Most importantly, I was able to live in a dorm on a floor with only about 1/4 of students being from the United States. Thus, I consistently interacted with students from other countries (Hungarian, Italian, Russian, Dutch, etc.) throughout my entire stay, and some of them became core friends of mine. Outside of the dorm, I sort of got to know some local restaurant employees because I would eat there so consistently, and they were a different bag of nationalities as compared to the students (Iranian, Iraqi, Romanian, Turkish, etc.). Additionally, the Erasmus organizations did a wonderful job connecting students from all over the globe to each other and to local Hungarians; I cannot express enough how impactful ELB and ESN were for me. Finally, the CEA CAPA staff were very engaging to speak with, and I gained the most understanding of Hungarian adult life from them.

My favorite class was probably my microeconomics class, followed by my class in Hungarian language. The micro class was very difficult, maybe more than it needed to be, but I had a really excellent Russian seminar leader. I specify Russian, because he is now my first association with Russia, and it is much more positive than Putin, KBG, the Cold War. Further, this seminar section encapsulated some interesting differences between this Hungarian University and Cal Poly in a few ways (and perhaps these differences could be generalized to EU vs USA to some degree, but I don't know for sure). First, everyone learning in their second language creates a much more difficult task for the professor, and considerably disrupts the pace and productivity of back and fourths. Second, the students in this class (75% Hungarian, 25% other) were not afraid to be wrong to the same degree as students at Cal Poly. The environment felt much more forgiving, which I found to be a beautiful thing. Even though Cal Poly students may not be any more judgmental, this environment at Corvinus University felt less pressurized due mainly to the students, but also the very emotionally-sensitive seminar leader.