For my student accommodation, I was able to choose what kind of accommodation I wanted to live in. There was a choice between dormitories, apartment styles or living in a house. I remember this being quite a hard choice to make, but because I have lived out of home for many years, I decided on choosing the house option because I didn\u2019t think I would like to live with as many people as dormitory style living offered. I assumed I\u2019d be living with 4 or 5 others in a cute little Danish house. Boy, was I wrong! When I received my housing offer, I was granted my first choice of a Danish house\u2026 but there were going to be 12 others living in the same house! Safe to say I was a little shocked that a house could fit 13 people in it and then immediately became concerned as this was essentially what I was trying to avoid when I made my decision.<\/p>\n
Lucky for me though, living in a house with 12 others actually turned out to be one of the most amazing experiences of my life and I have left Denmark, not just having some cool housemates, but with a global family! Everyone was so welcoming and we all soon became very close.\u00a0Our house was the place to be! We would constantly have people who were living in dorms or in apartments tell us that our place was so much fun and that they were jealous of the close friendships we had all formed as housemates and that they were struggling to \u2018mesh\u2019 with their dorm or apartment mates. To any future students, I would HIGHLY recommend choosing the housing option, because the experience is amazing, and it gives you the ability to form friendships like no other! Plus, the house was a 30 minute walk to the business school or a 9 minute ride. And Danes ride their bikes everywhere, so you\u2019ll want to be like the locals and get yourself your own bike! (You won\u2019t regret it!).<\/p>\n
Going to Denmark in the Spring semester was incredible because I not only got to see the entire university covered in snow, but I also got to see it bloom with flowers. Two very different experiences, going from all white to all green! Although it was very cold in the winter, Danes would still get out and do things and go to bars with candles and eat nice food. All of this was a very \u2018Hygge\u2019 experience, which is the feeling of cosiness, being with good friends and can only be felt but not really explained. In the Spring, when the sun finally came out, we\u2019d often spend our time down at the beach or going for coastal rides!<\/p>\n The university system is so different to Australia, because instead of having assessments due every 6 weeks which are worth a certain percentage of your grade, they have one assignment or exam which is due at the end of the semester and is worth the entire grade. So, if you don\u2019t pass your last assessment, then you don\u2019t pass the entire class! I found this a little bit hard to deal with and ended up failing one of my classes I took while over there, as I\u2019m used to the Australian system where if I don\u2019t do quite as well in one assignment, I have a chance to make up the marks in other assessments. So that was a different experience for me!\u00a0Having said that, it\u00a0did allow me to really engage with the culture and enjoy the experience. The mentor program for business students was significantly better than other faculties. We had so many introduction week events and meet ups that made my experience even better!<\/p>\n Living in Denmark is fairly expensive, but I did find a lot of things to actually be quite similar to Australia and some things which were considerably cheaper.<\/p>\n Practice a little bit of Danish with Duolingo or\u00a0another app that makes it easy & convenient. I can almost guarantee you won\u2019t feel confident in speaking the language, but you will feel less overwhelmed when you walk into a supermarket for the first time as you\u2019ll have a basic ability to read Danish (and Duolingo covers some food and basic greetings which is VERY helpful in your first and future Danish supermarket experiences!) Also, I would recommend not greeting people with \u201chi\u201d as the Danish greeting is \u201chej\u201d and it sounds very similar so they will assume you are Danish and speak Danish to you. This leaves\u00a0the both of you\u00a0feeling\u00a0embarrassed when you have to tell them you only speak English! Also not learning the language is totally fine as well, as every Dane speaks perfect English, you just may have to tell them that you don\u2019t understand Danish! So don\u2019t stress if you don\u2019t get a chance to learn it, you\u2019ll pick it up as you go!<\/p>\n Seriously. Danes bike everywhere and you\u2019ll soon learn that your fellow international classmates will always bike everywhere too because it\u2019s easier. You don\u2019t want to feel left out or be the only one not going somewhere because you don\u2019t have a bike. You could always bus but this is expensive and it\u2019s significantly faster to actually just bike to places! Also, be warned that your jeans will eventually give in and rip on the inner leg area from your constant bike rides!<\/p>\n Try to get out and see more of Denmark than just the city if you can. Denmark is a really beautiful country and surprisingly has some amazing cliffs and sand dunes (despite the fact that everyone says it is a flat country with no mountains). Hire a car if possible. (Note if you do this, it is significantly more expensive if you tell them you are a temporary resident and have a CPR number, you\u2019re much better off booking the car from your home countries website for Denmark and then applying a student discount- this will allow you to get unlimited mileage when you hire a car and will be MUCH cheaper.<\/p>\n Embrace the feeling of Hygge and you\u2019ll really get to experience what Danish culture is about. It\u2019s a feeling that is hard to explain, but you\u2019ll know it when you feel it. It\u2019s cosiness. It\u2019s friendship. It\u2019s love & warmth. It\u2019s hot chocolates. It\u2019s togetherness and it is just something so hard to explain<\/p>\n They are a lot of fun and a GREAT way to form some lifelong friendships. Danes can be a little reserved and respect personal space, so going to these events is a great way to mingle with some Danes and learn about their culture first hand.<\/p>\n If you go to Aarhus university, Eat Street markets will become one of your go to places for meeting groups of people and enjoying great food together!<\/p>\n Tayen – University of Aarhus, Denmark Semester 1, 2018 Bachelor of Business Exchange feedback\u2026 Wow! Where do I even begin? First of all, for my exchange experience, I chose to go to Aarhus university in Denmark and I\u2019m so glad that I chose it, as I have met some amazing people and had some really<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1513,"featured_media":8933,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1242,5279,5246,15891,6155,213,450,411],"tags":[1242,5279,213,450],"class_list":{"0":"post-6666","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-accommodation","8":"category-denmark","9":"category-europe","10":"category-short-term-exchange","11":"category-first-impression","12":"category-friends","13":"category-student-life","14":"category-study-2","15":"tag-accommodation","16":"tag-denmark","17":"tag-friends","18":"tag-student-life"},"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blogs.qut.edu.au\/gone-global\/files\/2019\/05\/Tayen-Lamb-2.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nThe weather<\/strong><\/h4>\n
The grading system<\/strong><\/h4>\n
TIPS<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Learn some basic Danish<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Get a bike<\/strong><\/h4>\n
See the city<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Embrace the Hygge<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Go to international nights & other events<\/strong><\/h4>\n
<\/a>Go to the eat street markets<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Find out more about the University of Aarhus<\/a><\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"