The first Albanian at RAC!

Have you ever experienced the fact of being the first one in doing something? It comes together with a feeling of a big satisfaction, proudness and a great desire to do things in the best way so you can get remembered in the end. My name is Xhesika, I come from Albania and I will tell you a little bit about my journey at RheinAhrCampus. This was the first time of Albanian students coming and studying at RheinAhrCampus, in Germany and besides all the beautiful moments this journey gave me, it has been full of challenges since the beginning. Only three days after arriving here, I found out that I should have applied for a visa in my country and get it there before coming to study here. Responsible people told me that I have to go back and apply in Albania. This issue stressed me a lot, firstly because I had to go back, secondly because the earliest appointment I could get was in three months and thirdly because I didn’t know if after 3 months I could even get the visa at all. I didn’t want to leave this experience in the middle of it. I met here a lot of friends from all around the world, from every continent and all that we have experienced together was another reason to stay till the end. Besides the amazing friends I met here, I am grateful for this semester abroad for a lot of other things. I had the chance to work as a course assistant, to be part of the organizing team of a very intercultural intensive seminar, I learned more about photography, Photoshop, social media management, and school website content management system. I had also the possibility to be in a leading position at our start-up company we opened as part of one of our courses. I experienced how it is like to be a leader and what impact has the way of the leadership you choose on other employees' work. It was a very hardworking project, time-consuming, sometimes even very stressful, but what we will remember from all that is the taste of the final product. Besides these, I was also able to learn some German at the university and tried to use it in any situation while getting stuck in between with non-English speakers.