So why do it? Going to university is a big change, going to another country even more so and in Leicester we are lucky to have a cultural university attracting foreign students from Europe, America and China. So why not do it yourself? It will look excellent on your CV and shows that you take initiative – so many people are leaving university with masters and this is your chance to put yourself ahead of the crowd. When you are over there you can forget exams; they’re important but the school knows that you are an exchange student and will set the bar accordingly. If you are fluent good, if not oh well. It’s an experience and you will be constantly immersed in everything and anything.

To do it, talk to your personal tutor about Erasmus and whether the department has an exchange agreement with a foreign university. It doesn’t even matter if the course hasn’t been run before as these allowances can be made – it is not unheard of the department creating the course for you and giving you your own UCAS course code. With that you would graduate top of the class no matter what!

Funnily, the language barrier is always thought to be an issue for Erasmus students but support is always there for you. The university offers free language training to all Erasmus students and a £500 grant for a foreign language course before the course starts. Also, as you will be on reduced hours you can take language training concurrent to your studies. Money isn’t a problem either: living in halls in France last year cost me €900 (about £700) and there are no tuition fees to worry about.

On the social side, look around. Erasmus students have the biggest parties, an even more vibrant social scene as it is just one big melting pot. It is honestly the best way of learning a language, having fun and extending your university experience without needing an ever-expanding wallet!

Mark Iliffe

One of the perks of living on the continent for a year is the minimal alcohol tax and coupled with the student scene, Salzburg is every inch a party city. A fundamental difference between the Universitat of Salzburg and British Universities is the absence of a student union: there are no elected sabbaticals and very few active societies. People tend to socialise through Heimbars, a series of thrice weekly bars in student halls that sell 1 euro cocktail; highly popular they continue past 4am.

Thanks to Salzburg’s position in the heart of Europe, travel to other countries in Europe is easily accessible and relatively cheap; I’ve visited Germany, Hungary, Romania and the Czech Republic, with many more to follow. Recently I went skiing in Annaberg, Southern Austria, and had a terrific time. The snow wasn’t too hard or soft, and the temperature made for ideal skiing conditions.

It was a somewhat anti-climactic return to Salzburg in the New Year following the Christmas celebrations. The Austrians and Germans are known worldwide for their Christmas markets, and those which I visited in Nuremberg, Germany, and Vienna and Salzburg in Austria did not disappoint. One particularly unusual Advent celebration is called Krampuslauf, and essentially involves men dressed in monster costumes attacking civilians with giant tree branches, whipping them until they bruise. Absolutely bizarre, but remarkably un-PC; such an archaic festival would simply not be allowed to happen in England.

My return has thus far been great fun, with New Year parties and a buzzing ERASMUS and International community fuelling the party spirit. And as if that wasn’t enough, the snow glistening on the ground and the mountains under a forget-me-not blue sky are, as always, a photographers paradise.

Andrew Collinson

The whole attitude to University is completely relaxed, we get set homework every week of reading several articles, as English students in Leicester this is nothing, yet here we often get told in the beginning of classes, ‘Oh, we know most of you will not have managed to read everything’.

In just under a week we will be taking mid-term exams, however just the other day we were told that for one of the modules it would be a majority of multiple choice and fill in the blanks! Do not be mistaken into assuming these are not worth anything either, this particular test accounts for forty percent of the module. This does sound stupidly easy, however we do have to know definitions for terms we have never come across before as here we mainly study linguistics and language rather that literature and some revision is needed in order for us to know the correct terminology required for the blank spaces.

We do not have lectures here; in fact we actually miss attending them! The classes last about an hour and forty-five minutes with a fifteen-minute break. Here we have classes of approximately twenty students where the session will go through a power point presentation, however student-teacher contact is much more of an aspect here, a lot like our seminars, and mid class we will often find ourselves doing little exercises and quite a few mini-presentations. The classes are so different that a few weeks ago we spent a whole lesson making a handout, something neither of us has done at school since we were 12 years old!

Helen Fisher and Sian Savage

Alone, my journey started on the 7th September when I left East Midlands Airport with Valencia as the destination. I had made the decision to go on Erasmus with careful consideration, Valencia with considerably less. As confident as I wanted to be prior to departure, my emotions were frantic and my thoughts erratic. I didn´t know what I was leaving behind in England, nor what awaited me in Spain. I had never been to Spain, nor spoken Spanish. I stepped off the plane and hit a wall of 30 degree heat. I collected my 15kgs of luggage for the year and nervously I made my way to the taxi rank. Ignorantly, I expected the taxi driver to speak at least broken English. No such luck. Feeling powerless and highly inadequate, I thought to myself in the taxi ride that going to Spain without a word of Spanish was very brave or very stupid.

Thankfully, the hostel I was staying in was heaving with other Erasmus students, hungry to meet potential housemates.  It was amazing there and everybody was so friendly and keen to ooze confidence and express personality as much as possible. It is here where I met my housemates amongst other close friends, so very much a week to remember. Even now a few weeks in, I am meeting people all the time and spontaneously deciding to go for a coffee with someone you have met two minutes before is typical in this environment. With 100,000 students here and the frequency of Erasmus parties, it makes it impossible not to meet and greet everyday.

Some students like to spend their time with people of their nationality, but for me, this defeats the entire purpose of Erasmus. I live with a French guy and and Finnish girl in an apartment, an experience which is certainly opening my eyes to cultural differences and international perspectives.

In my few weeks here, I have come to the conclusion that Erasmus is all about the people.

I write this even with my naive, yet developing perspective, but I am confident I would recommend it to anyone. Naturally, there are times when it can be difficult in terms of language barriers or thinking about home, but given the option, actually coming home would not even be a consideration.

Henry Gold

My first week in Bologna was certainly eventful. I arrived on a sunny September afternoon with nowhere to live, a very poor grasp of the Italian language and discovered my hotel was in the city’s red-light district.

I had a brief spell in the prison-like youth hostel where I was more traumatised by the lack of plug sockets than the bugs lurking in the horrid shower rooms. “Where will I straighten my hair?” I asked the bemused hostel-manager. It was hard not to cry when my parents left me for Venice, but fortunately I found an apartment in the ‘centro storico’ within a few days.

Not one to bypass any drama, I found myself keeling over one evening and being rushed to hospital as I hadn’t yet discovered the Italian obsession with Nutella, a potentially life threatening mistake for for someone with a nut allergy!

That, however, was seven weeks ago and I can happily say that in that time I have well and truly fallen in love with Bologna. The vibrant streets, beautifully grand architecture and the thousands of students make it the perfect city to study in; although studying doesn’t seem to take priority. To call the university system here laid-back would be an understatement. ERASMUS students in Bologna tend to get away with an awful amount of skipping lectures. They remind us that we don’t need to attend classes and can choose when (and if) we sit exams and what we’re assessed on. It’s hard not to gloat to friends back home, stuck in the library with the stress of final year.

ERASMUS is central to university life here, and also the city, with the constant stream of trips and welcome parties in some of the city’s best bars and clubs. I’ll never forget turning up for ‘wine-tasting’. We were given bottles of eight different types of wine; needless to say we were rather worse for wear by midday. You can’t get away from the alcohol here. Or the lecherous old men with leathery skin, wearing stonewash denim and snakeskin shoes. Men who try to be cool by elaborately proclaiming how tired they are from the ‘Ibiza closing weekend’.

The obligatory skanky student club is Kinki located under the famous due torri, which is surprisingly good (if you don’t mind the cheese). Although waking up after a night of European measures to find ‘Kinki’ stamped on your hand isn’t. A personal favourite place of mine is Cabala cafe, which has fabulous decor and a huge selection of yummy cocktails. Mambo, an art gallery, is brilliant for aperitivo. Amongst the sophisticated Italians enjoying the art, it’s pretty easy to spot the student nursing a solitary drink with three plates of food piled high.

When student life involves watching the sun go down over beautiful Bologna with free wine in a mountain top castle there really isn’t much left to complain about!