lot about Spain, as I have travelled a lot in the country since I was a child. I already knew about the late supper. I also knew about the kind of nap Spanish people take in the middle of the day, but it was quite easy to adapt to these changes.”
The language is also not an insurmountable barrier for Erasmus students. Because of the fact that they go abroad to learn a new language or to improve their knowledge on that language, they do not encounter problems speaking and communicating with people living in their hosting country. Thanks to the total immersion, most of the students who come back from their Erasmus have become bilingual and have even sometimes difficulties to use their mother tongue.
Great encounters
After their Erasmus journey, students come back home and can think about their experience and what the Erasmus program has changed in their life. Thanks to their Erasmus experiment, our two interviewees got a wider view on Europe. Nacho has learnt that the European countries must more than ever work together in a world where international countries are more than ever focused on their own national country than on international collaboration.
Nacho’s point of view is thus more political whereas Maurine’s point of view is more cultural and based on the wanderlust. As she said: “ Erasmus made me realize that there is so much more to see and much more to know than what Belgium can offer to me. It made me think that I need to learn more about cultures around me. It makes me want to travel (even) more. The Erasmus program is, to me, one of the greatest things. It opens so many opportunities to people: they learn languages, culture and even skills they couldn’t have learned in their home cities. Moreover, it makes you meet the greatest people you can think of.”
For both of the interviewees, the Erasmus experiment has changed their life. They learnt to become independent because in their hosting Erasmus city, they were living alone in the city centre where they spent most of their time outside with other people. Nacho hasn’t already gone back to Spain but he does not look forward to it. When he comes back, he will help his parents more and adapt his new learnt independence in his daily life in Spain.
For Maurine, the adaptation to the home country was a bit harder not only because she was leaving the sunny weather of Seville to come back to the cold Belgian weather, but the hardest part was, as she said, that “when you learn to be independent it’s hard to go back to how it was before.” Nevertheless, they both agree on the fact that this Erasmus experiment is unforgettable and has culturally and humanely changed their life.
For the 30th anniversary of the Erasmus program in 2017, the organization decided to show its evolution from Erasmus to Erasmus+ during a month of celebrations among some European countries, which are part of the Erasmus program. During those 30 years, the Erasmus program has evolved culturally, historically, administratively to become what it is today, a humane experiment open to more and more students among Europe.
