relatif No 18 - AStA

My Erasmus in Aachen
An Erasmus student is telling his story.
If somebody told me two years ago, that I will
study a whole year in Germany, he would really
make me laugh. Not because of a bad relation
to Germany or Germans, I like both, but I almost
did not speak German and I consider only
studying in some English speaking country. My
plans changed just a few weeks before sending
my application form in. I realised that it is not
such a bad idea to improve my skills also in
another language than English. As for concrete
decision for RWTH, I was totally unable to
decide where to go, because everyone, who I
talked to, was absolutely enthusiastic about the
university, where he or she had studied as
Erasmus student.
S o
I simply asked our
Dean and he told me that RWTH
is one of best choices. I think he was right. I
had a bit bad luck, because I did not get any
buddy so I must have managed the fi rst days
on my own, but it was not such a big deal as I
expected. A few days later I was assigned to a
group of Erasmus students and we got tutors
40 relatif
from AEGEE, who started to take care about
us and it was the real beginning of Erasmus
life in Aachen.During September I took part
in intensive language course which have been
provided mainly for new incoming students.
Before I came to Aachen I had learned German
for about eight years but only
at school and to be honest my level of German
was really poor. I understood something but I was
almost unable to speak. I can’t imagine that
I would go to lectures without
doing this course.
Except the fact that I was forced to
speak German every day during the course and
my language skills started to improve radically,
I had also a chance to make friends coming not
only from the whole Europe but from whole
world too. To be honest I was absolutely unable
to remember names of all people who I got to
know every day. In my opinion it was the best
time in Aachen, because we had a lot of free
time and we went somewhere out every day. Of