2023-08-21 08:05:00
Xavier, 30, was a foreign trade student at EPHEC Brussels when he left for Erasmus. It was seven years ago, but he remembers it like it was yesterday. “To be honest, my first choice had been refused. So I fell back on Belgium. I might have chosen another country, like Spain, but above all I wanted courses that interested me. I wanted my Erasmus is a real added value on my CV. So I thought ‘course’ before thinking ‘travel’.”
He finally found courses he liked at Howest College in Bruges. “I had already been to Bruges, but it was not the same thing as living there. It was also an opportunity to follow in the footsteps of my mother who is from there.”
Xavier explains that he did not choose the easy way. “You might think that doing your Erasmus in Belgium is easy or not exotic, but you have to go beyond preconceptions. I had very demanding courses. I also used my time to learn Chinese.”
What marked him during his Erasmus in Belgium?
Xavier was able to rediscover his own country. “I sometimes felt like a foreigner in my own country as long as I was discovering things. This Erasmus made me realize that Flemish and Walloon people don’t know each other very well. allowed to have another look. I also find that exchanges in the other part of the country should be compulsory. They are rich in lessons.”
As a Belgian doing his Erasmus in Belgium, Xavier had a double role: that of an exchange student but also of a guide. “That’s kind of what I was looking for. I had the opportunity to present my country to international students. I met both young people from foreign countries and also Belgians who had come to do their exchange in Flanders. “
These Belgians who did their Erasmus in Flanders
What anecdotes during his Erasmus in Belgium?
“I met two Belgians who lived in Mons. We became real friends. Without this Erasmus, I would never have met them. Given that we lived in the same country, I forged a relationship sustainable, which I would not have had if we had lived further away.”
“When I arrived in Brugge I learned that I would have to do group work which was going to count for a lot of points. Since the group work the previous year had gone badly, I had no I don’t want to dive into that once more. Fortunately, a friend I met told me that he managed to escape group work by taking Chinese lessons. So I took his advice. I’m very happy with my decision because if I had to do this group work, I might have failed my year. Instead, I learned a new language and continued even following my Erasmus ended . Today, I can hold a conversation in this language and it has opened doors for me.”
What advice for an Erasmus in Belgium?
Flanders is so close that students may be tempted to go home at the weekend, which Xavier did, but, once more, he would not do it once more and would choose to stay in Flanders all the time. “When I came back, I had the impression that I was no longer on Erasmus, I was no longer as immersed as I would have liked. Not to mention that it created a gap with the other foreign students who might not not go home. They would sometimes ask me what I was doing on the weekends and when I said I was going home, it sounded like I wasn’t having the same experience as them.”
“We have the impression that the Flemings branch off very quickly into French when we speak to them, and it’s true, but I advise you to really persist in speaking Dutch to them. If they see that we don’t change the language , they will continue in Dutch and that will allow them to improve. I had facilities since I was bilingual, but I spoke little Dutch, so it took time for him to come back.”
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