A Blog about Education Abroad

Tag: Belgium

  • Liezel at KU Leuven, Belgium

    Liezel at KU Leuven, Belgium

    The reason:

    Let me start of with a caveat: I’m not your typical student. I’m 35 and in my third year of studies. In my previous life as part of the workforce, having 21 days annual leave was the norm. With never-ending deadlines, taking full advantage of this was a challenge and at the end of the year I always ended up carrying over some unused leave days.

    Imagine then the complete mind-shift when I became a fulltime student again with an average of approximately 12 weeks holiday per year. The concept was daunting. What was I going to do with all this time? I’m married and my husband still has to work, so long romantic vacations were not on the cards. Plus, of course, I don’t have the luxury anymore of saving up a salary for a fun-filled getaway to somewhere exotic. I definitely also didn’t just want to sit at home reading or binge watching series. No: I wanted to use this time in a smart way, maximising my four short years of being a full-time student again. I set out to learn as much as I can and challenged myself use this time to postion myself optimally for when I put down my pen during my final exam I’’ll be writing in 2018.

    So I made a rough list of things I thought I could keep myself productive with. I must admit, the holidays flew by faster than I expected and though I managed to do many of the things on my list, international exposure was always at the back of my mind. I was looking for an opportunity at the university that could support my hunger for learning.

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  • Kelvin at KU Leuven, Belgium

    Kelvin at KU Leuven, Belgium

    Pre-Departure:

    I was extremely excited when I received the news that I was part of a small group of students chosen to study abroad at the summer school in KU Leuven in Belgium! Our group was selected from the Department of Business Management based on academic merit and therefore we did not have to follow the usual application process required for international exchanges. However, the process we followed to prepare for the exchange was otherwise the same. There were a number of small tips and tricks I picked up on to make this period as easy and pain-free as possible.

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  • Shaundre at KU Leuven and VUB, Belgium

    Shaundre at KU Leuven and VUB, Belgium

    Pre-departure:

    When getting ready to leave to go overseas, always see that your visa application is done way before you leave. I had to apply to the Belgian embassy and prior years I needed to compile all that is required and then take it myself to the embassy for processing. Now they work differently, whereby you still compile all the requirements, but you need to take it to an external company namely TLS in Cape Town and they check and send all your documents to the embassy. The only thing is you need to pay them R450 for doing this and then still pay the Schengen visa costs. It was compulsory however, only if it’s an emergency may you go to the embassy yourself.  On a positive note, I received my visa within one week, so that is good.

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