JERUSALEM I

 Looking back at my time in Israel I can see how I had to adapt a lot. Specifically, looking back at my time at the university in Jerusalem. Studying in a place like Liechtenstein and being born in Switzerland I was always used to a certain degree of organisation. Whether it comes to the general way we work and live or the way our higher institutions work. It was really hard to accept how things worked in Israel in the beginning, especially how chaotic everything is. It’s how the Middle East works, everyone kept on telling me. You have to be very persuasive and very stubborn at the university there to get the lectures you need. Obviously, I never had to fight for getting into a lecture before so that for sure was an experience I will not forget anytime soon. You were expected to just know what you have to do with being given the minimum of information. I think I really learnt to forget what I’m used to at home and to adapt as soon as the semester was supposed to start. No one other than me was there to solve my issues so I had to accept how this different culture works and basically re-organize my brain in a way that I could get around. It was also very hard for me to not get angry at things I can’t change. You can’t come to another country and expect the locals to adapt to your needs and to what you’re used to. Luckily, I had a buddy at the university there, that was supposed to help me, which he luckily did. Quickly, I learnt from him how things worked at his university. Therefore, weeks after the studies in theory were supposed to start, I finally had all my lectures together. Now, new challenges suddenly resurfaced. The way of teaching is quite different to Liechtenstein, and it doesn’t matter when you show up. It was quite normal for people to arrive 45 minutes late to a lecture that only lasted for an hour. Even for my studio it was not unusual for my professor to arrive 1-2 hours late, but with time I learnt that it’s no issue to just come whenever you want to and leave whenever you feel like it. I think one of the biggest challenges I faced during my time there at the university was the language barrier that was clearly always there. All my lectures I took were supposed to be in English but unfortunately Hebrew was still used nearly all the time in all of them. That was the one thing that was the most difficult to accept during my exchange semester. How do you even adapt to a culture and get used to a foreign university when you can’t understand a word. People were not willing to speak English for us Exchange students so that made it very hard for us to even feel welcomed at the lectures sometimes. It took me months to accept that and to move on from that. It taught me a very important lesson that you can only do so much, and you can’t force the other side to adapt and welcome you in the way you may wish. As difficult as the time could be at the university, we still managed have a good time. I think as an exchange student in Israel you learn a lot of patience and you learn to adapt in situations that can sometimes feel impossible to adapt to. It also teaches you that you can only work on having a better cultural understanding yourself and you can’t force that upon anyone.