Kolawale in Belgium

My trip to Belgium was hitch free. I boarded from Cape Town international airport to Brussels international airport in Belgium via Dubai on emirates airline. It was beautiful moments all the way. I arrived at Brussels on the afternoon of the 18th of September, 2014. Fortunately it was the start of the orientation week for new students. The information sessions were okay and parties and dinners were interesting.

I live on one of the university residence called Home Uppsala, just few minutes’ walk from the university administrative building and my department. In that first week, we had a send forth and welcome party for both the outgoing students and freshman respectively in my department, where I was introduced to the department and its entire staff.

Nothing much to say at this time, ‘cos it’s the beginning of the semester. For the next two weeks, I’m sure I will be busy with administrative stuff and attending information sessions at the faculty level and the department. Lest I forget, I belong to the faculty of bioscience engineering, department of Aquaculture also known as the Artemia Reference Center (ARC).

It’s been pretty awesome living in Europe. Ghent is such a nice and ancient city with loads of cultural and political histories, the fingerprints of these evolutions is still visible around the city with buildings, museums and monuments preserved close to their natural state both in the stone and medieval periods. Belgium inhabits about 11.2 million people with Ghent being one of the most important cities in Belgium because of its cultural histories.
The University of Ghent is quite a big institution with departments and faculties scattered around the city. I study with the faculty of Bioscience engineering located at Coupure links. My department is few kilometres away from the faculty building, at Aquaculture and Artemia Reference Center (ARC), plateau rozier. It’s not so big but well established department with a lot of research labs and facilities. My lecture classes are held at the department with a lot of international students from Sri-Lanka, India, Uganda, Ethiopia, Vietnam, Tanzania, Kenya, Bangladesh and Germany. We are a group of eighteen students in my class.

The classes are a bit hectic and bulky because you’ll have to study about 25 to 40 slides in one class session which contains over three different topics but the lecturers are quite good at it because you’ll never know that you’ve done so much within a short period of time. Also I must say our classes are not limited to UGhent only, sometimes we go outside of Ghent to other Universities like KU Leuven, Bruges and Antwerp for practical classes, lectures, excursions and field trips.

I reside in the student kantienberg homes not far from the city centre, very nice and comfortable but quite expensive compared to my home university. We have various student homes such as Home Fabiola, Home Groningen, Home Goitengen, Home Canterbury and so many others all not too far from one another. I live on the 4th floor of Home Uppsala. My room has a great view of the major sint-pieters straat which is a very important street for the students of Ghent ‘cos it harbours most of the pubs, bars and clubs. The street is one of the busiest in Ghent and only at night till morning. Belgium is known for its nice waffles and beers which is what these students drink every night till morning. The view is so amazing! I belong to a number of social and academic groups. I am a member of ESN Ghent (Erasmus Student Network), ISAG (International Student at Ghent), TASN Ghent (The Action Satisfaction Network) and also I am a Student Safety Steward of the fire department at my Hostel.

Within the past two months I have spent here in UGhent, I have been to few places in Europe for the weekends with groups and friends. Places like Antwerp, Belgium; Leuven, Belgium; Bruges, Belgium; Lille, France; Amsterdam, Netherlands; Paris, France and Brussels, Belgium.

Europe has been great so far … I’m glad I was given this opportunity. Thank you to Stellenbosch University, Ghent University and the Government of Flanders.
See you in the next blog.
#CIAO!

Today 1st February, 2015 marks the end of my exchange program, and however, the end of my stay here in Ghent University as an exchange student. It has really been an awesome and educative experience for me, met a lot of new people from all over the world with new ideas and perception about a lot of things. It’s indeed true that we are all different and unique in one way or another and we see things in very different ways, but one thing remains certain, we all need one another to make sense of our work and develop. My academic network has grown and many prospects for collaborative research with colleagues in the nearest future.

Exams were tough as usual and I hope for the best. It was a whole new academic system for me and the classes and courses were intense. I won’t say I prefer the system though, it’s a lot of work in a short period of time. But I am glad with all the pressure, I was able to complete my master’s thesis at the end.

My last days at Ghent ended with a colorful event called the “Ghent Light Festival”. Everywhere in the city of Ghent was lit up with colorful interactive lights, coupled with the fact that it was snowing at the moment of the event. The scene was really fantastic. Even though I am going to miss the city, my new friends and the peace of the city, my last days were full of memories that will last for a very long time.

I say a big thank you to my supervisor, Prof. D. Brink, Mrs. Huba, VILHR, Stellenbosch University and the University of Ghent for making this experience a reality and to all my lecturers and friends at the University of Ghent for their hospitality and friendship. I hope someday, we’ll see one another again in beautiful places.