Lazizjon Abdulazizov, LAS-113: "My exchange semester in Norway was awesome"

August 26, 2015

Lazizjon Abdulazizov, a junior in the Liberal Arts and Sciences Department, shares his experience as an exchange student at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU), Norway.

"As a sophomore, I could not apply for any of the AUCA exchange programs available to upperclassmen; however, my dream had always been to visit Europe, so I decided to apply for this exchange program on my own. On top of that, the Environmental Management and Sustainable Development (EMSD) program at AUCA is still young, and so I thought time spent studying at a university with more experience in the field would be good for my education.

The applications to this program came from some of the brightest students at AUCA, perhaps the brightest in Central Asia. The application process wasn’t too complicated: I submitted the usual transcript and cover letter then waited to hear the results. At midnight the next day, one of my friends called to tell me I had been accepted to the program! I obviously didn’t trust him at first, but I checked the announcement and, sure enough, my name was there alongside all the other accepted students. I don’t think I can describe how happy I was at that moment. I felt so lucky to be selected.

Honestly, even though my semester in Norway was awesome, the whole journey started with a pretty awful day. Tired from my flights, I arrived in Norway to find my bus had already left. I had to stay on the street for an hour and got a good taste of the famed Scandinavian cold. Sitting there, my biggest priority was getting to the Pentagon, my dorm, and getting some sleep. But my luck was not totally run out, on the next bus, I met and had a great conversation a guy from Sweden who knew surprisingly much about Central Asia. My luck continued after I got off the bus and was unsure where to go. I asked some stranger for directions, and he turned out to be another student from NMBU. We walked to the car he had parked nearby and we drove straight to my dorm. When I finally got inside, I ran into my five roommates—all girls (maybe a dream for some guys, but that’s how it was). They cooked some food for me, but I was too tired to stick around and just fell asleep.

I learned a lot about differing school cultures at NMBU (UMB). At AUCA I was used to having lots of classes during the semester, but at NMBU, I only had three. I thought that my reduced course load would mean that I would easily get the grades I wanted because I would have plenty of time to prepare for exams. But when I found out that each course was three hours long, I realized that it was not going to be that easy. Not only was my class-list short, my classes were not even mandatory per se. NMBU only required students to pass their final exams. In fact, the classes had no quizzes, midterms, or assignments. However, I was happy to find that in the classes, I was in the company of masters and PhD candidates alongside my undergraduate classmates. Listening to the more experienced students’ opinions was crucial for gaining a deeper insight into the material. One of the things that made my time at NMBU so academically challenging was this lack of quizzes and midterms that I could rely on at AUCA to boost my grade. It is very daunting to have your entire semester hinge upon the grade of a single exam.

Norway also taught me a substantial amount of worldliness I did not learn moving form Uzbekistan to Kyrgyzstan. While the Uzbek and Kyrgyz cultures are not that different, save for some ancient traditions, Norwegian culture is totally different. We are far more hospitable and communicative; I found it difficult to make friends with Norwegians. A case in point is how differently we celebrate holidays. People in Central Asia tend to get together with close friends and relatives during the holidays, but I noticed that Norwegians use their vacations to try and get away from people—either up in the mountains or in some other far-off place. That being said, Norwegians are very kind, always smiling to people they do not know, and almost all of them speak English very well. Suffice to say I did not meet a Norwegian as serious as Arnold Schwarzenegger in Terminator. It is no secret that Norway is one of the most developed countries in the world, so living there was very easy and very comfortable. The country has an incredible natural beauty, and, probably as a result, Norwegians pay an enormous amount of attention to ecological conservation efforts. It was nice to live in such a clean city, very different from what I had experienced back in Uzbekistan or Kyrgyzstan.

In general, I think anyone who has spent even a little time in Europe would agree after every visit it always leaves you with a good feeling. It’s important that Europe—a very modern and developed set of countries—still retains that ancient spirit and beauty we find in its centuries-old castles and cities. I was so taken by Norway, now I am learning Norwegian and I have plans to get a masters at a Norwegian University. I am so glad to have taken the opportunity to study at a Norwegian University, especially in a field I feel so passionate about.

I came back to Kyrgyzstan full of stories from Norway, some funny and some sad. One of the craziest started as a simple trip to the Capital. First, some context: In Norway, bikes were cheap and public transport was not. Every student had one if not two bikes. So when my roommate and I decided to save some money and travel to Oslo, we did it on bike. This would have been the perfect summer excursion through the natural majesty of Scandinavia, but unfortunately, it was winter. Even though our trip to Oslo was only about 30 kilometers—a trip slated for three hours at most—my roommate’s bike of course broke down five kilometers in. We trekked ten more kilometers on foot to the nearest city just to find out every bike repair shop was closed. By now we were equidistant from Oslo and home with a broken bike and wounded spirits. Your average person would probably have taken this opportunity to call it a day and take the next tram home (looking back, I strongly recommend this option), but our pride kept up going: we refused to return empty-handed. My roommate was crying and it was difficult to comfort her given the circumstances. She was not afraid, just a little emotional. We battled the cold, dragging our bikes over the remaining hills until we made it to Oslo. When we arrived we had already lost any desire to site-see. We got our bike and took the tram home. The trip had not been the fun three-hour jaunt we had planned—it was an eight-hour saga.

Crazy stories aside, at NMBU I was not immune to homesickness. I was the only Central Asian student and I missed our people. Fortunately, from Norway I was also able to visit a friend of mine in Germany, an AUCA student on an exchange program with Tubingen University. To be honest I was happier to be visiting him than I was to be in Germany. Nonetheless, being in Norway I was able to travel a lot of Europe. From Germany we went to France. I got to stay in France two nights due to a logistical mistake on my ticket, but we had to spend it on the streets because we did not want to spend money on a hotel. Still, that was amazing. Afterwards I spend a night in Latvia waiting for my plane back to Oslo. Later, once exams were finished, I also had the chance to travel to Sweden where I spent mouse of my time travelling the city and sitting on the shore, staring out into the sea.

I wish anyone who wants to apply for this exchange program the best of luck. Do not be afraid of applying. The worst that could happen is you gain more experience writing cover letters. Study hard at AUCA and that will be your ticket to success at any university in the world. Whenever someone lives abroad, he or she comes home a different person. Maybe you’ll look the same on the outside, but on the inside you will be fundamentally changed. In spite of the difficulty of culture shock, or perhaps because of it, I became more confident in myself and fearless about what I can take on. As said Steve Jobs “Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.” Stop being afraid and start doing your best in what you do."

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