The education was free (so called "gratistae") in return for manual labor. Here he was influenced by the professor Samuel Hegedüs. He left the school in 1807 and continued university studies, taking an interest in history, a subject made popular by Professor Ádám Herepei. In 1815 he passed the public "rigorosum" in his studies at Bethlen Kollégium. A scholarship allowed him to continue to Göttingen, where he began to learn English under Professor Fiorillo. Csoma de Kőrős also came under the influence of Professor Johann Gottfried Eichhorn. Between 1816 and 1818 he studied Oriental languages. In Göttingen, he was noted for being literate in thirteen languages including Latin, Greek, Hebrew, French, German, and Romanian apart from his native Hungarian. In his Calcutta years he also mastered Bengali, Marathi and Sanskrit. He returned to Transylvania in 1818. On 7 February 1819, Csoma met Hegedűs and informed him of his intent to learn Slavonic in Croatia. He left on foot for Agram and spent a few months there. He received the aid of one hundred florins from Michael de Kenderessy to help him in this journey. The journey that Csoma undertook after leaving Croatia is reconstructed mainly from to a letter that Csoma wrote introducing himself to the British Captain Kennedy who detained him on entry at Sabathu on suspicion of being a spy. Csoma did not apply for an Imperial passport and obtained a Hungarian passport at Nagy Enyed and visited Bucharest. He had it signed by the General Commandant in Hermanstadt and went to Romania (then called Wallachia) at the end of November 1819. He attempted to go to Constantinople but not finding the means he left Bucharest on 1 January 1820 and passed the Danube by-Rustchuk and reached Sofia and then after five days to Philipopolis. Csoma de Kőrös arrived in Edirne (Adrianopolis) and he wished to go from there to Constantinople but was forced by a plague outbreak to move to Enos. He left Enos on 7 February 1820 and reached Alexandria on a Greek ship. He reached on the last day of February but had to leave soon due to a plague epidemic. He boarded a Syrian ship to Larnaca in Cyprus and then took another ship to Tripoli and Latakia.