Considering Erasmus? My advice: DO IT!

May I start by confirming the fact that choosing to do Erasmus is probably one of the best decisions you will ever make, so put aside any fears about language barrier or the distance from home! After a year you will have loads of friends from every corner of Europe, speak another language with confidence, be ludicrously employable and have had some unforgettable experiences.

In pretty much every university the Erasmus students form a very tight community, so any problems with language barrier are instantly removed by the fact that everybody else is in the same boat! I personally found the mixture of people from all different nations absolutely mind-blowing. I wasn’t very well travelled before Erasmus and thought it was going to be a problem: on the contrary, I think that’s why I enjoyed it more!

Conversations consisting of more than 3 languages at once will become the norm and you will not cease to be amazed by the cultural and linguistic peculiarities of our neighbours. Exploring the language and culture of the host country with your new Erasmus mates makes it so much less scary and a hell of a lot more fun. I met some incredible people whilst in Santander and if it wasn’t for Erasmus I would have never met anyone like them in a million years!

During the first month living in another country everything is pretty daunting, but at the same time massively exciting! The language learning curve is incredibly rapid and after 4 weeks, your confidence is sky high and you will wonder why the hell you were ever worried in the first place! And if that still isn’t enough, may I remind you that 47% of the EU speak English as a second language, so you have nothing to worry about!

It is probable that many of your fellow Erasmus students may be doing the year for little or even no credits, so keep this in mind towards the end of the year when deadlines are approaching, especially if you want to do well. If you are writing a thesis or project out there, remember to see your supervisor as much as humanly possible and continuously ask members of the group questions.

I would advise you to try and organise a language buddy with a native speaker as soon as possible, because it is tempting to only hang around with Erasmus guys which linguistically is a bad move! Also try to join a local gym, sports team or some form of club as this will allow you to widen your social network and get some good local chat on the go!

Make sure you get a Skype account for a free or very cheap way to call back to the UK and most importantly: go on a road trip with your new mates early on in the year when the work has not started to build up. I went on a 10 day road trip of 30 people to Andalucía in November and words cannot express how awesome that was!