Dmytro Yefremenko

 

Speciality: Industrial Logistic        

 

Term of stay: 17/09/2018 – 28/02/2019

The name of the specialty in NTU DP Software engineering, 3th course

 

Greetings, reader! My name is Dmytro Yefremenko and I am going to tell you about the semester which has influenced the whole my life. 

So, first things first let me briefly introduce myself. I am in my 5th year of study at National Technical University "Dnipro Polytechnic" in a field of software engineering and testing. However, am not a big computer nerd. I live an active life, I was holding almost every single event in university since 1st year of study as master of ceremonies. Sports, music, and photography are my passions. I can't clearly remember when I started dreaming of traveling abroad, but first real chance to do that I got from the Erasmus+ program. It was a short term youth mobility in Ankara, Turkey which took place in a beautiful mountain area in Kizilcahahmam. So here I will just mention it was an extremely awesome experience! Since that trip, I had an idea to find a project to go on an exchange semester to another country, to discover new cultures, ways of life, and to get an experience of living abroad alone. In my 4th year of study MontanUniversity Leoben and my university came up with an opportunity. It was a mobility semester in Leoben, Austria financed by Erasmus+. And here the story begins.

After all the preparations and walking day in Vienna, deep in the evening, I arrived in Leoben. It was surprising when it took me like 10 minutes to get by taxi from a train station to my dormitory - Living Campus. Even though a taxi driver firstly took me to the wrong place. He didn't try to take extra money for his mistake. Of course, later I realized it was only 10 minutes walking.

At home, I prepared myself for a boring life, because I've read that there were around 28 000 people living in this little city. I wasn't as wrong since I was born. 

 MIRO - MontanUnivesity International Relations Office is an organisation which is coordinating international students. Pure angels are working there! From the first day of our meeting, I noticed how well was organized the process of welcoming students. For all the time they made a lot of different activities, meetings, excursions, and celebrations for us! International students had weekly informative emails from MIRO. It was giving a safe feeling because you know somebody always cares. I think it is very important for young students at the beginning of their journey. Thank you, MIRO! 

In Austria, like in most of Europe, I think, a student has the freedom to choose what he or she wants to study. There are plenty of courses taught in English which you can choose from. As far as MontanUniversity is mining, metallurgy, and materials university, a lot of courses are related to earth, iron, nature ecology, etc. topics. But still, there are a lot of courses for a person who doesn't have any background in those fields. The study process in MontanUni is very well-organized. Usually passing by the university in the evening I could see students studying in the 2nd-floor hall. There is one useful app called "Studo" and it works in MontanUni. With it, by just logging in, a regular student can reach all the needed information related to study, from personal schedule to all the university news and updates. From this app, I found out about the choir in University, which will lead me to my destiny later. By the way, in the Academie building, there are options for language courses that a student can take for about 50 euro/course (semester). These courses of English, German and other languages were very popular among students. Teachers made an exciting excursion to Graz for us in cooperation with MIRO. Which I am very grateful for! I highly recommend you visiting these courses if you get an opportunity. 

An Erasmus exchange is about people, about international unity in order to develop countries tolerate cooperation and peace. That's why we had a lot of collective activities in which you supposed to get to know each other better and even have a possibility to form lifetime friendships as well. During the project, I've met a lot of new people from different countries, such as Brazil, China, Russia, Belorussia, Azerbaijan, Egypt, Germany, Austria, Spain, Morocco, France, Italy, Oman, Ukraine etc. Some of them became good friends of mine. We had incredible journeys and adventures in and even after the project. Still, we keep in touch looking forward to meeting again soon! Living in Austria I trained my photography skills, visiting treasures of this beautiful country with my new friends, sang in the choir, hiked a lot, learned to play guitar, tried indoor climbing, cycled a lot, trained in a gym, organized film evenings in the dormitory, studied, swum, prepared my diploma, won a ticket to the university Ball and danced my feet away, had great fun with my friends playing pool and a lot more! 

Thanks to the choir I've met great musicians, formed a little band, and even wrote my first ever song with them! Semester abroad was a real highway for me, as a person. Temp of life was extremely high and I was excited about that! I found out my weaknesses and boosted my strengths. Have been stopped by the police for the first time, got a fine on a railway, and after got reimbursed. So yeah, many great things can happen to you, when you exit your safety zone! And Erasmus exchange is one of the most comfortable ways to do it, I'm sure! Hardly can all of it be told in one paragraph. It's like a short life inside your big one. Don't miss the chance to live it.