THE NETHERLANDS, my Erasmus host country for 6 months.
Hello everyone, my name is Ariadna Vidal and I have been for 6 months in Leeuwarden, a small city located in the north of Holland.
You might be wondering why there, and why for that short amount of time. Well, I guess you might not expect my answer or my explanation but I will proceed to let you all know my whole experience there.
On the 29th of January I was flying to Leeuwarden, this small city that has given me a huge knowledge about life. I was starting a great experience which would provide me a lot of independence and good chances for the near future.
After my Erasmus in Italy, I was more used to do things on my own and that helped me a lot to successfully go by in all aspects.
Concerning the Dutch education, the way of teaching was quite different from the Spanish one and at the beginning it was really hard as we were in a Dutch university called NHL Stenden and the level was high, so we had to deal with this aspect as well.
First we had to do a Creative Business module which was more about creativity and during the second half of the semester we started the Marketing 2 module which was more related to the concepts that we dealt with in Italy.
Leeuwarden was really different from Italy, the food, the people, the way of living and thinking… so getting to know new cultures is always very enriching.
The Covid-19 pandemia made the experience be a bit less motivating as we only had face to face classes in the university just for one day, all the classes were online. We had online lessons twice a week, then we had to do the assignments and in our free time we would look for things to do which were a bit entertaining.
The landscape was incredibly beautiful, I was living in a small apartment with a close friend who was studying the same as me and the views were extremally beautiful and green, surrounded by nature.
This trip, this experience, this course … have taught me a wide variety of things but above all values. I think I have changed for the better, I have got a big knowledge of different languages, cultures, respect for the others but above all love, lots of love. I have met wonderful people who have taught me great values.
Yes, I can say that I’ve learnt a lot about Marketing but above all, about life.
These 6 months have not only meant to me a course or a place where I have learnt about my subject. Going one step further I could say that these months have meant to me something more, a big knowledge about life which has made me grow as a person and I am proud of it.