On Monday, 20.07.2015, a group of 12 students from Aschaffenburg, Germany, was warmly welcomed at FU International Academy in Tenerife. The Erasmus+ participants started with one week of Spanish language course and they completed a four weeks long online marketing course together with a marketing internship at SEOintheSUN.
Janina, one of the participants, shares her experiences and outcomes of this amazing opportunity:
My plane left Frankfurt on 19 July. I was quite excited and full of expectations. My mates and I had been preparing some months before our adventure started and I really hoped to spend four great and interesting weeks in Puerto de la Cruz, Tenerife.
FU International Academy
Concerning our hotel “Teide Mar” I can say that I was happy with the room, cleaning service and the accommodation in general. At first, I had to get used to my temporary “new home”, but after a few days I felt quite comfortable. Regarding my work here at the FU International Academy, I was very pleased to realize that the skills I gained during the four weeks would be even more relevant for my future work, than I had expected. I enjoyed the seminars, which were always fun but at the same time very informative. Therefore I am convinced that I will make use of it in the future – even apart from my new job in a media company. What was very appealing to me, was the acquisition of skills like publishing articles etc. on social networks, launching, managing and optimizing an own website and writing a(n epic blog) post. I very much liked the mixture of writing tasks and being creative (in particular, working with Canva). In my opinion, the variation between working in a group and carrying out tasks on our own, successfully prevented a working day from becoming monotonous.
Excursions
The trips and excursions offered in Tenerife are, of course, very tourist-oriented, to be honest, I did not expect anything else. I was a bit disappointed about the local beaches since I did not expect them to be so stony, which made swimming partly impossible. One of the places I liked was Orotava with its cute colorful painted houses – however, I am not sure if I would visit Teide once again. Spending a day at the Loro Parque was a good idea, especially, the dolphin show was really worth a visit. My personal highlight was the Hard Rock Café, where I probably ate the best grilled Norwegian salmon ever! I had already heard about the climatic differences between north and south but was surprised, nevertheless, that the temperatures in the south are indeed higher in comparison to the north.
To summarize, I do not regret my decision to spend four weeks in Tenerife. I will be leaving the island with many experiences I gained in different aspects. Before I started my journey I was curious on how I would cope with being separated from my family, bearing in mind that I have never been separated from home for such a long time. Of course I missed them but after this month I can draw the conclusion that I can also get along living on my own. It helped me to become more independent and to appreciate my home in Germany.
