Erasmus - anyone got any experience of this?

[GrumpyOldBag]

DS is in Lower 6th and we are looking at University options. I have heard a little about the Erasmus programme enabling him to study abroad for a year as part of his degree (we would look at a Greman-speaking country). But the website is hard to follow and school not great at giving out info.

Anyone got any direct experience they can help with please?

I would also check if the student really wants to do Maths and German as this will mean doing German as well as Maths for the degree and will obviously be a lot of work.

No, it is the same amount of work. Typically a student will do 80% of their modules in maths and then do 20% of their modules in German. They don't have more modules than a student doing straight maths, and the workload is not higher. It seems to be a strange MN myth that courses called x with y are higher workload.

Umm. A standard maths degree is 3 years. With Maths and German it is 4 years. How is that not more work? The year abroad IS work and will be given a mark.

But if he wants to study abroad with Erasmus, even if he does just do a straight Maths degree, it will be four years regardless.

If he enjoys doing German at A Level, he should consider JH. He is guaranteed a year in a German-speaking country where he can either work, teach or study.

If he just wants to do Maths, then that's fine too. However he is not guaranteed a place on the Erasmus scheme. I knew a couple of people who weren't allowed on the scheme or just didn't get a place. I also know some who wanted to go to Italy and ended up having to take a place in Belgium.

Best at this stage to research both. If he has his heart set on studying abroad in Germany, I would lean more towards doing JH.

My son's degree is no longer with Erasmus. An M Eng in Mech Eng is 5 years in Scotland. He had the option of doing his 3rd or 5th year abroad with a recommendation of doing the 3rd. He just has to ensure he covers similar modules to the UK (which is why they had to be approved) and gets good grades in them.

My Dds both want to do this. Hadn't linked it with Brexit

Was thinking more about dd1 who wants to work in Europe.

I did an Erasmus year abroad in France and Germany and it was great fun sounds a bit cheesy and cliched but I met some fellow British girls when I did my semester in France and they're definitely going to be friends for life

X with Y is usually 80/40 or 70/30

Look up Maths with German programmes.

UCL, Royal Holloway: Maths 75%, German 25%
Southampton Maths 80%, German 20%
Manchester: Maths 66%, German 33%

None require more than 100% of a single honours course.

You do not necessarily need to speak other languages to do an Erasmus programme. Many overseas countries offer English taught options within the programme - especially the Nordic countries.

My son's Prague course is in English although he's doing "beginners Czech" modules to make the most of his year there.

I am an Erasmus tutor (and a dad). Technically it is possible for non-EU member states to participate in some aspects of Erasmus. But Brexiters are spreading misinformation around this point by confusing the wider group of countries that can participate in some limited aspects of Erasmus with the countries that participate much more fully as members of the core Erasmus student exchange scheme. Almost all of these Erasmus programme members are EU members: the very few that aren't tend to be countries with close agreements with the EU that include the continued free movement of people - which is of course precisely what Brexiters want to stop. There's a good blog post on this issue by EU law expert Professor Steve Peers: eulawanalysis.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/eu-referendum-briefing-2-how-could.html

Crucially, there is a clear negative precedent: in 2014 Swiss voters chose to end the free movement of labour between the EU and Switzerland. The EU retaliated by ending Switzerland's participation in Erasmus. Since then Switzerland has introduced a new scheme, Swiss-European Mobility - but it is paid for in full by the Swiss government. Surely it stretches the limits of credibility to imagine the current UK government stepping in to pay for a replacement scheme, given that it has already withdrawn from directly funding most higher education, and Vote Leave's much greater ostensible emphasis on other spending areas such as the NHS (even supposing we were to believe their claims on that).

This point about funding is really important, because currently it is the EU's generous funding that allows British students to participate in Erasmus. Amongst other things, for British students on Erasmus, EU funding means non-repayable monthly grants (what the British government has taken away from British students studying in Britain). Once you take into account lower fees in other countries, and other advantages unavailable to students in the UK like housing benefit in France or massively subsidised regional travel passes in Germany, it is much, much cheaper for UK students to spend a semester or year on Erasmus than to stay at home. On the course I teach on, most students come from lower income households, are the first in their families to go to university, and are often living at home for financial reasons. I've been working very hard these last few years to build up our students' participation in Erasmus and give them international opportunities in Europe that I've been fortunate enough to have, but which they would not have had without Erasmus. So the EU has democratised the possibility of studying abroad. Why, just for the sake of a free kick at political elites, should we take such opportunities away from our own young people?

Because DG, the people voting for Leave do not care about young people. They are largely older, working class or unemployed. They are more likely to vote UKIP - Or support the BNP. These people are less likely to care about European opportunitirs for young people and have little experience, if any, of university. I think widening university participation in Europe and across the world is major advantage to young people from disadvantaged backgrounds and I applaud your work. I just hope your students realise the excellent opportunities that are offered by going abroad and take full advantage even if their other family members are Leave supporters.

Thanks to the previous poster - it's great to know this work is appreciated by some people. But I don't think it is helpful to generalize too much about people's motives. I am for Remain, but I don't think people voting for Leave are all indifferent to young people (and nor are all old people for Leave: one of the most moving recent appeals for Remain came from a 96 year old war veteran). The majority of Leavers are not UKIP, let along BNP, voters. They are aware that things are tough for many young people today, and are mistakenly seeking the wrong scapegoats for it. The problem is that they have been seriously misled by a cynically populist campaign that, despite being led by people who, like me, are Oxford graduates, is actively denigrating the importance of knowledge and research with shocking comments such as 'the British people have had enough of experts'. I am optimistic about the future, though, because more and more people among younger generations are getting educated enough to see through this kind of thing. To return to the original point of this thread, when students gain first hand knowledge of different ways of seeing the world in other countries, that contributes to a growth in understanding. Anyone here considering Erasmus, I would encourage you to just go for it.

Massive generalisation there bojo.

I'm in my twenties, well educated and lived in mainland Europe. I also come from a working class background.

For numerous reasons, I support Vote Leave. I do not vote BNP/UKIP/any right wing parties. None of my reasons for leaving involve immigration, although it would be nice if my non-EU DH would be able to move to the UK more easily.

This insinuation that anyone supporting Leave is ignorant, racist, fascist, xenophobic, stupid and inward-looking is absolutely ridiculous.

This thread is not an appropriate venue for you to vent. Agree with Daniel that Erasmus or studying/working abroad is a great opportunity. I had the best experience of my life and got to know many EU and non-EU citizens working and studying in Europe.

I have reported Borojo's post.

Interesting that a poster is accusing anyone who disagrees with her of being facist. Democracy in action....

I came down on the remain side in the end but found it a difficult decision because of my concerns about the way the EU commission is run and the way big corporations increasingly dominate the EU. I also worry about how much of our country will be concreted over to house and provide infrastructure for the increasing numbers of people who want to come here. The fact that they help the economy and pay tax is irrelevant. They still need houses, schools, GPs and more space on roads etc.This was despite my son getting an Erasmus place and me always having voted Labour or SGP. My son who is a keen SGP (Scottish Green Party) voter actually didn't apply for a postal vote because he said he couldn't make up his mind due to what he'd read online about the way the EU is run and the large trade deals that favour big business.
The way people who contemplate voting leave are being portrayed as racists reminds me of the Scottish Independence debate when those of us who voted to remain in the UK were accused by Yes as only being concerned about our pensions.

Bojoro's post is a generalisation, but it's correct that over 60 year olds are most likely to be pro Brexit while 18-39 year olds are strongly in favour of staying in the EU. This is backed by the demographic info we have from the polls.

Who are you referring to Need?

The groups of people quoted were from an article in The Times today. UKIP supporters are very likely to vote for out as are BNP supporters. Why is this surprising? I strongly disagree with both their positions. So are Daily Telegraph readers, Daily Mail readers and Conservative party members. The bar chart they supplied looked at who may vote in or out. I am happy to quote who is likely to vote in. I have not accused anyone of anything! Why was my post reported? I am totally mystified. I am not a fascist and I totally resent anyone saying that about me. I was purely quoting widely available information and what is wrong with that? I see my post is still there. Do please check the article I quoted and I would like an apology.

I am very upset by what has been said about me. It was totally in context with the difficulty of persuading students from some backgrounds to do an Erasmus year. I am sorry the research is not to people's liking, but do read the article for yourselves and it is not remotely contentious. I thought it was interesting.

In response to 2rebecca, I'm really glad that there is common ground emerging between people on both sides of this divisive argument (one of the terrible things about this referendum has been the reinforcement not just of British people's stereotypes about foreigners, but also of their stereotypes about each other).

Many people on the Remain side, including myself, share your feeling that alongside all the upsides like Erasmus and many others, there is a downside, principally excessive corporate power. It's just that we see Brexit as an extremely bad cure to a real problem, that would be much worse than what it purports to cure. That's because the UK itself suffers from excessive corporate power, and has been absolutely at the forefront of promoting it on the rest of Europe. The only coherent arguments I have heard for Brexit might make some sense for supporters of the most right-wing ultra-free market wing elements of the Conservative Party - who are, in the short term at least, the only people who will actually have any chance of implementing them - but they are not in anyone else's interest. For a good analysis of why this is so, I'd urge any left-of-centre people considering Leave to see this post by EU politics expert Dr Owen Parker of the University of Sheffield: speri.dept.shef.ac.uk/2016/04/12/lexit-careful-what-you-wish-for/
In fact there's a whole campaign based around this kind of perspective, Another Europe Is Possible, which includes members of the Green, Labour and other parties.

It's also interesting that you were a No voter in the Scottish referendum, because in a way my argument for Remain in this referendum is similar. If I disagree with George Osborne's economic policies, does it therefore logically follow that I think the UK should have no government at all? And by the same token, if I disagree with Jean-Claude Juncker's economic policies, does it therefore follow that I think there should be no governance whatsoever at European level? That we should therefore risk destroying the largest peace project in human history? My answers are no, no and no.

As for housing, primary and secondary education and health, all these things that people really care about are simply not areas of EU competence. They are all entirely within the control of the UK government and/or devolved administrations: if they wished to spend more money on them, they could do so. Such issues are therefore simply irrelevant to the referendum debate. The only reason they have been brought in is that poor levels of public understanding in the UK of what the EU actually can and cannot do means that Leave think they can get away with mixing up these issues. One more argument for better education.

I'd add that DH transferred his the project / thesis part of his MSc to a Portuguese university through Erasmus - it was an amazing experience, gave him a chance to learn the language, meet some very welcoming people and do something different (enhanced no doubt by it being a World Cup year and local beer being 15p a glass). I'd like to see our own children have similar opportunities.

The only problem with making big business the bogeyman is that these businesses employ millions of people. Some of these businesses pay well. These employees pay taxes. We need a high tax revenue to pay for the NHS, pensions, benefits and other aspects of life we value highly. Again, it is another aspect of this country that is under the control of our elected government but never assume we can do without it, we cannot.

My son did the 3rd year of his history degree at Lund ( Sweden) ..wonderful experience .

Ds is planning to go to Berlin for his third year (just finished his first year) - I was obviously worried after the vote but his university has issued a statement saying that there will be no change to current students' courses