Mariana Dmytrovska

 

Speciality: Computer Science and Business       

 

TErm of state: 03/09/2018-28/01/2019

The name of the specialty in NTU GP, Computer Science, 4th course

 

Frankly speaking, the last 5 months that I spent in Spain participating in Erasmus+ exchange program were the best period of my life and the most essential experience I have ever gained. Jaen is a small and very cozy town and it stole my heart for ever with its unique atmosphere, breathtaking views and almost always sunny weather. The university also impressed me a lot: it was totally brand-new, very nice and big, with cozy places for studying or taking rest for students, wonderful landscape design.Such a perfect place to study where everyone feels very comfortable and happy!

The professors always were very nice, understandable and helpful. I was definitely lucky having an opportunity to study with my professors of Business Administration and Human Resources, they were very educated, friendly, open-minded and easy-going, our lectures and practices were always a pleasure for me. Nevertheless, there are some troubles for exchange students: major number of disciplines, especially technical ones, are taught in Spanish or only partially in English. For sure, there are a lot of subjects taught in English but usually for professors it’s a new working practice and it can lead to some misunderstanding as well. The same situation is related to living in Jaen – usually it’s very hard to find people speaking in English at least a bit and even Spanish, mostly in pronunciation, is totally different from a classic one. Anyway, looking back to all this time, I understand that such an experience was totally worth it and it only made me stronger and ready to face any problems without fair. Besides, I’m really thankful to all the people that helped me in the beginning and during all the period of my staying in Spain, for example, to the friends who could help with translation from Spanish to English or Russian and to the students from my university who also took part in the exchange program with me (we always tried to help each other and to stay together), to the stuff of international departments of my home university and Spanish university as well, to all my new friends that I made in Spain from all over the world and to local people that I met during my living in Jaen. The most useful for comfortable living in Spain for me were courses from University of Jaen Language Centre that helped me to achieve B1 level in Spanish only in 4 months and also I have improved a lot my English making numerous presentations for studying and just communicating with people from another countries and my professors. Despite all the difficulties with adaptation in the beginning, I’m really happy and proud about being a part of something great, unique and exciting that changed me forever and only in a better way and gave me a chance to gain lots of new useful knowledge and to take a wonderful experience that I will remember all my life.

I’m thankful to the moon and back to our university and to our international department in particular for a successful cooperation with their Spanish colleagues and giving an opportunity to the talented students to prove themselves abroad and to live the best life and studying experience in their life!