Personal Erasmus Report

Personal Erasmus Report Universidad de Deusto, IRIO.

Laura Oostdam (lauraoostdam@gmail.com) Semester 1, Year 3 2018-2019

I have been on Erasmus exchange during the first semester of my third year as an IRIO student, attending Universidad de Deusto in Bilbao, Spain.

I was able to take a variety of courses in the program, and if wished, one from outside the IRIO program, which I did not end up choosing. Instead I mostly followed a variety of third year courses, as well as one first year class. Before departure I had picked out courses which quickly got approved by the Board of Examiners, but upon arrival one of these courses turned out to not be available anymore and for the other one required a very high level of academic Spanish, which I did not control well and thus decided to change my schedule around a bit.

The courses I took were Geopolitics (first year), Global Governance, Latin America in the World and La religión: un factor de orden y/o desorden en el mundo. All these classes were taught in English, except for Religión. However, most in-class discussions were still held in Spanish, which sometimes made it more difficult to actively participate. Nevertheless I was able to follow and understand the majority of the Religión class, and really enjoyed practicing my language skills this way.

I could further develop my Spanish skills in an additional language class. At the beginning of the semester we took a test, and accordingly to the results I was placed in the C1 class, with all international exchange students as well. Compared to the Spanish Basic course I had followed in Groningen these lessons were much more interactive and every day we would have active discussions about a variety of topics and cultural differences between the different students who were from all around Europe. Students could also take a Basque class if they wanted, but I decided not to follow this.

These courses were tested with a variety of smaller assignments such as essays, a presentation for every class, and a larger exam at the end. The main difficulty was planning for five courses at the same time and the fact that we did not know what to expect out of the exams, but I luckily passed all my courses. Some of the assignments I found a bit strange compared to what we are used to in Groningen. For example, for Latin America in the World we had to do a group presentation with over ten students, making coordination and structure the most difficult part.

The quality of education was different for every course. While some of my teachers were really passionate about their course and teaching and could bring new information with ease, for other classes this wasn’t really the case, especially the first year course, where the

professor struggled with keeping the attention of the students and providing a coherent

explanation.

Nevertheless, the help provided by the host institution was very good. Even though everything was done on paper and thus a bit slow they would help you the best they could. They had an office for international students were you could go if you needed something and they would help you out. Upon arrival they gave you the information necessary for the first days there and there was a meeting for international students, which all ran smoothly. However registration was supposed to go via paper, and started up slow which led to a confusing first week of class. Also upon my arrival I found that my assigned accommodation was dirty, old and overall not that great. Very disappointed I went to the international student office where they let me look at new housing and arranged that I could meet with the land lady and change apartments the next day. They were really helpful and my new apartment was very clean and much better. Their housing placement program is a great way to help exchange students settle with other students and takes away much of the stress of moving to a different country, so I would definitely recommend it.

I did not require much support from Groningen, but nevertheless I mostly got a fast reply on any questions I had. As I changed courses while there due to some courses not being available or not up to my expectations I needed the approval of the Board of Examiners once again, which could take up to six weeks. I was quite worried that it could take that long, but I got a reply within one week and there was nothing to worry about.

Rent was way more expensive than I anticipated before coming (390 euros for 10m2), however food (especially fruit and vegetables) and drink was cheaper than back home.

Including money for travel, public transport and others I spent about the same per month as I would do back in Groningen, around 300 euros estimated. Public transport was actually very cheap compared with here in the Netherlands, as you would pay about 3 euros for a one hour ride by train.

Another minor problem was the registration. The first week we could try all different courses without our attendance counting or being actually registered in the course, which was quite nice as it allowed us to orientate and get well informed about what the courses entailed.

However, the negative aspect of this system was that we could not yet access the necessary documents to participate in these classes and also meant that we were one week behind on the rest of the students

The largest problem was with the sending of the Transcript of Records after my exchange. My last day of academic activity was the 19

of December, and I flew back home the day after, but the Transcript did not arrive until the first of April, almost four months later. This was due to a change in the system of the university, but nevertheless this was really late and we were not clearly informed about why it was taking them so long.

I have enjoyed this experience abroad a lot. It was very nice to experience this change of

environment, studying in a different system, getting to know new people every day and

discovering the quite special Basque culture and surrounding nature. I would say that this

experience helped me develop myself and many new personal skills.