Eyewitness Account: Nuclear Physics in Spain by Erasmus

What is it like to study nuclear physics in Spanish, having started learning the language a few weeks before starting your studies?What is the difference between students and teachers in Europe, and why should everyone leave their comfort zone?All this is in the story of Dinara Zhusupova for StudyQA.

Every person needs a strong push to get out of their comfort zone and start looking for ways for change and development.In my case, it was a trip to the USA under the Work & Travel program.I am still grateful to its founders, because after I lived in Texas and California, being at that time a 3rd year student at the Eurasian National University (says little about it, but this is in Astana), my horizons expanded to incredible limits...I think that many will agree with me: in our countries, work outside the specialty is a normal practice and a good engineer often becomes a sales manager for some tea or vacuum cleaners.There is a demand for engineers, but not everyone wants to live on 20 thousand rubles.

With my rare specialty - a nuclear physicist - the future was even more dim.When I returned home, I wanted to continue to develop in my direction and not stop immersing myself in the Western world.On the website of our university, I found a link to the Erasmus Mundus program.The process of submitting documents was not difficult: at that time (2011), the submission was completely electronic, and I already had an IELTS certificate, a translated transcript with an average score of 3.6 out of 4.0, CV in Europass format (it is very important to mark all possiblemerit, skills, to show how versatile you are, because on the 2-3 year bachelor's degree you can rarely boast of something), certificates from conferences.In general, I just attached everything that was in the topic.There was little left to do: it was necessary to write a letter of motivation and letters of recommendation (it is no secret to anyone thatour professors never write them themselves).The choice in my case fell on the Spanish and German universities.

At that time, I had no idea where Santiago de Compostela was, but I didn't lose anything.From October to April, the waiting time for the results dragged on, and at the end of April the news that I became one of the lucky ones who subsequently spent a whole year in Spain just turned my head.

At that time my Spanish was at zero, and except for the word “HOLA!”I didn't know anything.What for?It was possible to study in English according to Erasmus ... But everything turned out to be not so simple.A week and a half before I was supposed to be in Spain, I received a letter stating that there were no courses in English in the department where I would study: please have a Spanish B1 level or write a waiver of the scholarship, whichwas 1000 euros per month.To say that I was confused is to say nothing.For about three days I still pondered all the consequences: I imagined how I would stay for the second year, lose my grant at my university if I go without knowing the language, or start using the remaining time to quickly learn the language.The task is not an easy one, but, as you already understood, I still took a chance.

During the search for the ideal language school, tutor and methodology for me, I realized one very important thing - never start learning a new language right away with a native speaker if he is not able to explain the entire grammar in Russian...In any other case, it is a waste of time, money and effort, because you must have a foundation that is laid in a language you understand.After that, it is already possible to break down the communication barrier.Therefore, after two weeks of working with a Spanish woman, I found another tutor who worked with me very intensively:we studied for 2 hours every other day, and the homework consisted of 50-80 words by heart and grammar exercises so as not to relax in our free time.This was enough to grow to a confident A2 level in a month.

I will not describe all the difficulties associated with finding housing in a region of Spain where no one speaks English, but I can say that the language barrier was destined to collapse on the very first day of mystay in Santiago de Compostela.Later, additional 3-week Spanish courses began, which were funded by the program, so there was still time to train and meet other guys from different countries, like me, who came to gain knowledge and experience in one of the oldest universities in Spain.

Studies began in the second week of September.The main difficulty was, nevertheless, that the courses were taught in Spanish, more precisely, in Galician, but they made a break for exchange students: they began to teach courses in Castilian (it didn't get any easier).The guys were friendly, but, as we already know, Europeans make friends with difficulty and apprehension.

Surprised that it was possible not to show up at all, but to hand over homework assignments and come to exams with all the notes and books and get a high score.I was also very surprised by the fact that the dean's door is always open, students turn to professors as “you”, and they are not at all embarrassed to use profanity if it helps to present the material in a more accessible way.In addition to the professor himself, whose job is to explain the material, there is almost always a teacher's assistant (most often, his graduate student) who solves problems with you, checks homework and in every possible way tries to chew on practical material, and if necessary, even after school hours.agreements.In general, all the conditions for obtaining knowledge.I was also surprised by the fact that the library was open until late, and during exams - around the clock.Homework was donestrictly individually, there were no problems with debiting, since points were removed for this.The same attitude to plagiarism: you can not expect a high score, if the link to the original source is not indicated in at least one sentence - this is not an abstract to download.

In general, life in Europe is known for the fact that all countries are very close, and going somewhere for the weekend is a nice thing.The horizons are broadening, you get to know a lot of cool people, you use student discounts.Therefore, I strongly advise you to leave your comfort zone and not wait for the right opportunity.For an exchange semester for bachelors, you must have a good GPA, a language certificate, publications (if any), a good motivation letter.There are also a number of programs for master's and doctoral studies: http://www.em-a.eu/en/home.html .

Applications open from October to early January, depending on the program dates may change.The selection process is based on a holistic consideration of all the student's achievements, a certain point is given for everything: motivation, knowledge of the language, recommendations, average score, relevance of research, publications and conferences (if any), hobbies and interests, sports achievements.In general, everything that shows the student from the best side.In this case, the main criterion is motivation, a deliberate approach to filling out an application.If you are applying for several programs, it is very important to have a motivation letter that is written for each specific program.You can endlessly write about all the nuances, but many articles have already been written about them.