Pre-departure:
The preparation for the exchange program was a lot of effort, but once I returned it all seemed like minor detail. It is worth it! My stay at TU Delft was only 3 months and not the usual 6-month exchange. The shorter stay is possible because subjects are taken in a quarter of a year and not a semester. It is possible to stay for 2 quarters, most international students did it that way. I chose the shorter exchange, because I wanted to return and work on my thesis.
I loved my comfort zone, a lot. Then I left it and learnt a great lesson. Before boarding the plane, I spent weeks terrifyingly wondering why I chose to exchange a perfectly happy life for one I had no clue about. I was annoyed by those comfortingly saying that I would return in six months and that it would all be the same again, because they were wrong – it won’t be the same – and I needed someone to tell me to stay. Nobody did, so I flew away.
Pre-departure:
It all started with the visit to SU International to get more information on summer schools after having a chat with a friend on international opportunities offered by Stellenbosch University. The SU International staff was very helpful, their door was always open to explain and answer any questions I had on international summer schools. The visitation was followed by the application process which included making a video clip on why I wanted to go to the summer school and why the courses chosen. With the help from my friends in the Faculty of AgriScience, Department of Animal Sciences, we managed to produce a clip. I must confess, making a video clip was not as easy as I thought, if you do it right the first time, lucky you. It actually made me realize why most people freeze and forget their lines in auditions, now it was my turn, but fortunately, I was not freezing in front of the judges.
Lesson from this, do everything in time so that you have enough chance to play around and edit your clip.