Before entering a university programme in another country, some international students must first learn the language in which they will study, communicate with teachers, complete administrative procedures and gradually organise their everyday lives.
In Kyiv in 2020, this stage was a concrete reality for a group of international students at the then State University of Telecommunications.
Coming from several countries in Africa, Asia and other regions, they completed preparatory training in Ukrainian before entering different degree programmes at the university.
For some, this period lasted almost a year.
It was more than language preparation.
It was already a first stage of international student mobility.
Learning to pronounce.
Understand.
Read.
Write.
Translate.
But also learning to navigate an institution, communicate with other students and gradually find a place within an environment that was initially unfamiliar.
This experience raises a broader question:
what does university mobility actually produce when moving to a foreign university also requires learning a language, a territory and new forms of social relationship?
Before the degree, a first transformation
Stories of international study often begin with the choice of a university and end with the degree obtained.
Between these points lie courses, examinations and, perhaps, professional experience.
This representation leaves out an important part of the journey.
For some international students, entering university begins before the degree programme itself.
It begins with language training.
In Kyiv, this preparatory stage was intended to provide foreign students with the linguistic skills necessary to pursue higher education in Ukraine.
Its purpose was therefore directly academic.
But it already extended beyond formal teaching.
Language gradually became a condition for participating in the university environment.
Ten months to begin making an environment legible
Language training does not immediately turn an unfamiliar environment into a familiar one.
The process is gradual.
At first, words remain isolated.
An announcement may be difficult to understand.
A conversation may require intense concentration.
An administrative procedure may depend on translation.
A seemingly simple instruction may need several explanations.
Over time, some of these obstacles diminish.
Language begins to generate points of orientation.
It does not eliminate the unfamiliarity of the new environment.
But it makes that environment increasingly legible.
An international cohort
The cohort brought together students from several countries.
This diversity matters, but it needs to be interpreted carefully.
The presence of several nationalities in one classroom does not automatically produce a shared intercultural experience.
First languages differ.
Educational backgrounds differ.
Habits differ.
Social and economic resources differ.
Future plans differ.
Even when learning Ukrainian together, students therefore did not enter mobility with the same resources.
The administrative category of “foreign student” brought together very different trajectories.
A shared language that does not erase differences
Within this context, Ukrainian could nevertheless become a new common reference point.
Not necessarily a language mastered equally by everyone, but a language that the group was learning at the same time in order to access its new environment.
This situation is distinctive.
People with different first languages learn another language together, one that initially belongs to none of them as a first language.
The classroom becomes a space in which different trajectories meet around a shared learning process.
But this convergence does not erase difference.
It creates a common starting point from which each person continues to build an individual path.
Learning during a disrupted year
The year 2020 added another difficulty.
Part of the language programme took place during the Covid-19 pandemic.
In the spring, the university had to continue some Ukrainian-language instruction for international students at a distance.
Learning a foreign language, already demanding in ordinary circumstances, therefore continued at a time when many social interactions had themselves become more difficult.
This situation reminds us that university mobility always takes place within a historical context.
It never exists independently of the social conditions in which it unfolds.
From preparatory language study to the degree programme
The end of language training marked a transition.
After assessment, students who met the requirements could begin their respective degree programmes.
The language certificate or examination result therefore represented more than the completion of a course.
It opened another stage.
Students who had learned the language in order to enter university now had to use it within specialised academic training.
General vocabulary gradually encountered professional concepts.
The language of learning also became the language of study.
Language as an infrastructure of mobility
Thinking of language as infrastructure helps clarify its function.
Infrastructure is not always immediately visible.
But it makes certain activities possible.
Language competence facilitates access to courses.
Information.
Teachers.
Administrations.
Other students.
Parts of the city.
It guarantees neither academic success nor social integration.
But it makes interactions possible that would otherwise be more difficult.
That distinction is fundamental.
Studying means more than attending classes
University experience never takes place only in the classroom.
Students also have to learn how an institution functions.
Who to approach.
How to find a room.
How to read a timetable.
How to complete a procedure.
How to understand information communicated quickly.
How to participate in conversations with other students.
Much of this knowledge does not appear explicitly in academic programmes.
It is acquired through practice.
Peers as resources
Other students then become important resources.
Someone understands a piece of information before the others.
One person speaks better English.
Another becomes more confident in Ukrainian.
A third already knows a particular procedure.
Information circulates.
Explanations are reformulated.
Students temporarily become resources for one another.
These mechanisms are among the less visible dimensions of international mobility.
The institution organises education.
But part of everyday experience is constructed horizontally among students.
Coexistence does not automatically produce interculturality
A university hosting students from many countries may describe itself as international.
But statistical diversity does not yet tell us how people actually relate to one another.
Language groups may remain separate.
Students may share the same building without really meeting.
Some develop local networks.
Others remain primarily within groups of compatriots.
Some relationships extend far beyond the classroom.
Others remain functional and temporary.
Interculturality is therefore not an automatic consequence of several nationalities being present.
It depends on the situations in which relationships actually become possible.
Mobility as relational learning
Studying abroad also involves learning to interpret behaviour.
How to address a teacher.
How administration works.
Expectations around punctuality.
Ways of working.
Ways of expressing disagreement.
Forms of sociability.
These elements cannot always be reduced to a clearly defined “national culture”.
They also depend on institutions, generations, personalities and circumstances.
But for a newcomer, they form part of what must gradually be learned.
Mobility therefore develops a particular sensitivity to context.
Being mobile without immediately becoming autonomous
Geographical movement can happen quickly.
Autonomy does not necessarily follow at the same speed.
A person may cross several borders within hours and then need months to learn how to act confidently in a new environment.
This distinction between travel and mobility matters.
Travel physically brings someone to another place.
Mobility then requires the development of capacities to live, study and act there.
Trajectories do not begin in Kyiv
International students do not arrive without histories.
Each brings previous education.
Possibly professional experience.
Languages.
Family relationships.
Plans.
Expectations.
Studying in Kyiv therefore rarely represents the absolute beginning of a trajectory.
It is better understood as a point of connection between several stages.
Previous education encounters a new university system.
Languages already acquired encounter Ukrainian.
An earlier professional plan may be reshaped by a new specialisation.
Nor do trajectories necessarily end in Kyiv
The university city is not always the final destination either.
Some students return to their countries of origin.
Others continue their studies elsewhere.
Some later build professional trajectories in Europe or other regions.
Others remain connected to several territories at once.
It is in this sense that student mobility can become transnational.
It connects spaces rather than simply replacing one country with another.
Transnational does not mean borderless
The word “transnational” can suggest fluid movement without significant constraints.
Reality is different.
Mobility depends on visas.
Financial resources.
University decisions.
Language skills.
Borders.
Housing opportunities.
Political contexts.
A transnational trajectory therefore combines circulation and constraint.
It connects several territories, but it remains dependent on the concrete conditions that make movement between them possible.
The role of the university
The university stands at the centre of this transition.
It receives students.
Registers them.
Teaches.
Assesses.
Provides orientation.
It also offers an initial framework through which a new environment gradually becomes understandable.
Preparatory programmes illustrate this function particularly clearly.
They do not only transmit language.
They provide a first interface between the student and the university system they are preparing to enter.
A cohort photograph as an archive
The photograph originally associated with this article showed students from the cohort after completing their language training.
As such, it has substantial documentary value.
It preserves the trace of a group at the end of a shared stage before entering their degree programmes.
But an archival photograph also has its own history of production and circulation.
Receiving an image does not necessarily mean possessing the rights to republish it.
Within an editorial library, the historical value of a document and the legal conditions governing its publication must therefore be distinguished.
Reading 2020 from the present
The university documentation from 2020 now carries another historical dimension.
It records a period in which Kyiv was an important environment for international student mobility under conditions profoundly different from those that followed Russia’s full-scale invasion on 24 February 2022.
Knowledge of what happened later should not, however, erase what these experiences meant when they were lived.
In September 2020, the immediate concerns were educational.
Learning a language.
Passing an assessment.
Entering a specialisation.
Beginning a new academic year.
Building a trajectory.
It is precisely this ordinary character that now gives these documents part of their historical value.
When an archive becomes a trajectory
Over time, a cohort photograph, a language certificate or a university article may take on a different meaning.
They no longer document only a single event.
They become traces of a trajectory.
They make it possible to reconstruct successive stages.
Arrival.
Language preparation.
Admission.
Study.
Later movements.
This change in scale also transforms the way university mobility can be understood retrospectively.
A moment that once appeared to be a destination later becomes one stage among others.
Conclusion
The experience of an international student cohort in Kyiv in 2020 shows that university mobility does not begin with the first specialised course and cannot be reduced to the final degree.
It often begins earlier.
With a language that is not yet familiar.
Procedures that are difficult to understand.
An environment that must be deciphered.
People whose help is still necessary.
Then some things gradually become familiar.
A sentence understood.
A conversation made possible.
An examination passed.
A procedure completed independently.
A new degree programme begun.
This progression turns mobility into a form of learning.
It concerns academic knowledge, but also languages, relationships, institutions and the capacity to move between different environments.
Studying in Kyiv in 2020 therefore meant much more than joining a university in another country.
It meant beginning to construct a trajectory between several languages, several territories and several systems of reference.
A trajectory in which the degree represents an important stage, but never the whole story.
Editorial note — This article is based on a text by Blaise Puala originally published on Ciel-Bleu.org on 28 September 2020 after completing his preparatory Ukrainian-language programme at the then State University of Telecommunications in Kyiv – today the State University of Information and Communication Technologies. It draws on a directly experienced period within an international student cohort before entry into specialised degree programmes. The text has been fully revised, verified and re-edited for the Kultur Insights library in order to preserve its documentary value while deepening the analysis of the relationships between language learning, university mobility and transnational trajectories.
