Dreams…and aspirations – those are the things that keep young people going. One needs to feel that one’s hard work and efforts will be duly rewarded in order to keep up with the hard work and to continue to aim at self-development.

Emigration… the notion of leaving Bulgaria is something that fuels the dreams of a lot of Bulgarian youngsters these days. And it’s not because Bulgarians don’t love their country… but simply because it is easier to dream elsewhere. Or at least to make your dreams come true elsewhere…Young people in
Bulgaria feel that standing out of the crowd with one’s accomplishments does not make much difference because there is no one to notice you or to reward you. That is the main reason why those who want to stand out, who dream of standing out conceive that the single way to do it is to go abroad.

A lot of my peers do not even see the point in studying too hard since the content and purposes of university education in the Bulgarian tradition is so detached from real-life experience that it is of no use later on in one’s career. The solution, they say, is to study “selectively” but of course you always run the risk of making a bad distinction between what is worth learning and what is irrelevant. Another problem, they say, is the lack of extracurricular interest-oriented activities where they could evince their organizational and leadership skills – university media are low quality and struggling, clubs are barely existing.

What could be done? As a person experiencing the essence and benefiting from the liberal arts style education extremely focused on student participation and activeness and hence having the chance to compare my personal experience with that of my peers, I could tell that the institutions in Bulgaria, where my friends study at need transformation. Education needs to be transformed into a more interactive one, where those who want would be given the chance and the incentive to stand out, to be different, to be innovative, where young people would have the chance to take the initiative and found their own clubs, to indulge in their field of interest by means of extracurricular activities, to engage in community service, to compete in various contests, to participate in NGOs, to travel as part of different programs. Although the process of transformation could be long and cumbersome it is worth commencing it and the first step in this respect is maybe providing information in the sense of informing young people of the opportunities out there and how a benign transformation in the educational system would help them reach out and grab those opportunities. Young people should also change their mentality and realize that they are the ones to give impetus to that transformation for their own and their peers’ benefit.

I personally would not leave Bulgaria permanently. Still, I would most probably leave for a couple of years for the sake of finishing my education abroad. Many young people like me believe that a degree from a foreign university would make them more competitive on Bulgarian soil. The problem is that once having established themselves abroad it is difficult to find reasons to come back to Bulgaria. True, in Bulgaria one is more competitive but one is not sure whether one would be given the opportunity to compete at all, or whether there will be any positions to compete for. They therefore opt for the more secure opportunities abroad.

What could be done? Young people should be persuaded that Bulgaria needs them and their skills, that they are the ones to “invest” in the future. They should feel that they could make a difference, that they could be leaders and build the life their dreams depict here and now, in Bulgaria.