Erasmus Mundus Student from Australia

LIAN PARRY is one of the first Australians to take part in the European Union's postgraduate exchange scheme, Erasmus Mundus. Students from countries outside the EU complete Masters courses at European universities, while living on a generous stipend from the European Commission. The program aims to to bring top class scholars into the European tertiary system, to boost the EU's education and training systems as a worldwide reference for quality and excellence.

I arrived in Belgium in June 2004 with a few plans in mind, namely to improve my French and participate in either a European Commission (EC) internship program, or to complement my undergraduate degree in psychology with a European Masters in International Humanitarian Assistance, run by the Network on Humanitarian Assistance (NOHA). Although an internship at the EC sounded interesting, the Masters course presented a way for me to enter into a field that had long inspired me, while strengthening my understanding of humanitarian issues from a truly international perspective: an aspect critical to such an area of study.

Although I was highly motivated to undertake postgraduate studies, financially, it would have meant taking out another loan on top of the university fees I owed back in Australia. By chance, I found out that 2004 also marked the launch year of the EC's Erasmus Mundus program. Although the well-known Socrates/Erasmus exchange program for European students has existed since 1987, the Erasmus Mundus program is aimed at postgraduate students from outside of the European Union. Due to the fact that this was the first year of the program, I didn't find out that I would be receiving the scholarship until just before classes were due to start - it was great news and a welcome relief!

I spent the first semester of my studies in Belgium at the Université Catholique de Louvain (UCL), a francophone university situated just outside of Brussels. The course was interesting and challenging - not least because the information was, of course, in French and throughout my primary, secondary and tertiary education in Australia I had had very little opportunity to study in another language. By the time the 2004 academic year started in Belgium I only had a basic knowledge of French, derived from a number of language courses I had taken in Australia and Brussels. However at UCL, the NOHA Masters course is bi-lingual French and English, which meant that I could write my essays and take my exams in English. This was a fantastic opportunity for me to improve my knowledge of French without feeling out of my depth whilst also facilitating my transition into francophone culture. For me, participating in a normal class discussion which reverted from French to English and back again was a great experience and reflected a wonderful reality of life in Europe.

In addition to offering a generous scholarship, it is a condition of the Erasmus Mundus program that students study in at least two different universities in Europe. My cultural experience was therefore further heightened during my second semester which took me to one of Scandinavia's oldest academic institutions; Uppsala University in Sweden. Again, the social, cultural and environmental contrasts with Australia were fascinating (having grown up in the tropics of Darwin, I don't think I will ever forget the feeling of stepping into the middle of a Swedish winter!).

On an academic level, the courses I took in Peacebuilding and Conflict Resolution and Religion and Reconciliation were extremely interesting and the professors were excellent. Furthermore, I had never studied in such a culturally diverse environment before; in our class of 22 students there were 12 different nationalities and about eight different native languages! To debate international humanitarian issues and establish friendships with people from so many different cultural and professional backgrounds was a truly enriching experience.

Studying in Europe has also provided me with a different perspective on certain international issues. For example, a major highlight of the NOHA Masters course was the field trip we went on to Morocco and then to a region near Tindouf in Algeria. The purpose of the trip was to study the case of the disputed territory of Western Sahara and to examine the current humanitarian situation of the Saharawi refugee camps which have existed for over thirty years in the harsh Saharan desert. It was a sobering experience to see the reality of the Saharawi refugees and to know that until I arrived in Europe I had never heard of the Western Sahara issue.

I now have another six months left of my course during which I will be writing a thesis and doing a three-month long internship at the Brussels-based Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters. Once I have finished this Masters, I am hoping to apply the knowledge and skills I have acquired by working for non-governmental humanitarian organisations in a health-related field such as mental health or HIV and AIDS.

Programs such as Erasmus Mundus and the NOHA Masters are ways of bridging not only geographical distances, but by facilitating diverse intellectual, cultural and social exchange, they are helping to forge positive cross-cultural relationships and understanding throughout the world.

From Belgium, to Sweden and back again, the Erasmus Mundus program has been a fantastic experience for me. Not only have I had the rare opportunity and privilege of studying at two European universities, I have been able to meet some truly inspiring individuals, both within and outside of university life, and have gained a sound basis for what I hope will be a rewarding career in the future.

To find out more about Erasmus Mundus, go to
http://www.ec.europa.eu/education/programmes/mundus/index_en.html