“Erasmus opened my eyes!”

Magda studies at the University of Economics in Prague, the Czech Republic. Her dream was to go on Erasmus during her Bachelor programme in order to improve her language skills and to get to know better a new country and its culture. However, when she applied, she met with unexpected difficulties. Those kinds of difficulties that are met by thousands of students all over the EU every year: not enough budgets.

Many universities and schools face the same problem every year: huge amount of students is interested in Erasmus programme but there are only few places available. In practice, this huge concurrence leads many schools to exercising of tough entrance exams prior to acceptance for the Erasmus programme. Magda, as many other students, had to go through these exams and at the end she was only able to become a substitute on a waiting list in the case that some of those, who got on Erasmus, would change their mind.

As she herself describes, her home university is an extreme example. Only around 50% of those interested in going on Erasmus have a real chance to succeed. The entrance exams are also a tough nut: successful students need to have above-average grades, they need to be very active in extra curriculum activities and they need to excel in languages. Does it sound fair? On one hand, one must admit that it is the most reasonable way of choosing those, who will be eventually rewarded by Erasmus stipend. On the other hand, the exchange programme should help students to learn foreign languages and thus fluency in those languages should not be a prerequisite.

“One wants to go abroad to experience a foreign country, different learning and teaching systems at foreign universities, to get to know new culture and test himself,” says Magda. But for some students it is impossible to fulfil this ambition. They need to pass very difficult entrance exams testing them from a broad spectre of topics covering everything from history to marketing or sport, and eventually the potential participants need to go through oral interview with the board of admittance. Only thereafter it is decided about who is going to be granted the position in the Erasmus programme. “In my test there were questions as for instance: ‘On what place was placed the Czech women basketball team on the championship X in the year YYYY?’ ‘ How many cars were sold in the Czech Republic this year in comparison to the previous year?’ Or ‘How has the GDP in China changed between years X and Y?’,” describes Magda. She also expresses her doubts about objectivity of the test. “I think that the test is set in a way that it makes students from certain faculties advantaged.”

Magda passed the test and had enough points due to her grades and language skills; nevertheless she was not successful during the interview. However, Magda had enough luck to get on a waiting list as a substitute and eventually she was able to go on Erasmus to Lichtenstein. It was not her first choice of destination, but as she herself admits, it doesn’t really matter as long as she could experience this. “When I was telling about my experiences with the entrance exams to my Erasmus-mates in Lichtenstein, they were looking at me like I came from a different planet,” says Magda and laughs.

With hindsight, Magda says she is incredibly happy she was able to go on Erasmus. She feels that she benefited in all dimensions. She sorted out her priorities, found out, what is life and study about in abroad and even thought about the possibility of living in a foreign country in the future. “Before I went to Erasmus, I was blinded by the student life in Prague and I was really confused. But Erasmus opened my eyes. I met people from all over the world in this super tiny country in the western Europe. And I realised that we are so different that we are eventually all completely the same. If I had not gone there, I would have missed a huge life experience and I would have still been a stressed student, not knowing what to do with my life.”

Acknowledgement: Our thanks to Magda Jirova, who shared her story with us (and you!).

By Helena Erbanova

P.S. Would you like to share your positive or negative experiences with the European exchange programmes? Write us your story and send it along with a picture to: HelenaErbanova@fraternite2020.eu.