Margoo Pelska

"I am the person who does not take big risks. That means deciding to do my traineeship abroad would be really challenging for me. That is why I decided to go to Riga because I have been there before, I like Latvian language, Latvia is close to Estonia and I could visit home when I miss it or having hard time on practice time. I chose to participate in Erasmus exchange in the Red Cross Medical College of Rīga Stradiņš University to get benefits of having coordinator then coming completely alone. For example, Irina helped me with getting my bus card with discount tickets. If I would not have chosen RCMC I could possibly not have this advantage.

The main benefits of my practice time in Riga are that I got motivation to study further Russian and after that other languages (of course one of them will be Latvian). The second advantage is that it is close. Even though Latvia is next to Estonia it is good to know and see how neighbours work. It helps to understand what is good or what should be better in my own workplace. Also, it will be good for my CV in the future. For food lovers, it is cheaper to enjoy different tastes and buy local primary goods compared to Estonia.

I am really thankful for my supervisor who mainly instructed me. Thanks to her I got the most from Riga because she also showed me the city and was a little bit a guide for me. Furthermore, she takes make up artist classes and she asked me many times to be her model what I really enjoyed. I also had a chance to celebrate my birthday in Riga, enjoyed the evening in NEO Sky restaurant and I remember how I loved the view. In addition, I also liked the International Week, it was really interesting.

I would suggest for next students that if you cannot find any friends in traineeship place, contact with RCMC coordinator to ask maybe there are other international students who have come to Riga. Definitely I recommend to discover other places too than Riga and luckily, transportation is cheap in Latvia. I did not have much time for that because majority of my weekends I went back to home so do not make the same mistake! Furthermore, do not be afraid to ask different things in your practice place because they also do not know what you would be interested in and that will help to get the most out of your traineeship."

Student from Estonia