An Eye-opening Journey

Hello, I am Ana Gobechia from Georgia. Now I am writing a report about my Erasmus exchange semester in Germany, and I remember clearly, while I was planning to apply for this University, I was reading previous students’ reports and one of them wrote that “this is not one semester in life this is life in one semester”.  For that time I could not understand the real meaning of the sentence but now these are the words which describe my exchange semester at Koblenz University of Applied Sciences perfectly.

From the beginning, I was in front of number of challenges as being an exchange student means, but then everything went incredibly perfect. My landlord turned out the best landlord ever, he showed us every little corner of Remagen on the first day of my arrival. My flatmates became my family and our big international famil, my friends. They always made even boring days so interesting. And of course, I should mention proudly that my cooking skills have been improved. As for Internship, I have to admit that I was really scared of combining internship and studying together, but then it became the most appreciative thing I am proud of now.  The best advantage of having exchange semester here at Rheinahrcampus is this opportunity to try to study and work at the same time. At the beginning the internship seemed difficult but after getting to know Sprachen international professional team everything went smoothly. Thanks to them I discovered myself in a different way and improved my skills. 

As for my academic part, here I tried to study more practical courses because my University is more theory-oriented and one of the reasons why I have decided to study here was the different way of learning. I took perfect courses such as International marketing in which we studied German and French markets and tried to implement German product into the French market. At Rheinahrcampus you also have a chance to attend guest lecturers’ seminars, in my case professor was from Canada and I attended so interesting seminars about popular culture.  One of my favorite course was International Business Simulation by Dr Borgman, which taught me how business relations work in a real business environment. It was the life-changing course which allows you to grow up as a person and to change something in the world. Working with refugees and homeless people totally changed my attitudes to life. That is not all, I had so many interesting seminars and I should mention workshop seminar, Managing Cultural Diversity, which was the best workshop I have ever attended. Participants were from 22 different countries and being in the absolutely intercultural environment allowed me to put my intercultural knowledge into practice.

In spite of the fact that I was occupied with studying and working, the weekend was totally up to me. With our Semester ticket, we had an opportunity to visit cities near Remagen. Christmas markets and Kölner carnival have been the best experiences ever. And of course, travelling opportunities are more available when you live in the center of Europe. Here I become wanderlust, you can see on my Instagram. :D Every weekend officially is announced for travelling. One of our course, intercultural communication, helps you to integrate to a new culture, you should always have intercultural stories, travelling gives you the best chance for it. I have visited my dream places those I have read about in books. Last week I visited Paris and when I was approaching Notre Dame Cathedral, I was thinking that Quasimodo was the one who was ringing the bells. I am not kidding. I really love every single minute of my exchange semester.

To put into a nutshell, I would say the half a year in Germany seems to be like a dream in my life. It has been a great experience and helped me to discover new sides of myself. Applying for Erasmus scholarship at HS Koblenz was the best decision I have ever made.  It’s an eye-opening and self-developing journey when I personally grow up and widen my visions. Now everything goes to the end but I will miss my cozy Remagen, my Friends, my international family, my bicycle and my bike tours across the river Rhein, people in Remagen who are always ready to say “Hallo” with a wide smile on their faces. I want to thank everybody who made me part of It. I also made some really good friends that I would keep contact with after the exchange. Here I have evidence, after few weeks when one member of our family will go back to her country we are going to visit her in Portugal. So our International family keeps in touch and we will have reunions, I am sure. And now if you are reading this report like me and have doubts, trust me and do it, you will never regret.