Erasmus - The European Experience (?)












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            * Erasmus - The European Experience (?)
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            ERASMUS, the European Community Action Scheme for the Mobility of University Students, is 

            European Commission's Lifelong Learning Program, certainly its best known project and its 
            Every year, about 200.000 European students are provided the opportunity of studying and l
            at least one semester. The main aims of the program are to broaden the academic and profes

            of the participants, to improve language skills, and to deepen intercultural competences a
            Since the introduction of ERASMUS in 1987, more than 2 millions of students and 250.000 te
            participated in the program that involves 33 European countries and spends a budget of 450

            Euros per year. 
            But does Erasmus fulfill the expectations? Isn't it the case that most of the students com

            but for studying"? And if this is the case- is it a bad thing?
            "I am applying for an Erasmus semester because..." The reasons completing this sentence ar
            the students expressing them: enjoying yourself in a city that is worth living, getting to

            culture, making international contacts, getting in touch with a different educational syst
            hell. Erasmus means that you are paid money for going to a place of your choice, to study 
            part of the European experience. Because at the end of the day, ERASMUS is the best known 

            European integration. If you want to create a political and social community out of an eco
            would you start? At the younger generations of course, where new experiences have the most
            personality, on their career- and, above all, on their political attitude towards the Euro

            But for most of the students, EU politics and their integration purposes are very far away
            for Erasmus, and become part of the international Erasmus community or "bubble" how critic
            reason for this is that new contacts are being made but rather seldom to the host society 

            the group of international students at the university of choice. This might even lead to a
            of the Erasmus students from ordinary students because apart from institutions such as the
            club they get in touch with very few native students. Due to this, improving the language 

            valid for English but in most of the cases not for the native language. Last but not least
            academic and professional horizon is the most questionable of the main goals mentioned as 
            everything but studying".

            But does this mean the program has failed? I would say no.
            Even if studying is on bottom of the list of Erasmus activities actually conducted, people
            their language skills- at least in English, and they DO develop more intercultural compete

            esteem, especially because they do not only interact with people from the host society but
            all over Europe. It is intended to be the European experience to go to e.g. Spain and meet
            but as it is, it is the "even more European experience" because going to Spain does not on

            Spanish people, it means meeting Spanish, French, German, Danish, Czech, British and many 
            and, therefore, integrates many cultures at the same time. So, even if the program does no
            it probably was intended to, in some way it functions very well. The evaluation of success

            basically depends on one's perspective.