Introduction
I finally wrote the final report of my Erasmus in Zaragoza during 2022/23 after I arrived at my house and did another important task; job searching. Hope you could enjoy reading and take advantage of your challenge of Eramus in the future. In this essay, you can find several topics:
●Job hunting
●Application for Staying Permission
●Get your new SIM
●The days in the second semester
Job hunting for mobility students
In particular, I will exaggerate the importance of organising between your job searching and studying in the university for you who want to get a job in Japan and get a job in higher demand companies among university students.
1.To get a job or to enroll in a master degree after graduation?
If you go to this exchange programme from the second semester of the third academic year of the Fukushima University, you need to decide your scheme after you graduate from your bachelor degree before you start the second semester in that staying university out of Japan.
2.When you decided to get a job:
You probably need to follow the same schedule of job hunting with general students in Japan even if you join in the activity from that country. Recruiting schedule depends on each company, however, most of the listed large companies and its group firms tend to follow the general recruiting schedule recommended by the Japan Business Federation. However, such a recruiting schedule has already been diminished and some companies follow their own schedule. Therefore, you need to search for such a schedule by yourself faster and faster in order not to miss the application term which you want to enrol in.
Preparation which you should start at the beginning of third academic year:
The most important part is analysing your personality in detail and representing the results to convert written words by your words because this analysis would be reflected in your job hunting though the whole period of terms until totally finishing that activity. Some employees may ask you about yourself; logical thinking, experiences in your life and how did you organise, what did you learn from that experience, sociality, humanity, opinions for unique questions etc. in interviews. Studying for a paper test is also another important part but your humanity would be more important than that test's result once you are able to pass the first election among applicants.
One more thing I want to add is "to consider the second desired choice of companies or business sectors". It means you have more broad possibilities to look for and find jobs because higher and higher demanded companies or business sectors find it is more and more difficult to proceed with the election processes. Moreover, you perhaps may become uneasy or disappointed yourself- of course, it is not because of you every time- if you could not get any job position from the first desired company or business sector. The important thing in this situation is to change your mind and move quickly to "the next choice". It is a waste of time to be regretful, disappointed and uneasy in the job hunting condition of various job positions being occupied faster and faster. It is quite lucky and seems to be a rational thing to get your job in the first desired company, however, you need to have the courage to choose the second choice.
Application and the fast election:
Imagine if you decided to apply to a company where you want to get a job there. Please carefully read recruit information mainly using the firm's official website. I recommend you to send the company a message to ask if you can apply for the recruitment election of the company when you cannot find any application information for students who are out of Japan because of an exchange programme or if the company requires applicants to get a paper test in a "Test centre". In many cases, the recruitment department of the company kindly replies to your doubts. For instance, the style of doing a paper test could be changed to online testing. Moreover, there is enough possibility to hold the final interview online.
3.Necessary goods
This list composes necessary stuff for online job interviews. It is better to bring these dresses and a laptop from Japan. It is available to get LED ring lights in the place.
●One pair of suit and a tie: the suit is not necessary for "recruiting-suits" but the colour should be close to black or navy.
●Laptop or tablet devices: recommended with key-board in the case of tablet devices to fill long entry forms.
●Earphones
●LED ring light: to brighten your face in front of the screen.
I think you would do very good because you have already chose studying abroad, therefore, please remember to be yourself independent, taking responsibility yourself and do actively something also in your job hunting.
Getting the staying permission and a physical ID card; TIE, Tarjeta de identidad de extranjero
To get the student VISA is probably the toughest thing. The main reason is the slow and complicated procedure by the government organizations. Among all processes to apply for a VISA, you must carefully follow the LAST and OFFICIAL instructions about the procedure by those organizations because the procedure is amended very often; you should not follow unofficial information such as blogs. Regarding issuing TIE, moreover, you have to bear in mind that you need to get an appointment for any process to visit government offices. Otherwise, they would not accept your visit. It is quite important.
Under the current condition, applicants for the student VISA which allows them to stay in the country more than 6 months as students will only be given 90 days of staying permission after you enter the country. Once you arrive at the city, you need to apply for issuing your plastic ID card; TIE, Tarjeta de identidad de extranjero, which represents a valid resident position at a foreign office. I finally got TIE in February of 2023 after I passed several complicated processes from September. I will put the link which allows you to get an appointment in order to visit the foreign office; Sede electrónica. Then find "Extranjería" and you can see that below. At the moment of writing this essay, I cannot proceed to this page forward due to those sites down, ask me later.
You would step through this flow.
The first of all: To prepare documents that you submit to a foreign office in advance.
The second: To get an appointment for the visit to that foreign office. It must be highly competitive among applicants. The timing which you should aim for is sharp at 13:00 every Monday except for public holidays.
The third: Visit that foreign office and submit documents requested. You would probably wait there more than one hour. This visit is for confirming your staying as a mobility student and accepting the permission of staying.
The fourth: To get another appointment for submitting several documents at a national police department. It is much easier to get this appointment than "The second".
The fifth: Visit that national police department and submit documents requested. This visit is mostly for registration of your fingerprints to issue your TIE. The office probably informs you that you need to get the next appointment to obtain your TIE at least two months after this visit.
The sixth: To get another appointment to correct your TIE at that national police department.
The seventh: Finally you can get your TIE at that police department. Make sure to carry it always.
Moreover, I highly recommend you to visit the foreign office and the national police office with your friends who can perfectly use Spanish for well-going long processes. The university buddy programme is very supportive in this case as well.
To get a new SIM:
This is the top priority to get a new SIM for a mobile phone after you arrive in the city because it is unreasonable to continue using your Japanese SIM and phone number. Service condition is variable from time to time, however, I recommend you prepaid SIM from Vodafone because of its outstanding economy. You only have to ask the staff about a desired plan in a Vodafone shop in the city. You can see some plans here, or google "vodafone prepago sim". You must be surprised at the cheapness of mobile fees.
Transportations in Zaragoza:
The most popular transportation in Zaragoza is taking a bus and tram. I will recommend you to purchase a bus card which is available in all the city bus lines of "avanza" and tram. There are two popular types of cards for stored-fare (top-up) cards and commuting cards (discount is also available for young people). The offered commuting cards are valid for 30, 90 and 365 days respectively.
The avanza's ticket centre is in "Centro Independencia El Caracol", Paseo de la Independencia 24 y 26. If you want to purchase that student discount bus card, purchase this card; "Carne Jovén", you can get it in the office at Plaza Ángel Sanz Briz 10 Local.
Please do not forget to take these stuff when you purchase those above cards.
The bus ticket centre: Passport, License photo and the youth card "Carne Jovén" (only when you buy the commuting ticket).
The office of Carne Jovén: Passport
On a bus. Countless travel by bus whenever and wherever to go. I miss the bus shaked so much.
About university life in the second semester:
Next, let me tell you about the days of the second semester.
The biggest change compared to the first semester is the disappearance of close Erasmus friends in my student dormitory since the first one because two guys went back to Italy after they finished staying in the city and a girl moved to another shared flat in which it is close to her campus. Other Erasmus friends went back to their countries as well.
The main goal of the second semester was "to excite university life to the maximum".
I studied these three lectures; how companies create values in their business, what innovation is and how it is used in practical business fields, and the present economic situation in Spain. The subject of innovation was particularly interesting because I have wanted to learn about innovation from both academic and practical perspectives. In the practical side, we made some student groups in the course, then each group chose and visited a company to interview such a company to ask what kinds of innovation applied to the business. The group where I was assigned visited a pharmacy whose business is boosting thanks to their efforts.
Finding new people:
Developing your community in another country seems to be one of the biggest parts which need a great effort. In my case, it was more difficult to find new close friends in my dormitory since the second semester because the best close friends from Italy were no longer there. However, I changed my mind to look for new friends, which is to take advantage of applications. I applied this method even though I have got this advice since the first semester and hesitated to use those tools. Nowadays, it was the right choice to do that because I found new people and got to know each other, who have various backgrounds and nationalities regardless of being students.
Conclusion:
I will close this essay even though I want to tell you more. First of all, I thank all of the people who support my Erasmus life in these nine months. None of success must be without those great help. Thank you so much.
Through my essays I have wanted you to know some pages of life in Zaragoza and tell you how a great experience awaits you in staying in a new place and meeting up with new people and that possibly makes your life expand. I really hope you study in Zaragoza, figure out yourself there and take advantage of that experience for you and society.
Muchas gracias. Hasta luego.
Every moment is stimulating for the nine months. All things considered this invaluable experience remains for the rest of my life.
福島大学への留学案内・年間スケジュール
