Biancardi Giovanni – Just get on the plane!

To be completely honest, I almost didn’t get on the plane.
Standing in the airport back in Italy, looking at a one-way ticket to Vietnam, I wasn’t feeling adventurous. I was terrified. It felt like I was about to drop off the edge of the map. I kept asking myself why I couldn’t just stay where things were comfortable, where I knew the language, the food, and how the world worked. I expected culture shock. I expected to feel isolated. I had this nagging fear that I was making a massive mistake moving so far away from everything I knew.
It’s funny how quickly those worries seem ridiculous once you actually land.
The fear didn’t last. Hanoi has this way of pulling you in before you even realize it’s happening. It’s a shock, sure, the noise, the traffic, the heat, but underneath the chaos, this city is incredibly kind. It’s warm. The people are genuinely welcoming in a way I wasn’t used to. Once I stopped worrying about being an “outsider” and just started saying yes to things, the city opened up. There is always something happening here. You don’t just watch the culture from a distance; you’re in it. Whether it’s a street food spot at 2 AM or a local art event, you never run out of things to discover.
But the biggest surprise wasn’t the city. It was the classroom.
I came to Hanoi University expecting a standard exchange experience. I assumed the staff would be bureaucratic and the classes would be… well, classes. I was wrong. The staff here are welcoming, but they are also sharp. From a theoretical perspective, they know their stuff just as well as anyone back in Europe. They are rigorous. But the way they teach is what threw me off—in a good way.
Coming from the Italian system, I was used to a specific rhythm: you sit, you listen, you take notes, and you study for an exam months later. It’s heavy on theory, but you can be passive. You can hide in the back of the room.
At HanU, you can’t hide.
The system here is designed to make you move. It’s not about just learning about a subject; it’s about operating inside it. The courses are tailored to push you toward practice. Almost every class I took integrated real projects, group work, and practical application. I couldn’t just memorize a textbook. I had to be proactive. I had to build things, present ideas, and defend them.
It was exhausting at first, shifting from a passive student to an active one, but it taught me more in
a few months than years of sitting in lecture halls ever did.
Looking back, all those doubts I had at the airport seem like they belonged to a different person. I
didn’t just learn a new academic system here; I learned that I could handle the unknown.
If you’re reading this and feeling the same way I did, worried about the distance, the culture, or
the academics,my advice is simple. Don’t overthink it. The theory is strong, the people are kind,
and the experience will change the way you work for the rest of your life. Just get on the plane.