Stephanie spent her year abroad in Belgium, Brussels. Here, she tells us a little bit about the city and her studies out there...
Tell us a bit about you... My name is Stephanie and I'm half Swedish, half Czech. I'm 23 years old and love travelling, reading and hanging out with friends when I'm not studying or working. I speak Czech fluently and can also speak French and a bit of Spanish.
Written by
Natacha Cullinan
Wednesday, 28 April 2010
You most probably have an idea of where you want to go (at least language-wise) and you're likely to be trawling through the internet and departmental research to find an institution that offers a good standard for a non-language related degree. Be it Politics, Engineering, Medicine (and the list goes on...), it's now becoming more and more common for students to look outside of their comfort zone and test out the waters in world-renowned establishments. But where to start?
The best translation of Studentenverbindungen would be ‘student fraternity’, although they’re very different from their American equivalents. They are small communities of students (around 15) who live and socialise together. Some members live in the fraternity house, usually a large (and beautiful) old house in the centre of town. Older members, or Alte Herren, occasionally return to meet up with old friends and also support the Verbindung financially. No one owns a Verbindung: current members organise all the social activities and live in the house while older members oversee its finances.
10 points is a fail in Italy, sufficient in France and Belgium, very good in Denmark, excellent in Germany and doesn't even exist as a grade in Switzerland! Avoid all confusion with this handy comparative chart...
If enriching your mind with facts and figures in a foreign land seems like the right choice for you, have a look through our Study Abroad section. Take a peek at the international league table, read through our case studies and find out what's it's like once you're out there! We've even got some info on universities abroad (Erasmus-ing it up or going further afield), what you should take with you, brushing up our your language skills and much, much more! And don't forget to visit our shop to get the latest gadgets and gizmos for your time away!
Erasmus, administered by the British Council in the UK, is part of the European Union's Lifelong Learning Programme and is the largest organised mobility programme in the world, known and respected throughout Europe. Almost two million higher education students in Europe have taken part in the programme since its introduction in 1987 and agree it was the best decision they ever made.
A word of advice: surviving uni in France is going to be tough. Whoever said it was going to be easy was lying. However, don't despair. This might sound contradictory but Paris I is known to be a jungle. And Paris II Assas. The other Parisian unis have definitely acquired a better reputation and if Paris X Nanterre is in your list, by all means please rush there. The most important thing that you have to understand about the French system is that while the Anglo-Saxon unis often ask for entry requirements, French unis exercise what they call le droit d'acces à l'education mais pas le droit au diplome.