I wrote on the motivation letter that Erasmus+ scholarship will give me the opportunity to expand my social circle, improve my English language, and opening up new horizons in my life. Moreover, I have stated there that it will also introduce me to a different teaching style. Indeed, I have managed all of these. Honestly, all of them become true and I have started to think outside the box. After this awesome semester, I am more capable to embrace new ideas, think in a more logical and professional way. Erasmus+ makes me really someone different, so my knowledge in life's aspects increases. It helped me also to change my mindset and my behavior towards other people. Honestly, and proudly I have managed to achieve my plans during the Erasmus+ period. All what I wrote on the motivation letter became true and reality.

In my motivation letter, I wrote about being more enthusiastic about my major, Energy Engineering, through this experience. This specific thing actually happened, especially after having the opportunity to sit down and communicate not only with professors from a totally different part of the world, but also very enthused students like me from very different parts of the world. Their learning methods, their points of views on topics related to the field, which corresponds to where they come from. What also surpassed my expectations was the extracurricular side of the experience, the amount of exposure I got to different cultures, the stories you hear, realizing that reading about a culture online is something, but sitting down with a person that lived that culture and has that background, the two definitely cannot compare. I have to say, I never had this amount of freedom when it comes to studying, self-studying, research papers -which sometimes is definitely harder than just preparing for a regular exam. In comparison to the usual, having specific chapters, specific notes or slides to study from, and taking an exam which tests very narrow knowledge and doesn’t allow for much creativity.

Name of student: Dina Ramez F. Alkawasmeh

As for the academic side, I am a student at the University of Leipzig. I go to my lectures with great gratitude and love. I like that most of the students who take the lectures with me are German students. Maybe I don't understand much in the lectures because they are all in German, but I learn a lot in every lecture. Sometimes what I learn is far from the framework of the lesson, for example, it is about the way the conversation between the student and the lecturer takes, or it is about the way students write down their notes. I like how the lecturers deal with their students with awareness and respect. A student who is late for a lecture is not reprimanded or asked about the reason for being late, but simply enters the lecture and sits down. As for the student who is absent from an exam or fails to perform an assignment, he is dealt with very comfortably without notifying him of reprimand, so the lecturer provides an alternative solution to him without any complications. As a result of this sophisticated and conscious dealing, students appreciate and respect the knowledge that is offered to them. As a result, we find that attending lectures is not compulsory, yet all students attend and take responsibility for their own education.

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Name of student: Bana Alqtaishat

As I expected before I came to Germany, this experience has helped me become more independent, and I learned a lot about other cultures , from the full time German students and the fellow Erasmus exchange students, also my intercultural communication skills had improved a lot. This picture was taken on the first week of the semester, some of THWS students have organized a treasure hunt for the exchange and Erasmus+ students in the city we will be staying in for the next 6 months, Schweinfurt. This was the final location that we met in after we were divided into groups and played all day. It helped us warm up to each other in a fun and exciting way as we were all working together to win and learn more about the city.

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The International Office is happy to introduce to you one of our graduate students who is a scholarship holder of the IPS-Program.