Experiences about ERASMUS: an interchange project

Describes what the ERASMUS project is, our experiences of it, and a brief statistical survey related to our participation as a host and home institution. The ERASMUS program started in June 1987 and it aims at supporting, promoting and stimulating cooperation among European universities. The universities participating in ERASMUS are financed to exchange teaching staff, exchange students and develop joint curricula. This program awards grants to students who wish to fulfil part of the requirements for obtaining their degree in a university other than that which they are currently attending. European universities are encouraged to form groups called ICPs (Inter-university Cooperation Programmes) in order to facilitate the coordination and organization job. Each institution is member of a group in which all the members are of the same kind (referred to the study orientation). In the University School of Computer Science of the Universidad Politecnica de Madrid, we consider that ERASMUS brings an excellent opportunity for students to get to know other cultures, work with different groups of people and learn how a "professional" job is done in another country. This is why we try to focus our participation on these three points and why we have chosen the final dissertation project as the subject that students must attend.