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“I was glad to get an experience of being an exchange students for the last 9 months. I am grateful to ERASMUS MUNDUS program for this opportunity.  This program is not just about studying and improving your professional skills. At the same time you can learn more about different cultures through this program. I was an exchange student during the last 9 months in Turku, Finland. I studied in Turku University, Turku School of Economics (www.utu.fi). Within this 9 months I got the opportunity not just to learn more about my subject but at the same time to meet a lot of people, visit different places and get good school of life. You will find more about my experience in Finland below.

What was in the beginner? The truth be told I didn’t chose Finland. I didn’t make Finland as a priority country in my exchange program application. No, it is not. Finland chose me. And I will never regret that I went there. In Finland I felt like at home. First of all it was because of people. Cold and closed in the beginning they are ready to help you and get so nice when you get closer with them. I don’t think that it is common for every country.

I liked the nature there. Everything was green (in summer time). It was like a big forest. The forest was everywhere. It was not a typical view for my eyes. I am used to see steppes everywhere. And sky. Sky was gorgeous there, especially during sunset. A little bit about sun. I spent winter time in Turku. It was dark almost all the time and that was hard to stand. There were only 5 hours of sun there if you can call it sun.  But on the other hand it’s nice to spend time with friends and family members.

That was about my own feelings about Finland and Finnish people. But what is about my experience there? What did I get to know there and what did I learn? In Finland I got my desire to study and learn new things again. One thing I noticed when I was preparing for my first exam was that everybody was studying and they liked to do it, they enjoyed it.

And about education. The level of education there is high. Because of it I put Finland in my application list. Now I can say that through studying there I got more knowledge about my studying field and also improved my professional skills. There were a lot of different kinds of studying. It could be group work, assignments, case studying. Also I want to say about knowledge of English language. I was surprised to see that almost everybody there can speak English. You can just go out of your place and feel free to ask anybody for help even if you don’t speak Finnish at all.

It is worth to notice that Turku is full of international students. There you can learn about different cultures even don’t convince yourself to go to other country. I met a lot of students from all over the world. This also can help to learn new languages. Of course it’s impossible to know language but you can learn the most useful phrases.

That is how it was. Thank you everybody, my coordinators at home University and from Spain and Finland for this opportunity.”