Foreign Student in Romania
Agnes Kuhn travelled all the way down from Stuttgart, Germany, to study medicine in the western Romanian city of Timisoara. 26-year old Agnes is a fourth-year student with the “Victor Babes” Medicine and Pharmacy University. Timisoara was love at first sight, and that’s why she chose to study here.
Luana Pleşea, 16.04.2015, 15:02
Agnes Kuhn: “To be honest, I wanted to study medicine for a long time, since I was six years old, but my average in school was not that good, and for Germany you need to have a very high average so I started looking around, where I can study, in Hungary, in Romania and finally a friend of mine, he came to Romania and he said it’s very good here and I should come to see how it is and how it works in Romania. I was here for a lecture, and I liked it, so I tried to ask my parents, and they said yes, and I liked the city, when I came here it was summer, everything, all the flowers were growing, it was really colorful, Piata Unirii, Piata Operei, then I even saw a German opera, which I also liked, because I’m German, and my dad was here too and he was surprised, he had a different view of Romania and he saw the beauty of it… “
Four years into her medical studies Agnes Kuhn believes Romania’s educational system is very good, at least as far as medicine is concerned, and that, because the practical stage here began earlier than in her home country, Germany. In her attempt to adapt to Romania, what helped her a lot was the fact that Romanians are more open, more welcoming than the Germans, which made it easier for her to meet other people.
Agnes Kuhn: “I think I adapted a little bit, and I think it gave me another impression of other people, it sounds a little bit strange, but where I was living, there were only Germans, there are some people with other backgrounds, most of them are actually Germans, all my friends…and since I’m here, I have met different people with different cultures, different traditions, and we also…for example, in the first year, there was someone from India, someone from Germany, someone from France, and we met, and every time we made a dinner, from each country, you know…and you got to learn different cultures, different food, how they talk, how they behave, so I think it was quite good to come here to Romania. I think I got another experience than I would have had in Germany. “
Although her command of Romanian is not so good for the time being, Agnes Kuhn told us she began to make sense of Romanian better and better, and for her, Timisoara has become her second home.
Agnes Kuhn: “When I‘m going to the shop, I have a shop right around my corner, where I’m living, and they’re always greeting me very nicely, like, ’buna ziua, draga, ce bei?’ and it’s a little bit like family, they already know my name, we have some small talk in Romanian, and I feel like I speak Romanian, yes, and…for example, my neighbors, they’re always very helpful, most of them are very old, they invite me for tea, it’s more like a family feeling. In Germany, we have neighbors, but we don’t see each other, we don’t really know each other, I feel kind of isolated now, because I know how it is here in Romania, maybe it’s not everywhere like here, but where I’m living, it’s like a family. I need it, because I don’t have a family here, I have my friends here but I don’t have my parents here, I‘m a family person, so this is quite a compensation for me, it’s a good experience. “
