An amazing journey called Erasmus+

My name is Yuliia and I am from Ukraine. I study International Economics at the Ivan Franko National University of Lviv. For sure, going abroad to Germany and studying at RheinAhrCampus was one of the best decisions in my life.

I always dreamed about studying abroad and this year my dream came true. I like my studying here and can say that during my stay here I become a more confident, easy-to-go, and friendly person. I had a great opportunity to explore not only the world but also myself.  I fell in love with RAC from the very beginning. I remember my first day here. I was alone, abroad at a foreign university, but I felt very comfortable and cozy because people here tried to do their best for me. During this semester I saw a lot of people. People from different parts of the world. Before that, I had never met people from India or Bhutan. I met people of completely different religions and with different views on the world. People are, at the same time very different, but they share a desire to explore the world and study.

Thanks to various events and activities organized by the university, we had the opportunity to get to know each other better and communicate in an informal environment. This is how I tried traditional dishes from students from Bhutan, India, Jordan, Syria, Afghanistan, and Germany. Of course, I also treated everyone to the traditional Ukrainian dish. For the first time in my life, I attended Iftar, an extremely important event for all Muslims. It was incredibly fascinating to observe how Muslims observe fasting, and which customs and traditions they have. I have to admit, it was fantastic. What is more interesting is that we went to Iftar together with our classmates, which helped us to break the ice and get to know each other better. In addition, I have never communicated with such different people in my life. Being here gave me that opportunity and that is fantastic. You do not just get to know each other, you get a lot of information, you learn something new, you change your mind. I can confidently say that at the moment I look at everything with new eyes.

I was extremely impressed with the teaching style and overall learning system here. Everything is really high-quality and professional. It is impressive that there is a lot of practical knowledge that will be useful at work, teachers are extremely attentive to you and respect all opinions. The tasks are not standard, but require your creativity and expression of your own opinion, and not just retelling information from a book. I was also lucky enough to study a course called Asia. We talked a lot about the peculiarities of the countries of the Asian region, the peculiarities of doing business. In May, together with other students, we flew to Turkey, where we worked on a marketing strategy for one of the largest Turkish companies and of course, we travelled a lot and talked, because the students were from different 4 universities.

I am also an intern at the Department of International Relations and Languages. I can say that this is one of my best internships and I had a lot of them. I learned a lot here and worked hard on many tasks. Sometimes it was difficult, sometimes not completely clear, but always extremely interesting. I especially like being a teacher's assistant. I was lucky enough to be a teacher's assistant from Australia. You can say that a small childhood dream came true — to teach at a university. And of course, Erasmus gave me many trips. During my stay here, I visited 3 new countries and more than 10 German cities. Finally, I can say that life is unpredictable but very interesting. Now I am preparing to continue my studies here and do my best.