Stashevska Ilanit

 

Speciality: Mechanical Engineering       

 

Term of stay: 03/09/2018-28/01/2019

The name of the specialty in NTU GP:  Automobile transport, 2nd course

 

Recently I took part in the international Erasmus + student exchange program in Spain, Jaén. This was my first trip for educational purposes, but I have to note that I’ll remember it for the rest of my life.

Firstly, Jaen is an extraordinary city where you can fully experience the Spanish mentality, see the lifestyle, culture and traditions of local people, enjoy the beauty of the mountains and olive fields of Andalusia.

Talking about the university itself, it is an example of how should the higher education institution of the European level look like: with the most modern technical equipment, the territory of the university whose landscape resembles a botanical garden, and buildings more similar to works of architectural art than to the place where students gain knowledge.

A characteristic feature of the Spaniards is that they immensely love their language, so that they refuse to study any other. This is a huge problem for foreign students, many of whom do not know Spanish at all. Therefore, especially in the early days, it was difficult to deal with problems, for example, in a bank or even in a supermarket.

During the semester, I was able not only to practice my English skills, as most of the subjects I studied were conducted in English, not to mention the constant communication with students from all over the world, as well as to learn Spanish at a rather high level.

However, the studies turned out to be much more complex than I imagined, because according to the Bologna system, which is followed by almost all European universities, the student has to process most of the material on its own. But, even taking into account some difficulty, I passed all the exams. 

So, I am very grateful to both our university and the University of Jaen for this opportunity to get an experience in studying at a European university and see what else we need to work on and where our system, in my opinion, even surpasses the European one.