My Name is Peter.  I am a Cyber Security (CNS) student in Dublin College Blackrock. I am delighted to share that, in November 2025, I travelled to Gran Canaria with two teachers and three of my classmates, Dylan, Sean, and Beneeta, to participate in an Erasmus+ Group Mobility.

After a four-hour flight, we arrived in Gran Canaria. The climate is vastly different from Ireland's, the temperature happily rocked up from 6°C to 22°C. On our first evening, we spent some time exploring the area we were staying in.  The food was amazing, we had some delightful pistachio ice cream!  Gran Canaria at night is really gorgeous. 

The next day, we visited the IES Lomo de la Herradura school. The workshops were great.  We learned how to disassemble phones, PCs, and laptops, which I really enjoyed. We also learned how to build a network, including cabling, server racks and switches. The experience of learning alongside Spanish students was the highlight of the trip. The language barrier was not as significant as I had anticipated, everyone there knew at least some English, we also had plenty of help from Google translate! All the teachers and students were exceptionally nice and helpful.

The next day, we returned to the school where we attended a very interesting seminar and discussion on the Flipper Zero, a tool used by hackers. The seminar was really engaging, and I learned a lot. The teachers were exceptionally helpful, and overall, it was a wonderful experience.

That evening, we had some free time to explore the beautiful city of Las Palmas, do some shopping, go for a swim at the amazing beach and visit the Museum of Science and Technology.

I asked my classmates about their experience. Dylan said that his favourite part of the trip was getting to be hands-on with the topics and physically doing stuff. He found how welcoming everyone in the school was to be super reassuring and calming.  The first thing that Sean noticed were how friendly and receptive the college and its students were.  He reported that the college had great facilities and an excellent workshop. He enjoyed being involved with the students' wiring connections and setting up a server. His favourite part was definitely the brief about the hacking tool, Flipper Zero: the dangers, risks and capabilities contained in such an affordable and compact device are incredible.  As well as the educational activities, Beneeta enjoyed the climate and the great food on the island.

We all had a really an amazing time and learned a lot. I highly recommend Erasmus+ to all students!