A question you hear and think about a lot in your last months of your EVS is „What are you going to do after this experience?“ Well I finished my EVS more than two months ago and things turned out quite differently than expected, not necessarily in a bad way!

In October 2018 a new chapter of my life began, EVS in YMCA Romania together with four amazing people from all over Europe. Six interesting months were ahead and finish almost as quickly as reading this, but with a lot of experience and changes in my mind-set and personality.

At the beginning of my experience I was afraid to step out of my comfort zone, I was in doubt of my abilities and not sure if I will be able to work in a team, because I didn´t had the opportunity get to know this about myself before. Now I am proud to say that I have changed and change is good. I accepted to step out of my comfort zone is a great experience and it is important to be open and honest to yourself to be able to accept you and your flaws in order to accept change.

When it was time for me to go home I was a little bit scared to go back to my old, usual environment, with a slightly changed me. I have to admit it was not easy for me. It was amazing to see all my friends and my family again but I kind of struggled to fit in again. After two months it is acceptable again but I am more than ready to go away again, not necessarily from Austria but from my current place to start a new chapter.

To answer the question at the beginning I cleared my head about what I want to do after: to go to university and study nutrition! In the last months of my project I applied for several Universities all around Austria and got invited to the Pre Evaluation exams. When I finish my EVS project I travelled to all this different places and just tried my best, because you cannot really study in advance for this exam. Weeks later I just received negative replies, but during all this time I also thought about what to do if my original plan won´t work out. Resulting from this I will attend another evaluation test to make a degree for teaching English. Completely different from my original plan, but that’s okay, If I do not like it I will try next year to get into nutrition again.

That’s how I experienced my returning home and how my ideas worked out. I am okay how I turned out and my I will like this new change and if not, there are a lot of possibilities to do something else!

Angelika Petritz ( EVS volunteer, Austria, Youth Power Space project).

Project funded by European Union through Erasmus Plus Program.