A Blog about Education Abroad

Tag: semester exchange

  • Celine Baker at Humboldt University zu Berlin, Germany

    Celine Baker at Humboldt University zu Berlin, Germany

    Pre-departure

    Because the pre-departure excitement of going overseas and going on adventurous explorations can tend to overshadow some more necessary administrative means that are important to take into consideration in preparation for the trip, I found it helped to compile a list of things I needed to do before embarking on this exciting journey. The list included organising flights in time – which one wants to get to as soon as one receives the confirmation and acceptance to travel overseas in order to find cheaper flights as well being able to move forward from there. While I was lucky enough to have had an EU passport, it is vital for non-EU passport holders to get on top of visa applications and the necessary procedures that follow.

    Once flight tickets have been booked, a visa organised, the next step is to look at transportation to and from the airport as well as further means of getting around the country for the upcoming month. For example, while in South Africa one can easily rely on uber as a taxing service, in certain parts of Europe uber has now been forbidden and one needs to look for alternative transportation. I bought a ‘Monatskarte’ through the university which included all forms of transport for a month in Berlin. However, keep in mind that this Monatskarte will only be passed on on the first day of one’s course – thus, should you arrive a couple days prior to the course starting, one must rely on either single daily tickets with the tram, U-Bahn or S-Bahn or take a taxi to and from your different destinations.

    Additionally, I tried to orientate myself in advance around Berlin through Google Maps. For example, looking up the locations to and from place of accommodation to the airport, bus and train stations, Museums, and other places I wished to see in Berlin. I also checked my different routes to the university and relevant classes. I also looked up the different weather conditions in Germany over my stay there which was also strange packing my warmest winterwear in the middle of summer!  Another important thing to take note of is how to go about using one’s phone. There were multiple options one could choose from like buying a new SIM card with data or relying on the wifi (or WLAN as it is called in Germany) which was what I opted to do as free wifi that gave access to internet was available in all stations, public areas and university as well as the student hotel I was staying at.

    Lastly, I can recommend informing oneself of the of the country one is going to. I compiled a list of things I wished to do, places I wanted to see and go to – museums, body worlds, parks, cocktail bars and restaurants. I also was very excited to try the different traditional German foods such as Currywurst, Schweinebraten, Döner and, of course, lots of Bier! Once you arrive in Germany (or your relevant country) one will have so much to do that one needs to remember what is important to one and wishes to see while one has the chance as a month flies by faster than one may think.

    Host-university experience

    The most exciting part of going overseas is arriving and being overwhelmed with all the excitement of different smells, sights, people, foods, culture and of course a whole new university experience. Going to a new country also entails welcoming and adapting to change. This for example means walking and driving on a different side of the road or that social norms of the community like keeping very precisely to timing and interacting with one another is in stark contrast to South Africa.

    The academic programme offered by the host-university (Humboldt University zu Berlin) offered different courses that one signed up for in advance and could enjoy for 3 weeks of intensive in-depth analyses of the given topics and interaction between lecturers, students and guest lecturers or (in my case) human rights activists. The lecturers were professional and top of their fields, giving a very informative and detailed as well as impassioned feedback on topics. The lecturers oftentimes asked for our opinions and would contrast the different takes of each country. As we all came from different backgrounds this was interesting to compare on an international level and allowed for many different perspectives to be heard and topics to be broached in terms of human rights and critical international legal studies. I really enjoyed the interactive participation of each class that was different to my experience of big classes in Stellenbosch University where less interaction between the lecturer and the students is more common practice.

    The academic programme also allowed for many guest lecturers and human rights activists to present. This I found truly awe-inspiring and nudged on the core hands-on element of human rights activism in practice and my passion for the course content. Additionally we got to go on a class-expedition to the ECCHR through the programme, where we discussed international and German case studies with regards to human rights and the law which I thoroughly enjoyed.

    In addition to the academic programme the university also offered a cultural programme which included showing us around not only the university’s campus but the whole of Berlin, typical foods, activities, museums and even a trip to Potsdam (a beautiful town of castles outside of Berlin). The cultural programme further contributed to connecting with the people and getting a better taste of Berlin as it let us all interact in exciting activities and tours that we could sign up for e.g. ice skating or going to art and cultural museums.

    One of the activities I got to experience was a tour to Kreuzberg – the political quarter of Berlin. There we ate Turkish traditional foods and see Berlin’s famous graffiti as well as the Kreuzberg museum. Ambling through the streets of Kreuzberg we got to see the political and cultural mix as well as the stark difference of rich and poor due to gentrification in that area. In general exploring Berlin was very culturally informative as the city holds so much history of different eras that are physically visible in its remnants e.g. the East Side Gallery showing the leftovers of the Berlin wall, the Checkpoint Charlie and the Tränenpalast which are the different GDR checkpoints, the Bebelsplatz which was where the Reichskristallnacht of 1938 took place.  Other exciting places to visit were the Museumsinsel, Alexanderplatz and the Dead Chicken Alley.

    While staying there one quickly makes friends with other international students that are eager to get to know you and your side of the world as well as experience all the exciting ‘Touri’ tours to make discovering and finding our way around Berlin more fun. It also helps that because many of us doing the different courses offered by the host-university were staying at the same Hotel we got to know one another and could try out new bars, clubs, coffee houses and Döner or Currywurst stands together.

    Return

    Upon returning back to South Africa, one experiences disappointment of having to leave but also excitement of coming home. One doesn’t realise how much one missed all the different things of being home – for me it was the mountains, the people and a feeling of ‘Geborgenheit’ as the Germans would put it which means the safety and security on feels from being at home. Further, the weather among with family and friends welcoming you back with open arms was wonderful as the change from averaging 2 degrees to 30 was thoroughly appreciated at that point. It is fun being able to do all the exciting winter activities like ice skating, or going to Winter Wonderland parks and then a week later to be basking under the African sun sipping a cool drink. Returning home makes one appreciate all the different things one missed while being overseas without even realising it! The change of scenery, warm weather, different people and culture clashes as well as the aesthetic beauty that both countries hold create a general feeling of appreciation at being able to have travelled and experienced such privileges and luxuries around the world.

    While your return home may make one extremely grateful for the journey one also feels a sense of disappointment as one begins to miss things from another country as well as struggling to adapt back to other things that did not bother one before of ones own country. For example, after enjoying the public transport in Germany being reliable and very easily accessible for everyone one notices the lack thereof in South Africa. Another aspect that also jumps to the fore is the feeling of security one has overseas whereas upon one’s return back to ones South African home one realises the stark difference of how people often live in fear here as opposed to Europe.

    Additionally, while looking back at one’s exciting adventure overseas others may not be as interested in your stay there as what you would like them to be. Thus, prepare yourself for disappointment as many may grill you about certain aspects and then not pay much attention when you would like to continue marvelling at your fantastic trip. For example, many of my friends that study with me were interested in my course but then would pass over my explanations of the German culture and other experiences I had there (or vice versa when asked by family members).

    Lastly, going overseas has definitely made me weigh up my different possibilities and opportunities of pursuing potential employment not only (as I had previously intended) in South Africa but also elsewhere in the world. The trip overseas broadens one’s horizons in the sense that one realises that living overseas and changing and integrating oneself in a new culture, different surroundings and people is entirely possible.

  • Cameron Nel at Hochschule Konstanz, Germany

    Cameron Nel at Hochschule Konstanz, Germany

    Leaving on a Jet Plane

    Pre-Departure

    It’s happening! I’ve submitted my application to the international office at Stellenbosch University and it was approved. I am going to Germany. A little time spent on the internet and I book my flights to Germany. I booked a return with an unsettled return date, as it was cheaper. I will just have to schedule the return date closer to the time when I actually know when I can come back to the Republic of South Africa. Now I just need to setup a Visa application and get into contact with my host institution – Hochschule Konstanz. The application to arrange an appointment for the Visa was quick, as on the website of the Consulate (I intend on going to Cape Town), there is a concise guideline of what all I need to bring to the appointment and when and how to book it. For future reference, I recommend that it’s better to arrange a Visa appointment as soon as you can i.e. after flights are booked, book the appointment.

    I communicated with my host’s international office and a Ms.Favata was super helpful. She tried to answer each question to the best of her ability and even called across the sea when things were a bit unclear. I had applied for accommodation by filling out a simple application form. Once I had done this, I just had to email it to Ms.Favata before the exchange student deadline and everything was set. I eventually found out where I was staying – a student block of flats about 600m from the campus grounds. This was all organized by the company Seezeit, a company which organizes all the student accommodation in the town of Konstanz. What was great about this was that it was super cheap per month. After sorting out accommodation I arranged my own Health Insurance for the Visa appointment. Furthermore Ms.Favata sent documents stating my enrollment for the semesters I was to spend at Konstanz. She had basically sorted me out for the appointment. Hence, everything went smoothly and I received a study visa two weeks later.

    Ensuring that everything would be okay with regards to baggage and arriving in Konstanz, I researched everything I could about transport to and in Konstanz. There is no airport in Konstanz and the closest is Zurich so I had to make sure that my Visa would be okay in Zurich. I also carried all my documents on my person incase I needed to back up my story. Everything went smoothly and few questions were asked. It seems that a study visa is not easy to attain so the officials were rather relaxed with me. I booked a train ticket and arrived safely in Konstanz. I also arranged before the time with the secretary of my block of flats to leave my keys in the safety deposit box so I couldn’t really have asked for a smoother travel. I arrived at the blocks, typed the code in, retrieved my keys and proceeded to become a resident in Germany.

    Experience at Host University

    I enrolled for the entire summer semester at Hochschule Konstanz. I took up less subjects than I would have had at Stellenbosch University as I intended to explore the town, country and continent! The semester started from March and ends at the end of July. The Hochschule had a nice group of exchange students and we were induced nicely to the ins and outs of the town and eventually a small group of exchange students became my friends. We explored, swam in the Bodensee and did what exchange students do. I also became good friends with one of my flat mates and he helped me a lot with questions on Germany – he was German.

    On the academic side, the actual work load of each subject I found to be much less than that of Stellenbosch. The schedule is a lot more open than Stellenbosch and each subject maybe has about 7 contact hours with the subject lecturer a week. Practicals exist but aren’t as frequent, at least from my experience. The classes are smaller, attributed to a small university, so relations with the lecturer is a lot more personal. They also only have a final exam at the end of the semester and that was interesting as you don’t really know what you’re in for until it’s happening! All my courses were in English, except for the German classes of course. One or two of the courses were catered for exchange students, however I attended one or two classes that were actually apart of other degree fields in the Hochschule. Here I also never really experienced much difficulty in the subjects, however it is possible that the courses were watered down because they were in English. Apart from that I found a comfortable rhythm in the classes and could easily balance workload and extra-mural activities.

    I even applied for their student racing team and helped out at the workshop a few times where I could. It was just a pity as the actual race events coincided with other events I had already agreed to and could not experience the full tilt of the racing days. After this my investment in the Hochschule group declined slightly as I relocated priorities. I found a small sport club where I could practice and cycled to and from each week. The Hochschule had a committee that arranged events for the exchange students, and this committee was called Helping Hands. One guy kept in contact with me frequently and I was even invited to his birthday which consisted of a small group. I felt special. I think the entire experience as a whole was a very positive one as I cannot really think of what I would have preferred that I had the power to change. I maybe would have invested more time in getting to know the actual residents of the town, but I can at least always go back. I have contacts.

    Return to Stellenbosch

    Returning to Stellenbosch provided some difficulties such as arranging accommodation and transfer of one or two courses. Fortunately, I had one friend that still needed a place to stay so we managed to eventually locate a flat that we were happy with. After that, some admin was involved in assuring that I was successfully transferring credits. This process took some time but not much effort. I attend a class of mostly new faces so integrating into the class took a bit more time than it would have, had I attended the class of 2019. My perspective has changed, not only at the university but also how I view certain aspects of the country.

    Small things and big things. For instance, I am a lot more aware of the recycling sections. I go out of my way now to recycle properly and actually keep all my plastic bottles – I think I still get “pfand” for them. I am less tolerant to people that litter now and don’t care about keeping things clean. We have a beautiful country and I wish we could look after it more. I was the victim of a language barrier in Germany and now I know what it feels like first hand. I at least appreciate the immense effort in South Africa to include everyone. I found that in Germany there was seldom or no effort at times, to include those that cannot speak the language. I also now appreciate the freedom we have to pursue things and try things out. Entrepreneurship for example; starting a business in Germany is not as easy to do. I found that there is a such a massive opportunity for our country to improve and it makes me excited. I could not wait to come back. The different cultures make me feel at home.

    I secured a great internship abroad and the supervisor mentioned to me that when I am done studying my masters I should let him know and maybe he could arrange something. For me that is a big opportunity. We also intend to stay in touch and now I can safely say I have a good contact for future opportunities. This experience definitely changed my view on working abroad. I used to be content with just working in South Africa, but now I believe that I need to at least work abroad for a few years. Europe is a great continent to progress in experience in the Engineering department. The opportunities are abundant and the remuneration is attractive. I can see myself working in another country to kickstart my career. It would be a great experience to learn so much from the different cultures in the work place and the way they work and operate. However, once I have completed a few years abroad I see myself returning to South Africa to settle down in the country that I love. All in all, I still want to give back to the country that gave me so much to begin with.

  • Brandon Dinwoodie at TU Munich, Germany

    Brandon Dinwoodie at TU Munich, Germany

    Predeparture

    My Time at TU, Munich

    I applied for my Visa about 4-6 weeks before my departure date. I applied for a Work Visa in order to allow me to complete an internship in Germany before my exchange started. I did a lot of searching on online-internship-listing sites in order to find a company to do an internship at. I spent time working on my CV, researching how to open a bank account in Germany and finding a place to stay.

    Once I found a place to do an internship at in Berlin, I started working to find an apartment to stay. I asked the HR department of the company I had been hired by to please send around an internal email letting the employees know that I was looking for a place to stay. Fortunately, somebody at the business had a free apartment during the time of my internship and offered to sublet it to me.

    Once I had my internship and accommodation for the first two months sorted out, I could start preparing the necessary documents for my Visa. Such documents included my contract with the company I was going to work for, proof of accommodation, plane tickets, proof of enrollment at Stellenbosch University and more… I would recommend starting sooner rather than later when it comes to preparing for one’s visa application.

    The plane tickets served as a challenge, due to the fact that the visa office needs you to have a return ticket, however, I had no idea about when I would need to fly back to South Africa. As a result, I decided to book a flexible ticket which allowed me to reschedule both the date and locations of my flights within one year, while only having to pay the difference if the updates led to an increased cost. This allowed me to book my plane tickets and apply for my visa without having to worry about dates so early on. I would recommend booking your flexible return flight for the latest date which your visa will allow (generally 90 days) in order to afford you more time and flexibility to organize a residency permit when arriving in Germany.

    Due to having organized an internship before my semester, I wanted to leave for Germany as early as possible so I could get involved in the company for as long as possible. This was a good idea, however caused quite a bit of stress at the time due to the fact that I left about 2 days after my final exam. When booking flights, I highly recommend searching for alternatives as early as possible. In my experience, both Google Flights and Sky Scanner offer the best services when it comes to comparing flight costs and monitoring price changes. I ended up booking my flight with Emirates, with a day’s layover in Dubai (where I applied for a day visa to explore the city), to Frankfurt Airport.

    My Predeparture Tips:

    1. 1. Book your flights earlier to save money,
    2. 2. Book flexible flights if necessary,
    3. 3. Start your visa process in good time.

    Experience at the Host University

    My time at TU Munich was truly incredible. The beauty of Munich city, central location of the university and the extensive public transport network made every day a joy. I was fortunate enough to be in Munich during an unusually warm winter, meaning that I never had to suffer in insane sub-zero temperatures. Instead, during the coldest time of winter, the average temperature was only around -2 degrees Celsius, which is very manageable with a decent jacket and long pants.

    Although I found the university facilities quite underwhelming (keep in mind that it only costs 130 Euro a semester to study there), I was thoroughly please by the fact that all lectures that I took were recorded and could be watched again online at a later date. This provided me with a lot of flexibility and made preparing for exams way easier as I could always revisit a concept. All my lectures were offered in English, which was a huge advantage for me. I also decided to take an intensive German course during my time there, managing to complete both A2.1 and A2.2 while studying in Munich.

    I found the level of academic difficulty to be very comparable to Stellenbosch University, however the workload in TUM was much less than what I am used to in Stellies. At TUM, most modules have no projects or semester tests during the semester, but rather only one single multiple-choice exam which counts 100% of your grade. While this does allow more flexibility during the semester, it can lead to a lot of stress if one is not prepared to buckle down and study hard when the exam period comes. TUM offers a wide range of English courses in its Business Administration faculty and is therefore a great international university to attend when it comes to a business focused degree like BCom.

    I would recommend taking German to anybody who plans on doing an exchange to Germany. While it was not used in most of my social circles, it helped me when it came to things like doing groceries, applying for permits and dealing with merchants and retailers. Knowing some German puts you at an advantage when dealing with locals as they greatly appreciate it when foreigners take the time to learn about their culture and language. I therefore made a point of always introducing myself in German and speaking German whenever my level of comprehension allowed me to. One time where my German came in good use was when I was stopped by a German border patrol agent when returning from a weekend trip in Austria and I had forgotten my passport in my Munich flat. Being able to explain my predicament, while also showing respect by speaking to him in his native tongue, I was lucky enough to come off with only a 25 Euro fine upon showing the other documents which I did have on me at the time (including a photo of my residency permit).

    German came in handy when having lunch at my ‘TUM Buddy’s’ family. I applied to be allocated a ‘TUM Buddy’, which is a TU Munich student which is paired up with you for the purposes of providing you with help and support during your exchange. I would recommend really trying your best to get to know your TUM Buddy and forming a friendship with them, as they will likely be one of the only Germans that you get the chance to regularly interact with. In my experience, getting to know and befriending a German is very rewarding. The Germans that I met were very friendly, always available to help and managed to get me out of difficult situations on multiple occasions during my exchange.

    Speaking of difficult situations, prepare yourself for copious amounts of bureaucracy and admin when planning your exchange to Germany!

    Return to Stellenbosch

    The time to return to Stellenbosch came way sooner than expected. Time really does fly when you are having fun. Upon coming back, the first thing I noticed is how beautiful and modern Stellenbosch’s campus facilities are. We are very lucky to have such a great library, many communal computer facilities we can use, as well as a central and bustling student center such as the Neelsie.

    On the flip side, I also realized how warped our perceptions of what ‘normal’ life looks like may be. Driving out of Cape Town Airport and seeing all the informal housing settlements, as well as having to live through load shedding again and having to worry about my safety constantly were rude awakenings when it came to my return. We as South Africans need to realize that these aspects should not just be a part of ‘everyday life’, but rather understood as deep issues within our society and governance. As South Africans, we need to put a lot more pressure on our leaders and each other to improve the safety in and stability of our country – because how we experience daily life should not be accepted as normal or simply ‘part of life’.

    All in all, I am happy to back in South Africa where I can see my friends again, reconnect with my family and finish up with my degree. The warm weather and cheaper restaurant prices are always welcome after months of having to convert from the ZAR to the EUR. After such an experience, I can see myself going overseas again. I am exploring the idea of completing my master’s degree overseas in order to improve on my international mindset and further establish a global network of friends and business contacts.

    I am incredibly grateful to Stellenbosch University and all its employees and helpers behind the scenes who made it possible for a student like me to undertake such a life changing experience. It is quite something to say that you’ve lived overseas before, and that’s something that I can now say because of Stellenbosch University. If any of you reading this are Stellies students, I highly encourage you to get into contact with the SU International Office and explore what options are available to you!