An experience I would love to relive every moment of – Eurocampus 2022

Hello, I am Lala Mehdiyeva. I am 27 years old and originally from Azerbaijan. I am currently in the final year of my master's degree in Communication Management at Tallinn University. My first year in Europe was spent adapting to the Estonian culture and education process. I wanted to spend my second year with Erasmus+, which probably creates memories that no student will ever forget for the rest of his or her life. Even though I was a little overwhelmed by the university choices and the number of departments, the information about Eurocampus 2022, which our program head Professor Anastassia Zabrodskaja sent to our email, lit a light bulb in my mind. In the manual of Eurocampus 2022, there was information about professors and their courses. The professors who took part in this program organized by EMICC (European Masters in Intercultural Communication), the departments they specialized in and the universities they worked at were quite different and remarkable. Yes, of course, I did apply immediately. Now I am writing this blog from Utrecht, the student capital of the Netherlands, where Eurocampus 2022 was held.

For me, attending Eurocampus has been a unique experience that is hard to describe in one way. I can still recall my first excitement in September. Just one year ago, when I made new friends and began a life in a foreign country, I felt like everything had been restarted. I spent so much valuable time that I want to share almost every moment of it.
First, I would like to talk about the team of the International Office who took great care of us before this program organized by Utrecht University started. Since I am a non-EU citizen (if you are too you know), visa procedures were not easy. Nevertheless, the International Office team did their best to facilitate the process as quickly as possible. Host Professor Deborah (our lovely Debbie) Cole and Eurocampus 2021's participant, Jaap Visser who helped with our every question and problem, were the first people we met from the Eurocampus 2022 program. Seventeen students from four different universities (University of Urbino, University of Jyväskylä, Utrecht University, and Tallinn University) took part in the program!
From an academic point of view, we met new professors every week. Each had very different working and teaching techniques. Some classes were all about thinking, some were about listening and learning a lot, some were all about individual work and self-reflection, while some required a lot of group work. This is exactly how one learns what is right or wrong, what is absolute or relative. We received in-depth training on many different branches of Intercultural Communication. I am very happy with the education that Tallinn University has given me so far, but I do not believe that I can get what I learned at Eurocampus by studying at a department in Tallinn or another university. I can say with certainty that, in my opinion, no university has a department in its program that teaches so many different fields in such a depth during a semester. One of the greatest academic achievements for me was that I found my master's thesis topic at the end of the first course. You come across so many different articles, book chapters, even the master thesis topics, ideas and other academic files of the participating students that you will inevitably have an idea in your mind. Therefore, if you are still looking for a topic for your master's thesis, I would say apply for Eurocampus 2023!

As I mentioned at the beginning, I am 27 years old. My education life has started since I was five years old and in this 17-year academic period, (I took a break from education for five years), and I had never met a group that I loved everyone. There was necessarily a communicative or energetic dissonance with one to two (sometimes more) people. For me, there were such people in every class, in every group. Eurocampus2022 is the first and only group that I loved each one of its participants. Farid and Haniar were already friends from Tallinn, but now I have 15 new friends from different countries and nationalities (14 other participants and Jaap Visser)! So deep ties have been established for me that I am now planning trips to Italy, Finland and the Netherlands again for 2023. Our conversations at lunch breaks, my learning to ride a bicycle after hard work, travels to other cities, our efforts to motivate each other to study at the library are very fun memories. As one gets older, it becomes more difficult to establish friendships, but a program whose main subject is Intercultural Communication achieves this very easily.
I loved both Utrecht and what it brought to me. Stepping out of my comfort zone has helped a lot to notice this change in myself. At the beginning, I felt like an idiot when every question was asked in the lessons, but at the end of the program, I wanted to answer every question with excitement. I do not like group work very much because I have anxieties, but just in these group works, you experience Intercultural Communication one-on-one by sharing something with other people. The different cultures of different countries teach you how different people's perspectives can be. I come from a country where "power distance" is high. However, seeing how self-confident people from opposite cultures express their opinions in such a way that is not rude at all gives me new experiences. Therefore, I am grateful to Utrecht for everything it has given me.
Now let us move on to Eurocampus2023!

They say that if you are offering someone a job in another city; sell them the city, not the job. That is why I am going to try to sell you Tallinn, not Eurocampus 2023 and its enormous staff of professors or syllabus. What idea comes up in your mind when you mention Estonia? Tallinn is a small and beautiful city. When I first came, I let myself get lost in Vanalinn (Old Town) which was an amazing experience too. If you like the medieval period, you will love Tallinn. For one thing, it is still cheap compared to other European cities (even during inflation). Housing was the biggest problem in Utrecht. Either this is not the case here, in the university's own dormitory, or you can find a room or house for rent at affordable prices. You will need to withstand a bit of cold for your future in the winter semester, but even here -21℃ can warm you up thanks to the perfect snow. Yes, it gets dark a little earlier in winter, but it is the opposite in summer. The Baltic Sea is indescribably beautiful! By the way, we are setting up a very sweet Christmas market in the city center during the winter Christmas period. In 2019 (which we remember as the last Christmas before the pandemic hit the whole world), Tallinn's Christmas market was chosen as the best Christmas market in Europe. Our airport is also very close to the city center and budget friendly airline companies such as Ryanair, Airbaltic, LOT and Wizz-Air have cheap flights to different cities. In the meantime, a bus system allows you to reach Riga and other nearby cities very easily.
One of your biggest wins about Tallinn will be Anastassia Zabrodskaja, your host professor in the program. Professor Zabrodskaja is the youngest professor at our university, who is respected, shows you both friendly and motherly affection, and embraces you with all sincerity and seriousness. I am not saying it's because she is the head of the program, but she took care of all my problems since my first year and did her best to make me feel at home in Estonia. As much as Debbie cared about us and made Eurocampus more fun and smooth, I am sure Professor Anastassia will do the same for you. If my enthusiasm alone is not enough for you, I invite you to read the stories of my friends Haniar and Farid who accompanied me. I would recommend this experience, which I wish to relive with every moment, to anyone.
If you come to Tallinn, ask me about Eurocampus. If I am still in Tallinn (I am in love with travel), I would love to meet you and have coffee while talking about intercultural communication.