Lessons learned

Spending a longer time of your life in another country can teach a lot. It can make you rethink your construct of the world that you have in your mind. It can show you styles of life's and see yourself from another perspective. 

Public transport is free

Which does not mean that it's the best idea to make it for free. The transportation is mostly quick and on time. For me this was very convenient during my semester to go for example to university or visit the beach. Still the market of E-Scooters, taxi and car rentals are booming. You can literally always see a rental car on the streets. I can only assume why. I think that the free availability makes the public transport in Estonia a transportation for poorer people. Not taking public transport can providing social status. On the streets you can see a lot of expensive cars. On the other side students from wealthy countries like Germany prefer the convenience of a taxi or short car rental(here provided by bolt) instead of taking public transport, because a ride costs about 4€.

Motivation in Study

The Taltech University is doing an amazing job. It's modern and able to integrate new technologies in a way that makes sense. You can see and feel that a great amount of teachers, employees and professors are working with high motivation. At the same time this has great effect, because it seems like bureaucracy and rules are there to guide, but not to suppress progress. One of the biggest drawbacks for all the students I asked is the level of content. We have to work a lot, but because of the low level of the content we don't learn a lot. The Professors go to easy on the students or don't have the ability to deliver high quality content. This is especially true for business courses and partially for engineering.

Technologies are not only showcasing, but in actual use. Here a training machine in the Taltech gym(free for students) and a machine to bring back cups to be reused.

What do I need

I came to Estonia with one luggage of 20kg and one backpack with 8kg. I left at home so many things, you could probably fill a dozen of luggages with that. Still I don't have the feeling I am missing stuff. I still feel like I am living a rich life and I have everything I need. The urge to own more stuff and better stuff is not satisfied, but it makes me questioning if I need so many things and whether I need so many new things.

Culture

Humans are so different. Living with 54 people on one floor can show a lot of different characters. Taste in food, clothes and appearance, rhythm of life, waking up, being productive, motivation, values. The list is endless and my insight are only limited to a fraction of countries, religions and cultures of the world. Regardless our differences in our floor we can live together as one big family.

I have had an amazing time in and around Estonia. Thanks to all the Endla people, to Clarry, to all my professors and everyone else who joined me in this adventure!