Patricia Cuenca Martin smiles a lot while she talks, and while she explains why she has chosen to leave sunny Valencia on the Spanish Mediterranean coast and move to the cold and expensive North to study Media Science in Aarhus for a year.
But actually young Spaniards don’t have very much to smile about these days.
“In Spain the only jobs you can get are at places like McDonald’s. That’s one of the reasons why I moved to Denmark – to improve my English so I could maybe get a job abroad. The situation back home means that it’s very difficult to get a good salary, and the prospects for the future are very bleak,” she says.
The choice of Aarhus was not too difficult because her Erasmus Mundus programme gave her three options: Oslo, Copenhagen or Aarhus. And she underlines that she is extremely satisfied with the Aarhus programme so far.
“In Spain the teaching is more theoretical, while here in Aarhus it’s more practical. We get to handle the equipment more – which is more fun as well as being more like the kind of skills we’ll need to get a job,” she says.
Patricia Cuenca Martin likes the way her course is organised and the way the international students are welcomed to Aarhus.
“And the academic level of the programme is OK too. I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to keep up, but this hasn’t been a problem. It’s not as hard as I thought it was going to be,” she explains.
Roughly 50% of all young people under 25 in Spain are unemployed. So this is one 20-year-old Spaniard who can easily imagine staying in Denmark in the future – not only next year, but perhaps for even longer.
“I originally planned to stay for one year, but I’d like to study for an extra year in Denmark and take my entire Master’s degree here. If I can find a job here I’d love to stay even longer, because there are no job opportunities in Spain. But whatever happens, at least I can study the degree programme of my choice here and now. Who knows what the future holds in store?” she concludes.