The Domino Decision: How Two Months Will Shape My Next Two Years
Things are becoming clearer. I am slowly but surely figuring things out. My main concern during this month has been that I need to decide my next two years within these two first months of school. Let me break it down.
I have choices. I can either go do an Erasmus semester at the start of the 5th year or do an alternance (work-study program) which means that I get to alternate between a month in school and a month in a company. Each has their benefits.
During the alternance the biggest benefit is being paid for working and also the company financing your studies during that year. The down side, at least for me, would be staying in Lille for another full year. It is not that I dislike the town, but I would like to switch it up a bit. A semester in Madrid sounds like a switch up. It is the main destination that I have in mind for my exchange.
The deadline for applying to exchange programs will be around February if it is the same as last year. That being said, to go to Madrid I need to certify a B1 level in Spanish which is why I started Spanish classes again. The alternance would probably be decided way later on. During the summer before my 5th year.
The main idea behind going to Spain would be getting a refresh on my Spanish which has not been used in a while. Last time was during my pilgrimage from Porto to Santiago where I was really happy to put my basic knowledge of the language to work.
Furthermore, living in a foreign capital and studying in the Universidad Politecnica de Madrid sounds up my street. Currently I have a good friend who is doing precisely that exchange, and the experiences he has shared have motivated me even further to consider this deeply. w
The main problem I have with doing the alternating between school and company time is that I think that it is rushing me to get into the professional world. That is not necessarily bad, yet since the rest of my life will be spent in that setting, I might as well try to gather some different experiences beforehand.
This decision is radical in the sense that if I make the decision to go on exchange it completely excludes the other option. That is the point of making choices though, right? A reason why I am already thinking this through is that it will give me clarity on other obligations that are approaching like the mandatory 3-month summer internship after my 4th year.
If I go to Spain, then I will give up my apartment at the end of this school year and will probably try to get an internship in another town. My ideas stretch from Estonia to Switzerland but I would not be against working in Paris either. All of this is still vague, but making this one decision will be the catalyst for the following ones.
This Week's Suggestions:
Same artist as last week, but he is simply too good. I have done quite a bit of digging (looking for music) recently, since I have quite a few sets upcoming. First with bpm.fam we will do an event on the 9th of october and I will also be playing for smokeshedcrew in Maastricht on Halloween. This is the kind of music I am looking forward to playing at both of those events!
Lovely week to you!
