President

On behalf of the Erasmus Student Network Rotterdam I would like to welcome everybody to the Netherlands, to the great city of Rotterdam and of course the Erasmus University. My name is Emre Özmen and I am the President of this year’s ESN board. I, my board and our 50 active members will be here throughout your international experience to give you the proper Dutch experience. I would like to share with you what ESN is, what we do, and what you may expect as an exchange/ international student here in the city and in general
 
Me and most of my board members at some point were exchange/ international students like yourselves. Personally I have had exchange experiences in China, the USA and Russia, I am quite obviously a big fan of the exchange concept!
 
ESN, despite being a Europe wide organization which currentlyholds 330+ local sections in 30+ countries, was coincidentally in none of the countries I went to on exchange. Some had organizations similar to ESN some others did not have anything for exchange students at all.
The value of an organization like ESN became even more apparent to me when I landed on a Russian airport in the middle of the night, with an outside temperature of -30 degrees, with nobody to come pick me up, not even sure about the location of my student dorm. It is not the most comfortable start of an exchange period and it makes you think what am I doing here! It is partially the reason why I, and my board are part of ESN today. We as ESN would like to provide you with a safe landing in the Netherlands and successful continuation of your stay. A safe landing exists not only of an ESN buddy coming to pick you up but also providing you with a Dutch phone number, an OV travel card and an overall reference point for all your questions regarding your stay in the Netherlands. You may think of questions regarding housing, where to buy a bicycle, where not to buy bicycle, sports facilities and many more questions like these.
 
It is after this initial arrival and landing in the Netherlands where things might get a bit tough for you. Each time I went abroad, be it China, The US or Russia, luck would have it that I went by myself. This meant that all of a sudden I had no friends, no family, no social life and sometimes no understanding of the local language and habits. If than you do not live in a student dorm it becomes difficult to get in touch with people the first few weeks and create a new social life for yourself. Knowing this as ESN we present social and cultural events at least twice or three times a week, especially in the beginning of your stay here these events are a great opportunity to meet and befriend people.
 
I have always experienced my period abroad as a period for reinventing myself. Think about it, you get to create your entire social existence from scratch. I would highly encourage everybody to take this as an opportunity to do the things you always wanted to do but for some reason never got to do. Wanted to take a Salsa course, do it. Want to take up a sport, go for it. Half a year or a year may seem a long time but believe me when I say, when it is finished it will feel like it was only a heartbeat. You will make friendships that will last you a life time…
 
Let’s meet each other at one of our amazing social drinks!
 
Emre