Erasmus life
Do you remember the movie Jùlia Ist, directed by and starring Elena Martín? The film revolves around the Erasmus year that Jùlia, an architecture student from Barcelona, will live in Berlin.
But this movie is not just about the parties and how much fun it is when you get this scholarship. _ Julia Ist _ forgets the topics and focuses on the personal journey of its protagonist and how she is building her life in Berlin and understanding who she is in this new context.
That the film is released now could not be more opportune. Summer begins, but Erasmus comes to an end . Right now, thousands of European students spend the day between parties and barbecues, l mourning and saying goodbye to those who have accompanied them in a year that has marked their lives forever because what a lot of things you experience when you're on Erasmus!
Julia Ist, or the reflection of any Erasmus in his adventure
WHAT DO I PAINT HERE?
Yes, the Erasmus year is usually wonderful, but there is a part that nobody counts: the beginning is quite terrifying. If you have been awarded one of these scholarships, it is most likely that you have never lived alone before, much less in a country other than your own. That is very scary.
The first smack is given to you when you land in your new city: you've been to extracurricular English all your life, but suddenly you don't even know how to say hello . This will be the first of many scares: you will curse yourself for not paying attention when preparing potato omelette at home for dinner because you're going to end up very sick of eating macaroni and, let's not kid ourselves, your residence looked less seedy in the photos on the web . Also, in those photos, people seem to be having a great time in the kitchen, but you in the common areas only meet local students who ignore you and seem angry all the time.
During the first weeks you will ask yourself several times a day who sends me to get into this? , but soon you will deny having thought about it. The beginning of the Erasmus is full of tests of patience, but the satisfaction of overcoming one by one the obstacles that you find along the way make it very worthwhile.
COMFORT ZONE? WHAT IS THAT?
During the scholarship be out of the comfort zone take a new meaning and that's the best thing that can happen to you. It really is hard to imagine a situation where you have more freedom to do what one wants than when you are in your early twenties and live thousands of miles from home for the first time.
You realize that you do things that you had never imagined: you sing terrible, but you wouldn't dream of missing the karaoke night of Wednesdays; you had never cooked, but since you have no choice, you show up at every dinner you are invited to with a culinary creation worthy of winning master chef . You, who in your pre-Erasmus life could not have been more shy, you go to parties you haven't been invited to and leave with ten new numbers on your phone each time.
By mid-autumn you will have reached the status of conversation level Erasmus expert , a language consisting of four questions: What's your name? Where are you from? What do you study? Full course or half? Based almost exclusively on that information you will be able to know with whom you want to share more than two beers at a party.
At the beginning of the course you have the social life of an Ibizan DJ, but as the months go by, the atmosphere relaxes and the number one priority is the impromptu trips with those five friends you're really comfortable with and with whom you feel like spending your Saturday hangover watching a movie at the residence on Sunday.
So many hours together... Erasmus is an ode to friendship
TOGETHER IN JOY AND IN SADNESS
Because you've only known those five friends for two months, but you feel like you have more in common with them than with your whole life and it is that, apparently, one only understands that of "everything is magnified here" when he walks in Big Brother or when you go on Erasmus.
They are your friends and your family at the same time because the adventures and misadventures of this scholarship unite a lot: you have experienced breakups and new crushes together, you have suffered the hell of learning agreements ; They have helped you prepare impossible jobs and they agree with you that saving 20 euros is well worth sleeping on the floor of airports in half of Europe. In the end, you've seen more of them in one semester than your old friends in three years and that irremediably leads you to think that what you would like is to stay in that city and with those people forever. But it can not be done.
It's all so intense because the scholarship has a beginning and an end. Yeah, it's a shame, but let's face it, whoever decided to make it only last 10 months was very smart: There is no checking account or human body that can withstand that rate for longer.
The Erasmus loves...
SPABILAS... BY FORCE
You come home feeling different because you are different. You have learned more in these months than in your entire university life, both personally and academically, because, let's dismantle a myth here and now: the idea that Erasmus only lazes around is a lie.
In this course you have faced group work with dynamics very different from those you knew, oral presentations in languages that you do not speak and, depending on the host university, an educational system that completely passes theory and exams and requires you deliveries with a frequency never before imagined. Admit it, it cost you, but in the end You have ended up enjoying it because you were an Architecture student before, but in your foreign university you have been an architect.
Also you have learned to do Polish pierogis and you are the king of pancakes thanks to your friend from Bordeaux, you can say tacos in more than 15 languages and you have been able to manage the ridiculous endowment of your scholarship and eat at least twice a day for an entire course. You have gained confidence and you know much more about life at the end of the Erasmus than when you landed in Berlin in September.
THE POST-ERASMUS DEPRESSION EXISTS
Yes, the post-grant slump is real , it is very hard and nobody gets rid of it. You have lived an entire course at a frantic pace, but when you return home things seem to be the same as when you left. Also, your university seems horrible to you ; your life, routine and sad and you will affirm that the average age of your city is around 125 years. As if this wasn't enough, your old friends hate you a little because you're so annoying : you've come back with a thousand stories and the truth is that outside of your Erasmus bubble nobody cares much about them.
But calm down, everything happens. Fortunately, It is not yet known of anyone who reaches 30 without having passed this end of cycle . And if not, don't worry, there are always meetings, one of the most beautiful things that comes out of all this: you will have international weddings, tenth-anniversary trips to the city where you lived with your friends from the scholarship while you house becomes a youth hostel and you in the official tour guide of your province with all foreign visitors.
Summer begins... but Erasmus comes to an end