HIGHLAND HEIGHTS, Ky. -- While all of his classmates are preparing to head back to Northern Kentucky University on Monday for the beginning of the spring semester, 22-year-old Drake Woods is not.
In fact, the junior computer science student from Florence, Kentucky, isn’t going back to school until the end of February. And when he does, it won’t be at NKU but at a university more than 5,000 miles away in Romania.
Woods learned at the end of November that he had won an Erasmus+ scholarship, an international scholarship through the European Union, to study computer science at Babe-Bolyai University in Romania from Feb. 22 through June 26.
The Erasmus+ scholarship program was a 2014 addition to a nearly 30-year-old European Erasmus program designed to facilitate and increase student exchange within the European Union, said François Le Roy, executive director of NKU’s Center for Global Engagement and International Affairs.
Erasmus+ expanded the program outside of the European Union.
While at Babe-Bolyai University, Drake Woods plans to take computer science courses in advanced networking, data structures and algorithms, and object-oriented programming. Photo by Elizabeth Massie
“The beauty of Erasmus+ is that it increases mobility from the United States to parts of Europe other than the usual suspects, such as France, Germany and England, where so many students study abroad,” Le Roy said. “It sends more U.S. students to less-frequented European countries and assists students from those countries with coming to the United States.”
Originally, Woods had wanted to study abroad in London. When he learned about NKU’s partnership with Babe-Bolyai, however – a partnership that began in 2008 – he reconsidered.
“I learned that NKU’s computer science program directly partners with Babe-Bolyai’s,” he said. “And who can say they’ve studied abroad in Romania?”
Next, Woods learned how cost-effective studying in Romania would be compared to studying in London or another major European city.
The Erasmus+ scholarship covers his airfare and provides him with a monthly stipend, worth the equivalent of a little more than $800 per month. Tuition is waived through NKU’s partnership with Babe-Bolyai, and room and board costs the equivalent of a little more than $50 per month, leaving Woods to keep whatever money he doesn’t spend during his four-month stay.
Woods qualified for the scholarship with a 3.8 GPA and an essay he wrote on how he hopes to inspire his younger brother to go to college. While at Babe-Bolyai, he plans to take computer science courses in advanced networking, data structures and algorithms, and object-oriented programming. He will be the fourth NKU student to study at Babe-Bolyai since the partnership was created and the first NKU student to receive the Erasmus+ scholarship.
Through the partnership, NKU will host Imre Vekov, a computer science graduate student from Romania who also is sponsored by the Erasmus+ scholarship program, this spring. Vekov arrived in the United States on Wednesday and begins classes at NKU on Monday.
