What to Know Before Going on Erasmus?

Choosing to spend a semester abroad takes a certain kind of courage. For students at AUBG, the Erasmus Exchange Program is where that choice begins.  

However, there are things no email can prepare you for.  

 

Credits, Calendars, and the Fine Print 

The credit system is where most students get tripped up. One AUBG credit equals two ECTS (European Credit Transfer System). So, a five-ECTS course abroad translates to only two and a half credits here, regardless of what its equivalent is worth here. 

In practice, the credit math plays out differently depending on where you go. Blagovest Stoyanov, a fourth-year student who went on exchange in Riga, Latvia,  took five courses. However, he ended up with only 16 ECTS (eight AUBG credits) because of how those specific courses were weighted.  

Hristina Georgieva, a third-year student, had the opposite experience in Madrid. She got five courses approved for her business major, totaling 32 ECTS, which translates cleanly to 16 AUBG credits. 

Neda Oresharova, also a fourth-year student, in Deggendorf, Germany, had an official meeting with her AUBG departmental chair, Professor Merenglen Berisha prior to her departure. He reviewed her planned courses one by one. “He said, you need to take this one, you need to take this one. So, I reassured myself that the decision I was making was actually valuable.” 

 

For European exchanges, there's also the learning agreement, an official document is submitted to both universities and a third-party EU body that formalizes exactly which credits transfer and how. 

Martin Milevski found this system more complex in practice than on paper. He submitted his learning agreement over the summer only to receive an email weeks later saying his host university had introduced an entirely new curriculum.  

“I had to completely redo the whole thing from scratch,” he says. “I had to reapprove all of the new courses.” He ended up with 15 AUBG credits and a silver lining to what had been a frustrating process. 

The lesson: stay in contact with the International Programs Office throughout the summer, and do not assume that what was approved in April is what you will be taking in September. 

 

Housing, Language, and the Rough First Weeks 

Housing deserves its own chapter, and advice here is simple. When you receive an offer for housing, accept it immediately. One area all students who have been on exchange urge future applicants to pay close attention to is housing, particularly in the Netherlands.  

Martin initially received a university housing offer in the dorms in July but failed to accept it in time. By the time he started searching for alternative accommodation, nothing was available. He ended up subletting a room in Roosendaal, a town 20 kilometers from Breda, where he studied. “Once you get used to the convenience of Skapto,” he says, referencing AUBG's Skaptopara residence halls, “you get so spoiled that everything is five minutes away.”  

Blagovest secured university dorms for €230 a month, well outside the city center, but well connected by buses and trams. Neda found hers through the university's official housing websites, booking a single room three months in advance. It was not on campus, but five to seven minutes away, close enough that she describes the town as feeling a lot like Blagoevgrad. 

Hristina shares that she skipped the university dorms, which she felt were too far away, and found a private apartment 20 minutes from the city center and 40 minutes from campus. Rent in Madrid, she says, was brutal, and her monthly Erasmus grant of €620 could not cover it. But she made it work. 

 

Which brings up something the Erasmus exchange email mentions only vaguely - the Erasmus grant. Every student on a European exchange receives a monthly stipend that varies by country. Martin received around €680 a month, Blagovest received €500, Hristina received €620. In Riga, €500 covered the dorm and left room for travel. In Madrid, €620 barely touched the (cost of) rent.  Either way, it is worth knowing that AUBG tuition and accommodation are suspended during your exchange semester, and any scholarships you hold continue to be transferred to your student account. 

 

Students in the Netherlands and Latvia shared that they did not struggle with language barriers.

Germany, on the other hand was a different story. Neda had studied German beforehand, but found that the Bavarian dialect bore little resemblance to textbook German. She ended up speaking English almost exclusively with the international student community there.  

In Spain, Hristina had a C1 certificate in Spanish, which she had worked toward since tenth grade. Her advice is direct: you need the certificate, and you may well need the language. One of her friends got accepted to the same university but was ultimately rejected because she didn't have a language certificate.  

While English-taught courses exist, they are not guaranteed. “I started with five courses,” she says, “and moved one from Spanish to English because accounting in Spanish is hell.” The English courses, she notes, tend to be graded more leniently for Erasmus students, but don't count on that to carry you through. 

 

The first weeks, almost always, are awkward. Martin recalls that he sat in his first class petting his coordinator's service dog just to calm down.

Neda joined the Erasmus Student Network (ESN). She signed up for a host family program and went out of her way to introduce herself. “You cannot just expect that you stay in your room and things will happen,” she says. “They will happen just like this, without you.” 

 

What You Get Out of It 

None of the students frame their semester purely in academic terms. Yes, (some) credits were transferred. Yes, the courses were interesting or structured in ways that were genuinely new. But what they come back to is something harder to quantify. 

Hristina had seen enough Erasmus TikToks to be skeptical of the whole ‘it will change your life’ narrative. She went in, determined not to become a cliché. Then Madrid changed the way she thinks and helped her make friends. “If the connections are real,” she says, “they're going to stay, even after Erasmus.” She also explored relentlessly: Toledo, Barcelona, Seville, and a small town called Cuenca, where she jumped off rocks into a river. “It was really out of my comfort zone, but I loved it.” 

 

All four would recommend a semester abroad, and say the version of themselves that came back was different from the one that left. They felt more independent and certain of what they wanted.  

 

On timing, there's near-consensus: the third-year, first-semester is the sweet spot.

Enough experience at AUBG to know what you need, still enough semesters ahead to absorb any credit complications. “The first year, obviously, you have to socialize here,” says Hristina. “Second year makes your friendships stronger. Fourth year is your last, you have to be here. Third year is perfect,” she concluded. 

 

Edited by: Kaloyan Ivanov and Janina Ormanova

 

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