The Alone Journey in the New World: Growth, Resilience, confidence

Ergün Eraslan was born in Istanbul, Turkey. This is the journey about him. His mother and he moved to Ukraine just one month after his mother gave birth to him. Until 8 years old, not just Kyiv, he lived in several places. After he spent his childhood in Ukraine, he moved back to Turkey, studied until 17 years old, and graduated high school. Since then, he moved to Germany alone to study and he is now 24 years old master student. He has siblings and all his family live in Turkey.

Why did you move to many places?

Until I am 17, I move with my family from places in Ukraine to Turkey. It’s from the business of my family. But coming to Germany, it was my decision. I want to study in one of the best education givers in the world.

What is the hard point to be apart from family?

“Emotional support”. Right now, it’s okay but when I just moved away from my family, I was 17, 18. And those times it was hard to live alone and get through anything like adapt to a new country, new friends.

When you’re so little, when you come home, when you’re on your bed alone, you don’t have family to support you emotionally, you are by yourself in a foreign country, and no one basically, that’s far rough. But time goes by and you grow up from emotional perspective. Right now I’m intelligent.

How are things with your family?

I have a good connection with my parents, and I know what I feel and why I feel. I called my family: my mother, my father, and my sister every day or every 2 days. I go back to see my family in every 3, 4 months.

How is your family’s reaction when you come back? 

Oh, they are always so happy. One time I met, made a surprise, like they didn’t know I was going back. From here, I went to Istanbul to our home, and I opened the door with my key, and I made surprise to my family. And they were in the living room, and they were shocked. “Oh my God, you are here”, they think that I am in Germany.

How do you feel to have friends from same country?

That’s important because they come from the same background. They have the same experience that you have in the country. They have the same good and bad travelers, that are called from your country. So you have a common understanding of topics.

How do you join a community?

Just go outside and say “hi” to random people, then they become my friends, and then we go for drinking or something. So just easy, you just need to go and that’s good. I have really close friends from India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Germany, Turkey.

How do you feel about Munich?

“Home” yes Munich is home, I feel like I’m at home. I have too many friends, family, and I speak the language. I have been living here for a long time and right now. I have friends in Istanbul, but most of my friends are in Munich, this is where I feel more like a home. Istanbul is still at home, like I have 2 home, I would say. But I miss my family. 

What is the hardest part of using other language?

The hardest part is the slang. For your business, for education, speaking German is nothing like easy-peasy. The hard part is when you’re in social life, you need to talk like a German to a German. All the slangs and fast speaking or some words that are not used in business life or educational life, that’s the hardest point. 

What is the key to study new language?

“Just do it”. Most of the people don’t want to learn new language, that’s why they don’t, if you want to learn, there are means of doing this. Just one, just for it. People come up with excuses too much, but they are just excuses. 

How do you feel about spending money in Munich?

For me, it’s so expensive because the currency is so bad in Turkey. In Germany, you’ll go and buy 1 water, in Turkey with the same money, you can go and buy 10 waters. And then I work, that’s why I make my own money. I don’t take money from my family. At the first time, I needed to work here, and those times were hard for my family because they needed to earn more money to spend. That is just not easy. Now I’m mechanical engineer, I work at the company as a part time.

What is the future destination after graduate?

I want to live in San Francisco. Because I’m entrepreneur and it’s a good place to be for entrepreneurs. I’m making a new business. I can make business in any part of the world. I believe myself. We are developing an AI platform for technical Due Diligence to renewable energy system; wind turbines, solar panel generating electricity. We analyse the documents in our AI platform, analyse them it’s good or bad, and when it’s good you buy it.

If you are good at what you are doing, people usually want it. Your clients support you. Your clients give you money.