PARTYING ON THE EXPENSE OF THE GOVERNMENT

Who dares, who cares?

As became obvious, the Belgians are very familiar with what we call the BWM-phenomenon: Belgian Weekend Migration; the weekly exodus and crowded trains home each and every Friday night. As we already concluded, this is a typically national happening, created by the Belgians themselves. For some reason they seem to overlook this other phenomenon especially created for them: Erasmus.

The editors of Veto, the Flemish counterpart of the fabulous magazine you are currently holding in your hands, decided to come out of their newsroom for a change, and interviewed a few Belgian students on Erasmus. Erasmus - you know; the project under which wings the majority of you international students are here in Leuven. I bet you all love being here and once you are back home you will without a doubt be wanting a single ticket back to Leuven. Erasmus life is just great. It is fun, but what is more: it is a life-broadening experience. I can testify: I went on Erasmus myself. My city of destination was Madrid, the vibrating capital of Spain. And believe me, moving from a provincial town as Leuven to a cosmopolitan city as Madrid is a real eye-opener. It is a pity however that most Belgian students – as I take the results of the test generally valuable – do not seize the opportunity to “party on the expense of the government”- as one student put it in the Veto-investigation.

It is a shame that students tend to think so short-sightedly and negative on a programme that is designed to broaden their horizons and perspectives. Indeed, the Belgians are generally famous for their curious preference to stay as close to home as possible – the so-called ‘church tower mentality’ - but we all assumed that young people escaped this narrow-mindedness. Youngsters do have a common tendency of wanting to break out and explore the world. Erasmus seems a fairly safe and comfortable way to do this and set the first steps abroad on their own. For this reason the programme has been successful for over 20 years (last year Erasmus celebrated its 20th anniversary). Sadly, the Belgian students don’t really seem to care. Why is this then?

Common reasons mentioned for not to go are for instance the linguistic barrier –of course, but that’s part of the fun—, expenses (despite the grants the costs of an Erasmus can pile up quickly) and “bad organization”. But, surprisingly about 40% of all the interviewed students think it is “unnecessary to leave Leuven”. They fear that they will only lose friends and their lover will cheat on them. Of course it didn’t come up in their troubled minds that they could meet lots of new people and that real friends and real girl-, or boyfriends will give you the opportunity to go and look at it from the bright side, immediately starting to plan visiting trips. And yes, Leuven is good – all international students residing here can tell you that – but hey, CHANGE, isn’t that the slogan with which Obama won the elections? Change a bit here and there, now that it is still possible! Later you are stuck with children and a mortgage, and then you realize you never saw the world. Too late!

The few Belgian student daredevils that actually go on Erasmus do it because they think it’s one big adventure (79%) or – these are the more cunning ones – because they think it looks good on their resume. For this last group it is a pity however that it is no longer extraordinary to go abroad – thus you really should find something else to distinguish yourself in the pile of resumes on the desk of a potential future employer. Opposite to this group is the category of students that think their studies will suffer from Erasmus since “the level of other universities is lower.” This can be true for certain universities in some countries, but for God’s sake, since when does only book knowledge count? Belgian students should realize that the world is not only about reproducing factual knowledge and parroting the professor’s opinion. Experiencing other cultures is equally or even more valuable in this multicultural world in which homogeneity no longer exists.

Even the disappointed Veto editors concluded that they “really thought there would be some enthusiasm for Europe” among their peers. After all, as you can all confirm, an Erasmus-experience, wherever it takes place, is valuable and unforgettable. |