“Recently I watched a debate concerning the abolition of the ERASMUS exchange program. It is uploaded as a Vbate in two parts (3rd and 4th speeches are in another debate) for all those that want to see it.
The proposing side (who wanted to get rid of ERASMUS) brought out the current economic crisis and the fact that a student foreign exchange program accumulates a lot of valuable money while it does not bring any immediate benefits, which are in great demand during a crisis. They proposed cancelling the program temporarily, "for a short time". While it would bring a short-term boost in liquid resources, cancelling such a large-scale program for a short duration just to reboot it in a year would cause far more hassle and waste than it is worth. Rebuilding such a program is no easy task to accomplish, the current staff would have to move on to other, more stable pastures, and getting them to return would mean even more problems. So most likely the program would lose a lot of valuable resources and effectiveness, not to mention trustworthiness. As a result, cancelling the program temporarily causes way too many problems, and by merely proposing such an idea, the proposition accepted that ERASMUS has to function, it is important.
Another very odd problem they mentioned was 'distractions'. By this, they meant that the independent life of an exchange student brings up new responsibilities, such as cooking or financing oneself, that hinder one's studies in a foreign university. Because every student that has not left their home country lives with their parents, goes to a local university, etc. In such a case, why do we even need dormitories? In any case, a rather poorly thought out argument for exterminating ERASMUS.
A third point was its impracticality - the universities are not equal and, as such, one cannot simply hop between universities without sacrificing pieces of one's education in the process. But if the universities were equal, why hop between them at all? What would be the point in going abroad, if the experience was the same as at home? Sure, certain similarities exist (which is why George Formby could say 'it's no different anywhere'), but that is why it is possible to temporarily attend an another university.
The benefits of temporarily going abroad to another university were already explained in the previous post - it is all about differing somewhat from everyone else with the same education. No two lecturers are exactly the same and no two lecturers teach exactly the same things and/or use the same methods to teach. Not to mention meeting new people, potential coworkers, employers, underlings, partners, advisors, and experiencing a new culture, thus teaching a person how a certain culture functions, making the person more tolerable towards different cultures and nations. On the whole, a very positive experience.
So this is why the proposition's arguments were shallow and weak. Next time let's see if the opposition fared any better.”
Again, the quotation marks are here for a reason. Origin: the same page as before.
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