Exchange students appreciate the experience gained at the University of Latvia

One of the exchange students, Lucie Novotna, from the Czech Republic, studies pedagogy. Lucie has chosen the UL because she has never been to Latvia. “I want to visit countries which most Czechs have never seen,” she says. Lucie says, she had positive experience in Latvia and was never bored during lectures. “Latvia is a beautiful country, especially in sunny weather. I was told that Latvians are very shy, but once you start talking to them you see that they are really nice people,” she says. Another student, Daniel Koshkarov, came to the UL from Russia. Here he studies politics and languages, but in Russia – history and international relations. “I had great time here and enjoyed the studies. The professors are very good, and students have more freedom than at my university where everything is more strict and difficult. But at the same time you have to study harder because you need to make more input yourself,” says Daniel. During his time in Latvia, he has found many friends among locals and hopes to return here some day. Leonardo Scanavino is from Italy. He was studying social sciences at the UL while at home he is majoring in international relations. He decided to participate in Erasmus+ exchange programme and come to Latvia because he is interested in its history – post-Soviet period and the road to EU, which is also the topic of his thesis. He thinks that studying in Latvia is much better than in Italy because professors use personal approach to students. “In Italy, we had 100 students at our course, here there were no more than 60. It gives you more opportunities to work closely with professors,” says Leonardo, acknowledging a progress in his studies. He had finished studies in January, but came back this weekend to spend some time friends. “I returned because I like it here very much," says Leo. Last fall, 330 exchange students came to study at the UL with 73 of them deciding to spend here the entire year, and 187 students came for the spring term. The most popular study programmes are “Business Administration” and “International Economics” at the Faculty of Business, Management and Economics, with the following faculties also being popular – the Faculty of Humanities, Faculty of Social Sciences and Faculty of Education, Psychology and Art.