Dick H., Bachelor of Applied Finance
Universidad de los Andes, Bogota, Colombia (Semester 1, 2018)
Going on exchange to Colombia was a fantastic experience. Most people know only bad things about Colombia from what they can see on the news, Netflix and other media. However, the country has made great progress since the 80’s and it is now one of the most developed nations in the region. It is interesting to see though, the big inequality and differences between social classes. On one hand, it has beautiful and wealthy areas, and on the other poverty and slums.
At the beginning of my exchange process, it took some time to fulfill all requirements and gather paperwork. Research was intense in order to best match subject content from both institutions. But afterwards, the support, guide and help from each member of team was remarkable.
QUT bursary was quite generous and allowed me to get return tickets and survive the first weeks in Colombia. I arrived in Bogotá in mid-August. With a population of approximately 10 million Bogotá is the capital city of Colombia and it is a very vibrant metropolis.
I rented an apartment and lived in a beautiful area of the city called Chico-Virrey. It was about 40 min away from university by Bogota’s famous public transport called Transmilenio.
Universidad de los Andes is the best ranked university in Colombia. Being a private university, its fees are quite high and only wealthy families in Colombia can afford it. It is interesting to note that being the most expensive university in Colombia its campus is not located in a wealthy area (north-side of the city) but close to the old city. This area despite being quite touristic is not the safest.
Universidad de Los Andes has a great campus, with modern buildings. In lectures, each student has access to laptops to work through examples and study cases developed during classes. I find very interesting that students have what they called “hablador”, which is a cardboard-made triangle with the student’s name. The lecturer can then call everyone by their name and when questions are answer right he knows who got the “extra points”. Classrooms were quite comfortable, and I was quite impressed by the quality of lecturer and students.
Something I enjoyed so much about Universidad de Los Andes was the use of study cases from Harvard University. They were real issues companies faced and we had to find solutions to those problems. We had to use all our financial knowledge to solve challenging situations and perform deep financial analysis. I would like these types of cases were studied in QUT. A drawback was the lack of feedback throughout the classes, the only way to know we were understanding topics was by checking marks after a test, if results were unsatisfactory (bad scores) there was no way to know what was wrong and how to improve from those mistakes. 
Another difference I found between both universities’ methodology was an almost compulsory textbook reading. We were tested week by week with quizzes to check whether we prepared topics and did the reading. Lecturers were also asking questions randomly to test us.
In conclusion, going on exchange to Colombia was an unforgettable experience, full of nice people, good memories and so much fun. I made good friends and met many interesting people. It is always vital to understand and adapt to the culture, respect what it is important for locals and explore all the beauty the country has to offer.
