Rocio Yasmin Elias Calles, one of our Tourism Management MSc students, spends her Erasmus semester in Poland during the coronavirus lockdown measures. We asked her about her experiences- doing Erasmus in these extraordinary times.

Why did you choose your host university?

Honestly I had other favourites too, but Vistula Group was the most responsive and most helpful out of all my choices. I also heard that Warsaw is a great city, so I was actually happy to come to Poland.

How long have you been in Poland and how has life changed since you are there?

I’ve arrived at the end of February. I only went to university for 2 weeks. It started out really nice and then COVID-19 hit and we all had to stay home for online classes. It was tricky emotionally; I think it’s true for everyone. 

How is online education at your university? What kind of tasks do you have?

It’s alright, we mostly get assignments at Microsoft teams or by email. The curriculum here emphasizes catering over tourism a lot more than in METU so I have a chance to learn more about that too. Also, during some of my assignments I can devote more time and effort to some ideas that I already had but never actually had an opportunity to work on.

How do you feel in Warsaw in this situation? Did you manage to see something of the city or country?

I love running and it helped me a lot in this situation and I could also discover Warsaw by running. Before coming here I also had a huuuge list of places I’d like to visit, but unfortunately I couldn’t really do any of that yet.

How are the next few weeks expected to be?
I’ve heard that some places will open back up in a limited fashion- for example restaurants and hotels. So I expect things to get better now soon. As studies will be online for the rest of the semester, I would like to go back to Hungary when the borders open up again but until then I will work on my assignments and visit as many places as I still can.

How are your classmates, could you meet some new friends?

Well, because we don’t meet anymore at all, I’d rather say I made some acquaintances. We have to work together on assignments and such, so of course I have some contact with my classmates but because of the last of physical meetings we couldn’t really bond. 

Can you imagine studying or even living in another European country after this experience?

Oh, of course! I consider myself a really adventurous person so this kind of situations don’t break me down at all. In fact, now I think that if I could do this, what couldn’t I do? In addition, I am quite disappointed that I couldn’t discover Poland more, so I’m pretty sure I’ll come back here one day too!

2020. 05. 06.