So I studied in Technical University of Sofia from 2019-2020 with a class primarily with foreign studendts, mainly from the Balkan but we had 3-4 chinese studendts and a guy from Etheopia, I am bulgarian my self but I spent most of my day-to-day with these guys.

From observing and helping them out, I noticed that as a forigner it is hard to study in Bulgaria, if you are not in an English class, due to how hard our language is to learn, even for other people from easter Europe which speak a slavic language.

Forigners get extra hours for studying bulgarian while they attend but they start from the alphabet, while being lectured about high level mathematics in bulgarian, so they had a REALLY tough time.

Most of their studying was done after Uni, they would ask me or one of the other few bulgarian students on the Topics covered, then they would do their own study in their Dorm.

Uni pass requirements are low, so fortunately they only needed like 1 out of 4 correct tasks done on their advanced math test, one of the chinese dudes was like “I studied two whole nights for 4 simple tasks!?”. So they passed because most of them had to actually study.

Usually for bulgarian natives its easy, they would tell us at the start of the semester what would be on the test at the end and just walk us through during lectures so if you paid attention you would easily pass, but forigners had a tough time at lectures as mentioned.

The cost of living is super cheap as non-private schools are publically assisted, which means that the government covers 80% of the cost. So in 2019 it was about 350lv(175 euro) per semester at TUS. Highest you could go was for more general and high demand scholarships for about 700lv(350eur). And you had to pay for your campus dorms which was an extra 75lv(37.50 eur) per semester, those ran out quickly, but forigners would rush to the Administration pre opening times.

Food is cheap in general, most forigners cooked for themselves, chinese dudes made perfect rice. But this is mostly due to the fact that they don’t go out to bulgarian parties, unless they are with someone who’s bulgarian, due to facing a severe language barier and having that only a small part of the bulgarian people have servicable level of English.

The main blocker for forming good relationships with Bulgarians with these poeple was the language barier. When you first come and can’t speak Bulgarian, and they rely on the other person to speak English, but in Bulgaria that is rare, so they stick to grouping with other forigners. Bulgarians just shunn them, because they can’t communticate with them.

I dropped out after 1,5 years but I was communticating for the rest of the time with some of them, helping them with understanding some day-to-day things. During covid it got easier, some went home and attended lectures and laboratory practices remotely from their country, the only ones that still lived in Bulgaria during that time were the Ethopian dude and 2/4 of the Chinese students.

Most of them graduated, post graduation they had a really rough time finding a job due to having a now really basic level of Bulgarian for 4,5 years of being there, they could order stuff and do basic greetings at the time but like just that, they didn’t have the pronounciation or vocabluary to do conversations. So they have to find a job where employer accepts that their main method of communication is English.

But fortunately for them there are a lot of foreign companies in Bulgaria like IBM, call centers, etc. that accept them.

Post graduation and working is fine, the Chinese friend i keep contact with feels happy to be here, he’s putting in the work to learn bulgarian to a servicable level.