V. PERSONAL, CULTURAL AND LINGUISTIC ENRICHMENT

19 Oct 2011, 01:37

Experiencing an international exchange meant much learning. In fact, I would say it was a continuous learning. Different situations, different people and different environments made me open to diversity, respect, tolerance and various values that have made me improve personally.

Being alone facing difficult situations or being just you who is in charge of managing and accomplishing absolutely everything you need, produces improvements in the fields of organization, accountability, management, autonomy and allow the student to be better prepared for future responsibilities. Personally, I realized the effort involved in making each of the housework, the fact of recognizing it resulted in the appreciation, respect and gratitude to those who carry out these activities, starting with people in my family and including people who do it for work reasons.

Furthermore, meeting people from other countries makes the student who enjoys an international exchange open his or her mind and realize that there are diverse cultures and customs different from his or her home country and that it is possible to learn much from them.
I was lucky enough to meet people from different countries in Austria, not just Europeans; I also met American and Asian people.
These international relationships provide students with a pretty high cultural enrichment based on mutual exchange and the extent of knowledge about other countries and their inhabitants.

Similarly, the fact of living in another country allows you to dive deeper into their culture and perceive more about their customs and habits. Austria is a country with a lot of history and culture. In fact, Krems an der Donau is a medieval city which has one of the best preserved old quarters in Europe. It was recognized by Unesco in 1975.

Personally, I had the opportunity to visit several cities in Austria, starting with Vienna, a city that has the first place in the lists of quality of life in cities. Its cultural variety allows you to spend hours and hours visiting interesting places. It happened in the same way with Salzburg, whose old quarter is also considered a World Heritage Site by UNESCO, in addition to being world famous thanks to Mozart.
Other visited cities were Linz, St. Pölten, Dürnstein, Hallstatt, and so on.

Due to the central location of Austria, my passion for travel and the achievement of an Excellence Scholarship from the Community of Madrid which gave me economic possibilities, I travelled and visited several cities outside of Austria. Thus thanks to its proximity to Vienna I visited Bratislava in Slovakia, Budapest in Hungary and Prague in the Czech Republic. All these cities could be reached by bus and they all have a special charm, but I must say that my favourite one is Prague. Visits organized by the IMC took me to Berlin and Frankfurt.

Regarding languages, I can say that there was a lot of enrichment. Especially in the English language as lessons were held in that language and I had to face exams and presentations that improved my level. There was also a high improvement in German, especially in pronunciation as it was something that I could practice with the local students. Another language I learnt was Chinese, I always showed a special interest in learning it and when I found that the IMC offered a course of Chinese I did not hesitate and I enrolled for it. The truth is that it is a difficult language but with the help of the Chinese exchange students I could practice a lot and learn faster.

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