Arianna Bordeianu is an 18 year old High-School student from Milan, Italy, who just completed a 3 week Erasmus+ programme in Dublin, Ireland. Arianna joined Dorset College as an intern for two weeks where she assisted the college staff with tasks, researched for upcoming projects, met with learners and participated in Student Experience events. This is Arianna’s story of her time spent in Dublin:
Being an 18-years old student in Italy is not that easy, especially after the pandemic. It is Graduation year so leaving school for three weeks might not seem like the best thing to do.
But it was.
When I saw the opportunity to join the Erasmus+ programme, I thought: ‘why not?!’. I passed the selections and become part of a 20 people group whom I didn’t know. A thing that I did know for sure was that we were all terrified but also very excited. We landed in Dublin on March 13th and met our host families for the first time a few hours later.
I remember thinking: “this place is so green, I like it” and I still think that after 3 weeks. The purpose of our programme is about having a work experience abroad, so that is what I am doing here in Ireland. The first week in Ireland was about getting to know the place, understand how the transport services work and of course experiencing the most known holiday here: St Patrick’s Day!
St Patrick’s Day was probably the most emotional day of the whole exchange; I experienced many feelings in just 24 hours: fear, because I got lost and I was all by myself; fun, because the parade was amazing and we had a great time; tiring, because of the walks around the city and finally emotional, as it helped a group of schoolmates become a group of real friends.
During weekends and holidays our group had the opportunity to visit many breath-taking places, such as Dublin Castle, Trinity College, Howth and Greystones.
The second week we all started working as interns in different places, considering what we study and also our preferences. This is how I got an internship inside Dorset College in Dublin City Centre. When asked about my preference, I said that I wanted to work somewhere that deals with organisation and also people. That’s why I’m here.
Every day I do something different, from registering and printing awards to writing reports and doing research. Doing different tasks has really helped me understand what I like and what I don’t. I also had the chance to meet student’s in-between lessons and participate in outdoors activities, which I really loved!
The people here in Dorset are incredibly nice and they always looked after me, which is something that should not be taken for granted.
I still have a few days left here in Ireland and I can definitely say that I’m very sad about it, actually all of the group is sad about going back to Italy. We had a ton of new experiences here, found peace and calm (which we really needed), we lived an independent life and we created a new routine that will be terribly difficult to change again as soon as we get home.
I’m sure that we’ll get on the plane with a mind full of sadness, but with our hearts free from any worries we have carried here from our student lives.
But there’s a thing we won’t miss at all from Ireland, especially me: the food.
