My name is Ana-Maria Badea and I study at the Faculty of Finance and Banking, year 2. Many students just like me gave a thought at least once to the unique chance of leaving with ERASMUS, away from friends and parents, to study at one of the most prestigious universities in Europe. My experience started in September 2016 when, with only two luggages and the plane tickets, I headed off to Reading, at ICMA Center (International Capital Markets Association), University of Reading. The town is very quiet and clean, and the people very friendly and kind so that, in the last 5 months I have been living here, I felt like home. Here I had the opportunity to experience the campus life and to relationship with students across the world and also with other Romanians studying here. In the ICMA Center we have, apart from lecture and seminar theatres, Trading Simulations rooms, which help us put into practice all we learn in modules like Financial Trading or Derivative Securities. All the lecture notes, assignments, exam marks and feedbacks from lecturers are found on the BlackBoard platform, which makes the professor-student relationship much easier. If you are eager to learn fro the best all the secrets in Finance and Investment Banking, but also looking forward to thrill to the English experience, I heartily encourage you to apply!

Everyone around me was saying that ERASMUS is an incredible experience, not to be missed during your university years. After I carefully analysed the Erasmus + mobility offer, I chose to go in Lille, France. I wanted to study in French, I wanted a city where I wouldn't get bored and where I'd have opportunities to travel. Lille has ticked all the criteria. By speaking with my friends who already had done one ERASMUS, I formed an idea of what five months spent studying in another country should mean. But it all far from what I had imagined, and so I realized that every Erasmus is a unique experience that you can't anticipate. There were five full months, without a single boring day. There I met amazing people from all over Europe, all the way to Peru and Brazil; I visited four countries and I had lots of fun. I am the most proud of how much I developed my language skills, managing to take all my university subjects in French. I studied at IAE Lille, a renowned management school in France. Thus, I found out that university education can be done differently. Certainly, I developed a lot on the professional and personal side. As not everything can be good, the French administrative paperwork gave me headaches and it took a lot of my time, but, through this, I was also able to become more independent, solving most problems on my own. ERASMUS is an experience that develops you in a unique way, and if you like to spend your time in a mixed cultural environment and challenge yourself every day; it's the right opportunity to take!

Hi! My name is Emilian and I am currently studying in the Netherlands at the University of Groningen in the small and cozy city of Groningen through the ERASMUS programme. I wish to share with you what ERASMUS experience means to me until now and I hope that in the end, it will convince that his is an unmissable opportunity. ERASMUS gives you the chance to study abroad and experience a different educational system and the reason I chose the Netherlands was mainly due to its prestigious education. Moreover, meeting students from all over the world is staggering. Have you ever thought of working in a team composed of Italian, German, Malaysian or South Korean students? ERASMUS represents the chance of overcoming your fears and finding what are your skills. It may be an experience that will change your way of thinking and behavior and that will give birth to new curiosities. ERASMUS is about students, motivated and open-minded young people that are keen to meet you, to discover you and to share with you things that you would never know about their cultures. ERASMUS is a unique experience and I truly support you to go for it, because you will never regret it.

I was an ERASMUS student within the University of Barcelona. Through the five months spent at the host university I had the opportunity to study within an international environment, among other European and American colleagues who opted for ERASMUS mobility. This experience helped me discover that diversity is beautiful, acquiring in this way an ample openness to another culture, other people and other places. I learned to learn a little bit different than I was learning at home, to interact with professors in a less formal setting, to be a more independent and sociable person. Looking back, I believe that the ERASMUS mobility left a positive mark on my both personal and professional development. I am currently working within an international environment and I can say that the ERASMUS student experience helped me to quickly integrate and adapt myself to its demands.

You may wonder what “ERASMUS” actually is. ERASMUS is represented by me, by the hundreds of thousands of students that have been abroad with scholarships, by the memories, the friendships and by the unforgettable moments, ERASMUS can be represented by you. The whole experience, from the moment when I first heard about it, until the moment when I landed back in Bucharest can be described very well with one word: adventure. The 9 months spent abroad at Istanbul University have been unique, I had the opportunity of studying in a new environment with a different teaching system. Once I got there I realized that everything I knew about this country/these people was wrong. Turkey has proved itself as being the perfect host and the Turkish people the most welcoming people I’ve met so far. I couldn’t have made a better choice. At the end of the exchange period you will realize that every person you’ve met, every exam, every party and every moment spent there are actually important elements in your personal development. Europe will never be the same after ERASMUS, in every country you will have a friend waiting for you to visit him and that is more than happy to show you what his country is famous for. “Once ERASMUS, Always ERASMUS”, probably considered a cliché at first sight, it will have thousands of meanings when you will get back from the mobility. Stop thinking about it and apply now! You will thank yourself later for the decision you’ve made.