For many people, travelling is a kind of entertainment. We go abroad to see museums and theatres, to visit beautiful sightseeing. Studying abroad was a dream for a lot of students. But everything changed on the 24th of February. Now we want to live in Ukraine and study in Ukraine. Students who appeared abroad because of the war, they dream about coming back. It is natural, all their life is here, in Ukraine.
Fleening from the war
From the very beginning of the war in Ukraine I have strongly decided to stay in my hometown, contribute our army as I could and help people who really needed it. Ukrainians were linked and united as never before, and I was really inspired by that feeling of comprehensive support.
My 42 days in Kyiv were quite stressful, each day started from bad and scary news, but my family has managed to help one beautiful creature: we have taken a puppy from Irpin and started to give him all our love. We did not get used to our new life conditions when the opportunity of exchange studying was given by Kyiv Mohyla Academy for their students. I have decided to try my fortune and fill the application for studying.
In a few weeks I was accepted in Germany university in Giessen. But still, it was a very hard decision for me to venture for that trip and leave my family and my country for four months. I was crying all week and tried to choose the best way for me. And only my family and friends have managed to help me with this hard decision and convinced to go and gain this experience, they gave me the most important thing – confidence. On Friday 8th I was in the train to Poland. My trip was quiet and calm till we get to Ukrainian-Poland boundary into the buffer zone.
Our train was stopped without any connection with Polish side. We were said we would not be allowed in Poland till the time a European delegation with Ursula von der Leyen would cross the boundary. At that time we were in the train for about 14 hours, people were exhausted. During our stop, pregnant woman started to feel bad and no one known what to do. We did not have drinking water till the time Ukrainian border guard gave it.
There was lack of fresh air in the train, and we started to help her as it was possible. Doing that, people started to know each other and I found out many impressive and disgusting stories about Russian war against Ukraine and awful things they made. A woman from Kherson told us how she tried to leave the city under the bullets over head. They all cried after leaving the city, but her parents stayed there. Murders proposed them to take russian money, but they refused. Another woman did not eat three days because she was trying to get to the safety place, and we collected her some food.
Other people cried looking for animals because they left their pets in Ukraine. I was also surprised when conductor said they evacuated people from Kharkiv and people were grateful even for hot water. As Boris Johnson said: “Ukrainian conductors are iron people now, because they save lives”. Arriving in Poland, we were met by volunteers. They were everywhere and helped us as they could.
We were given by food, water and SIM-cards. On each stair there were about three volunteers who is a helper to bring up baggage. Here I should stay and highlight that we should be very grateful for Polish people and government. They did even more than we really needed, volunteers did their best and helped us on each point, we felt the support and were really impressed in a good way by Polish help. There were also a help points for Ukrainian people on each bus station in Poland, where we could get everything we required. The other part of way in German was calm.
So the conclusion is: sitting in the safety places, we do not really feel and understand the reality of war and people’s tragedy. After all these stories, I have understood more about war.
The second is that we should be really grateful for Poland support and appreciate it more than we do it now. It is priceless.
My German studies
I was lucky to be enrolled in German university for a summer semester. Unfortunately, I have received that opportunity because of the war in Ukraine. But from the very start, I have noticed some of significant differences between Ukrainian and German studying systems. The first thing – the approach for students.
Here students respect teachers but at the same time teachers use lessons as the opportunity to find out something new, interesting and useful. That is why the respect works in both sides. If sometimes Ukrainian students can be disrespectful toward their teachers, here I did not notice anything similar. The other thing is studying system and communication with students.
In Ukraine, we have lections and seminars separated and separately rated. Here there are no seminars, we have practical lessons, where teacher try to lead us to the right thought and make us the right conclusion from the material. I like German system in this way more, because for me personally it is much easier to understand and work with new information using practical instruments or at least discussing a specific situation.
This makes studying more fascinating and easier to learn. Here we also have a literature to read before the lecture, but teachers are mostly focused on our feedback and reflections. We have to write a review or a reading guide after each reading and ask questions if we have. Then, on the lesson, we have an opportunity to get answers to our questions.
In my opinion, the most significant thing here – is offline studying, because it gives more opportunities for teachers to give materials and interact with students in more effective way. Also, we receive numerous practical group assignments and projects, so we can interact with each other and share our experience. Communication is very important, and here it is easy to find friends from all over the world, this is also an advantage, because we find out new things about other cultures and histories.
A good thing that differs here is freedom in some way. Here I do not feel any anxiety answering on lectures and being in auditory, while visiting online seminars in Ukraine was harmful for me.
But here are also disadvantages in studying systems abroad. One thing I have noticed – Europeans do not hurry anywhere. It has also affected to studying. Comparing with our courses, here studying programs are easier and not as filled with information as ours. This fact makes lectures a little bit boring. Preparing for seminars in Ukraine we make more researches, read more literature and make our horizon wider. It makes us more self-educated than European students and to be honest, this gap is really visible. We have more topics to discuss and this range is wider.
Studying in Germany is anyway a good experience to try. Obviously, there are both advantages and disadvantages, but after started studying here I have started to appreciate our home university more than I made it before.
Funding
I applied for a scholarship in time, according to deadline. In a month, I have received an acceptation of funding. But when I came to Giessen, I found out that other Ukrainian students received much bigger amount of money. The duration I chose was from 01.04.2022 to 30.07.2022, and I have received 3,250. Also I figured out the period of being here to be much longer than it was written in letters (it was written that the end of the studying will be on 15th of July, but my exams end on 16th of September, so I need to live here and work about exams approximately two more months). I also have a problem with my dormitory here, because office did not send me all information in time, so I had to spend my last money for booking a hotel for two days.
We also were told, that we could receive the scholarship and some social payments at the same time, but the amount of social aid had to be correlated according to the amount of our scholarship. I tried to apply for a social payment three times, and each time I was told that it was impossible to receive money from two sources at the same time. They applied to clearly defined amount of money for students by government per month. But I have approximately 812 euro per month, while the defined sum is 861 euro per month for a student. Even according to that fact, I had to receive the difference, but I was refused in the migration office.
My questions are:
1) Is it possible to solve that problem and increase the amount of scholarship?
2) Is it possible to apply for a scholarship for extra two months (August and September)?
3) What is the exact amount of money regulated by government students should have each month?
4) Is it possible to receive a scholarship and a social help at the same time?
For me, funding was crucial, because otherwise I could not live in Germany for the entire semester. The procedure of receiving a funding was pretty easy comparing with other documentary procedures in Germany. Firstly, I had to fill and sign some documents to apply for a scholarship. And after a month of waiting, I had received the approval. Then in a week after receiving the approval I had to come to the international office and get the check with a full amount of money for the semester. After getting a receipt, I had to visit a bank and take all amount.
There was only one huge problem with my scholarship: funding was given randomly, so all students received different amounts of money. It did not depend on our scores, living conditions and so on. That is why the amount of money I was given is enough only for paying the dormitory and eating. Unfair, comparing with other students.
That is why a few students and I are working with our documents and funding office to handle out this situation. The other issue is that we were told summer semester would end in 15th of July. But it figured out that all exams will take place till the 16th of September. So the other thing is that we should extend the period of funding till that time if we want to receive credits. I would also like to mention a banking system here, as it differs from ours.
The matter is that I had to create my bank account to keep my scholarship on. In Ukraine, we can handle any problem online or by phone without physical attendance. You can even order a credit card and a courier will bring it to a few hours at your home. Here is the opposite situation. To create my own bank account, I had firstly to be registered in the city hall. After that procedure, I could receive my tax code in three weeks by post. After I had to come to the bank and make an appointment for the other day.
That day I had to bring all document including my registration and payment for the dormitory. And only after 30 minutes of signing documents, my bank account has been already created. But this is not the end of the procedure. Only a bank account was created, but not a credit card. I was waiting 3 weeks when I received my credit card by post. And then I had to visit the bank again with all my documents and letters to change the PIN code. After such hard procedures, you automatically start appreciating Ukraine and all services we are capable to receive there.
