An ode to Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus

Desiderius Erasmus

Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus (also known as Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam) was born on the 27th of october in 1466. He was a was a Dutch Renaissance humanist and Catholic Christian theologian (and much, much more..). And he was way ahead of his time when it came to opinions about war, women rights and for example Christianity. He is by far the most famous person of the city of Rotterdam in the Netherlands and during his studies he went all over Europe to gain more knowledge and to learn more about cultural diversities. He wanted more people to do the same because it was such a life changing situation for him.

And in 1987 the Erasmus Scholarship programme was born. In a way, as a legacy to Erasmus himself. The programme offers students within the European Union, but also some future EU canditates (such as Turkey and Switzerland) to go abroad and study in a different university than the one in their own country. It is now also possible to do an internship abroad.

I was an Erasmus student in Eskisehir, Turkey for one semester. I was there for 7 months in total. I studied Cinema & Television at the Anadolu University (one of the biggest campuses in the world) and my time in Turkey was simply unforgettable. You get to meet so many people from all over the world (not only Europe, because there are obviously more scholarship programmes) and you get to learn about their culture and visa versa.

The beauty of the Erasmus programme for me personally is that you will be Erasmus forever, even when you’ve gone home, you’ll always be Erasmus. The people you meet during your Erasmus time – both local and international – become your friends and some of those friends become best friends. In other words: you visit them and they visit you.

Basicly, that is what Desiderius Erasmus wanted to achieve and in the end he did! A very good friend of mine who I met during my Erasmus time once said that ‘Erasmus was the lesson of her life’. She didn’t mean the studying part on another university in particulair, but mostly she meant that getting to know so many new people and learning about each others cultural diversities and obviously about the country you are living in is just one big eye-opener. A life changer.  And once you have removed the prejudices you might have had about a certain country all the little pieces fall into place and you start to understand what Erasmus was talking about hundreds of years ago.

So for all future Erasmus students who read this and maybe even more for the ones who are not quite sure yet weather to go or not; GO! Go and meet with international and local people. Get to know the country you will live in and you will love it after some time, I’m sure. Go and have the time of your life.

I am now, fot the ones who don’t know this yet by the way, Erasmus for the second time. back in turkey I was studying and now I am doing an internship. It’s a new and different situation for me in which I will keep you posted within my upcoming blogs (and some previous ones). The video below is a short TV programme I directed at the university in Turkey. I allready posted it before, but I’d like to put it here again. It will give you at least a little bit of a feeling of it might be when you Erasmus. I hope you enjoy watching it and I hope, for the ones that aren’t sure yet of having their own Erasmus experience, might change their minds and simply go after watching it.