“The one year I spent at AUBG I am going to remember as a dream year in my life,” says Adnan Kan, a student at Selcuk University, Turkey, who spent the 2008-09 academic year at AUBG.

The senior from Bulgaria’s southern neighbor could pick from a plethora of European universities in which to complete his year abroad. Among colleges in Poland, the Czech Republic, and the Netherlands, he chose AUBG. “My personal decision was to come to AUBG because it is an American university,” says Adnan. “I did research about the university and learned that

there are many students from different countries, that it is an international university, where I would get the chance to meet people of diverse cultures and traditions.”

Adnan says he is impressed by

the positive attitude and mutual respect among the students of AUBG.

“Even though there have been many political conflicts among the countries of the Balkan region, students don’t show hostile behavior; they are always trying to be friendly. The new generation is educated and open-minded and it’s nice to share experiences with people like this,” Adnan says.

Adnan says he came to AUBG because it is an American liberal arts institution, where the language of instruction is English. “The student-professor relationship here is very different from the relations we had with professors at my university in Turkey,” he says.

“At AUBG, when you have a problem, you get the chance to write to the professor and to see him in person,

while in Turkey professors usually are not coming to lectures. Their assistants teach the students. In Turkey I don’t attend classes, but here I go to every lecture. It is very interesting,” Adnan adds. And while he admits he didn’t even know some of his lecturers back in Selcuk University, at AUBG Adnan has a few favorite professors.

He is not only living and going to classes with people from diverse backgrounds, but is also part of the AUBG football team “Los Internacionales,” whose members come from nine different countries.

An explorer with an inquisitive mind, Adnan has traveled to many destinations in Bulgaria for the past year. Two of his favorite places are Varna and Sofia, the sea capital and administrative capital of the country respectively. He was impressed by the Boyana Church in Sofia, where “the renaissance in Bulgaria started,” as Adnan puts it.