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The Erasmus+ student exchange program is one of the flagship programs promoted by the European Union institutions of higher education. It aims to develop learner literacy and combat prejudice and discrimination. In the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak in 2020, the traditional exchange program of one or two semesters was disrupted all over the world, and particularly in Europe. This unprecedented pandemic plunged the entire academic community into a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (hereinafter “VUCA”) situation, in which exchange students faced the brunt of this rupture and its impacts. Against this backdrop, the authors of this paper conducted a comparative study regarding the experiences of exchange students studying during a normal semester (2019) and during a pandemic-stricken VUCA semester (2020). The authors then adopted the thematic analysis method to interpret the feedback received from two cohorts of exchange students who had finished their exchange programs at an Austrian university in 2019 and 2020 respectively. Based on the findings (i.e., the five salient themes), the authors investigated the impact of the four VUCA elements on the exchange students’ mobility and learning experience during the pandemic crisis, compared with that of exchange students during a regular, non-disrupted semester. With reference to the salient themes, the authors drew upon the strategies and practices employed by the Austrian university during the VUCA situation to discuss how exchange students were supported during this difficult period. These shared lessons may offer other universities insights into how to counter the negative impacts of future VUCA situations.