Nicolae. Chisinau
Where you were born?
I was born in Moldova, in Chisinau, but I spent my childhood in a village near Chisinau, which is called Ciorescu, it was called Old Cricova before. Cricova is famous for the large wine cellars.
What about your parents?
My parents are from the south of Moldova, there is an autonomous region, called Gagauzia. My parents are Gagauzians. When I was born, they had already moved to Chisinau. My parents speak Gagauz, their native language, and Russian. My brother and I speak Russian better than Gagauz.
Do you understand the Gagauz language?
Yes, but I do not speak it so easily. Gagauz are people of Turkic origin, perhaps the only Turkic people who converted to Christianity. Gagauz language is very similar to Turkish. When I studied in Turkey and learned Turkish, I began to understand Gagauz language better. Gagauz people also live in Ukraine and Bulgaria.
Did you study in Chisinau at school?
Yes, in Chisinau there were Russian-speaking schools and Moldavian schools. I studied at a Russian school. But today, in order to live and work in Chisinau, you need to speak Moldovan. Nowdays it would be better to send children to a Moldavian school.
Do you know Moldovan language?
Yes, but I’m not proud of my knowledge, I could learn it better. At school, because of the anti-Russian sentiment at the time, I did not really want to learn Moldovan.
Is Moldovan very similar to Romanian?
It is Romanian.
How did it happen that you went to study in Turkey after school?
When I was in school, the education system was changed from eleven to twelve years. The last 3 years are called a lyceum program. There is a network of Turkish lyceums in Moldova. I studied at one of them. There the Turkish language was taught a little, but so little, that I could not speak, only some basics. We had a lot of teachers from Turkey at the lyceum, they talked about the education system in Turkey. I liked the fact that education is free. In addition, there are programs that pay scholarships. So I decided to study in Turkey. I initially studied the Turkish language for a year, then began to study at a university.
Even if you do not have Turkish citizenship, they pay a scholarship?
This scholarship was paid specifically to foreigners. At some point it was very good. Although there is strong inflation in Turkey and the same scholarship can mean different things from one year to another. When we arrived, the scholarship was pretty good. Many Turks, I would even say, were jealous. We had other privileges, in particular, in Istanbul, where we learned the language in the first year, we had free public transport throughout the city. The scholarship for the first year was about (if translated to dollars) $150. Only on transport one can spend 5 – 8 dollars a day, a free travel card helped us a lot.
What did you study in Turkey?
I studied applied physics.
How did you enter the university?
We submitted an application through the Turkish embassy. It was necessary to give our documents and pass an exam. The exam was general, the questions were for all the years of study at the lyceum and in various subjects, in physics, geography, history. I don’t think there was a test in English. According to the score, one could choose the department from the list, i.e., it was not possible to choose any department at any university, but there were certain department at different universities that could be entered depending on the grade you had on the exam. At that time, I didn’t know who I wanted to be. The girls who worked at the embassy asked me what was easiest for me. I said: sciences, physics, mathematics. Going through the list, they found that there was a department of applied physics. So I got into applied physics at Ankara University.
Is this a good university?
In the field of science and technology, it is not very famous. The humanitarian profile there is very good, jurisprudence, journalism. The guys who studied at our department had rather low motivation. I did not have a strong motivation either, but I studied because I knew that I needed it. I tried to keep high grades.
How did you decide to go to Germany?
There is a student exchange program called Erasmus. I applied for it, at that time there were places in Poland and in Germany. I applied to Germany. I studied for a year in Bielefeld. It seemed to me very difficult to study physics in Germany. Maybe because I had applied physics and there I studied at the department of General Physics. I noticed that the students were studying physics, because they really like it. The guys were very active in the classroom. I was impressed by the relationship between professors and students, how they ask questions, how interactive the lectures were. In Germany, I really got to love what I was doing. Then, when I came back, I was still studying for one more year in Turkey, I was very active in the classes, all the professors knew me. I managed to raise the total score in the subjects, I also learned English and passed TOEFL. I decided to do the master in Germany. Unfortunately, I had to look for scholarships from universities. I could not apply for a DAAD grant, because I had to apply through my own country, but since I finished my studies in Turkey, I did not have the right to submit through the Turkish branch of DAAD. This complicated the search for scholarships, because I had to find scholarships from the universities themselves. There are not so many universities in Germany that pay scholarships to students. I’d say that three three universities in Germany famous for optics: in Erlangen, in Karlsruhe and in Jena. I applied for Karlsruhe and I was accepted, but I did not receive a scholarship. I also applied to Stuttgart for materials science, but I did not receive a scholarship there either.
When I applied in Erlangen, they conducted an interview for the applicants who wanted to get a scholarship. The interview, in my opinion, went well. I answered about 85% of the questions. After the interview, I was informed that I did not receive a scholarship. They asked if I would come to study if I did not get a scholarship. I said no. They also said that some students apply to different universities in Germany and can decline to go to a university, despite the fact that they have a scholarship. For the program I applied for, they accept about 20 people and only four can be paid by the scholarships. I was put on the waiting list. At the same time, I began to look for universities in Turkey and I applied to several. Many good universities in Turkey are private and some of them provide scholarships. I got accepted in several universities. In the summer, after the end of the last semester, somewhere in the middle of June, they called me from Erlangen and said that one of the students had refused, so that there was a scholarship available for me. I was incredibly happy about it, and so I ended up here in Erlangen.