Sadzida Tinjak - her experience of being an exchange student

Sadzida Tinjak

Age: 24

Home University: “Dzemal Bijedic” University of Mostar

Host University: Silesian University of Technology, Gliwice, Poland

Exchange period: 2016/2017

If you ever thought about exploring and understanding diversity which this world offers and make acquaintances or even built beautiful friendships.

If you want to travel and find new beautiful places.

If you are curious about how it would be to study at another university and have more sources of knowledge through a different approach to your field.

These three, for me, were strong pros for applying for the Erasmus exchange in Gliwice.

Hm, Gliwice?!
It's a small city in Poland near Krakow. That's all I knew in the beginning.
We went through the process of application and five of us were accepted. I was lucky to make this move together with my four colleagues and also friends. Then paperwork, choosing the best travel option, accommodation, packing and overcoming the fear of the unknown. We were living as one big family and we were there for each other all the time. Five Bosnians enrolled in a new semester in Poland with students from all around the world.

We had orientation days and got all the information needed about the city, studies, programme and met with ESN people and our coordinator.

It's not easy to shape this experience with words, I decided to shape it through following - thank you, Erasmus - thank you for bringing amazing people in my life Monica from San Salvador (and later owner of first Salvador passport seen in our bus to Bosnia), Diego from Mexico, Gonzalo from Uruguay, Tolga and Yakup from Turkey, Jannah from Tadzhikistan, Soeraj And Ranish from Surinam (sorry guys if I am still writing it wrong), Davit from Georgia, Anahit from Armenia, Nol from Albania, only group bigger than ours eight people from Serbia, a lot of polish people, Hanan from Gana, Khadijah from Jemen, Mohanned from Libya, Peter from Kenya ...

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to learn about other cultures, mindsets, perspectives, about engineering, discipline, how to be independent and do things by myself, how to make lunch and not burn it, how to make your scholarship last to the end of the month (ok last two partially learned), thank you for giving me a chance to travel through Poland and places in Europe I always wanted to visit, all trips and events organised by ESN, understanding polish- dziekuje bardzo Ola (even though the first approach gave me a headache, to many consonants next to each other!!)

Thank you, Erasmus, for the beautiful time and rich experience.

Erasmus will touch your life gently but significantly and later you'll feel that touch as a tailwind telling you -built something with a material I gave you.