Mobility specification

Country:Bulgaria

Institution:Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski"

City:Sofia

Program:Erasmus+ for study

Activity type:Study

Academic year:2023/2024

MU faculty/department:Faculty of Education / Department of English Language and Literature

Study level abroad:Bachelor

🎓Hit the books! How do you rate the university experience?

Can you enroll in a course where you can learn the local language?yes

Does the university offer enough courses in English?neutral

Are your credits converted?no

Was there anything in the teaching methods that surprised you?erasmus students usually do not find out that a class is cancelled or in a different room, the official timetable is also hard to find. The local coordinator just tells you when and where the course is and you go on a quest to check whether the course actually exists :D

Does the university offer international students' programs and activities outside of lectures and seminars to help them integrate more quickly?not a university directly, but there is an ESN in Sofia

In which areas does the university offer support for students with special needs and strive to be inclusive?I haven’t noticed

💸Did you have to rob the bank?

Try to take a guess at what your monthly expenditures were:11000 CZK/month

Did you stay in dorms?no

What about unexpected expenses? Did anything surprise you?dormitories were not offered to Erasmus students in my year because of lack of capacity, which I found out at the last minute, so I had to choose private accommodation - dormitories in Sofia cost about 1800-2200 CZK, private rooms 250-500 EUR (6-12 thousand CZK), so it was a significant difference

Do you have any tips on how to save money?go to a cheap country :D

🗺 Learn the ropes in a new city

How well did you manage to communicate in English?not at all

How does public transport work in the city?terrible

And what about transport outside the city?mostly fine

Where to find connections? How to buy a ticket?directly on the website of the Bulgarian Railways, BDZ, the trains run perfectly all over the country and are not expensive at all. The buses in Sofia and the bigger cities have terminals on board for card payments and they also show up best on Google Maps, although it doesn't always match, in smaller cities the arrival and departure times are in the stars completely. Interestingly, outside of Sofia, tickets are bought on board the bus, where there is an employee whose only job is to walk around the bus and sell the new arrivals a paper ticket

Did you deal with any health issues during your stay?no

🤠Help create the perfect bucket list

What is a must-see in the city?a huge cathedral, lots of monuments and brutalist architecture - for me definitely the Bulgarian version of Petronas Towers,

What are the must-visit trip destinations?Plovdiv, according to many sources the oldest city in Europe, absolutely beautiful, picturesque place. Also to the sea in Sozopol, to the fishing in Borovets or to the countryside in central Bulgaria. And Istanbul, Skopje or Bucharest are a stone's throw away from Sofia, and you can have a great trip on Erasmus in Bulgaria.

Share your best experience:Surva festival in Pernik - something like our carnival, but with scarier costumes and masks (especially devils and all-round hairy demons), more spectacular parades, and incredibly loud cow sounds and banging drums. Hundreds of people in costumes from different countries and local delicacies around

💅A nugget of wisdom to make the life easier

Did you need to handle a visa?no

How did you get to the place?Plane

Can you pay by card?sometimes

What not to forget when packing?winter clothes, it's pretty cold in bulgaria, even if it doesn't seem like it

🥳Summary

Whew, what a ride! 😮‍💨 Thanks so much for taking the time to complete our survey and for sharing your unique experience. Just one last thing. 🙏 How would you summarize your trip in one or two sentences?It was like a simulation, a video game; Credits, learning agreements and other paperwork are just sidequests, because the main goal is to enjoy the whole course of the game so that you don't even feel it's real.
And the game starts the moment you send in your application.