Student exchange in university is possibly the best opportunity to experience another culture and travel. If you live away from home for university, the only expense is your plane ticket. Meanwhile, a ton of grants are available for exchange students to make your travel more affordable. If you live at home, you already pay tuition and living abroad can be more affordable than say; living in Toronto. You can experience independence, make new friends, and immerse yourself in a new culture including their habits and festivals ! But, there are some things that are really hard and annoying about being an exchange student. These are the 15 most common struggles exchange students will face!
Since you usually associate with your peers who are also on exchange, you guys will tend to speak English. When you befriend locals, your introductory level of a language may not be sufficient for a conversation (if they do not speak English). If the local does speak English, they will switch to English thus negating your language learning experience.
On my exchange at the local grocery store, ordering deli meat in kg’s was impossible as I did not know how to say 100 in German, and they did not understand 100. Then, there were problems explaining that I wanted the fresh-buns, rather than half a day old. Stores usually aim to sell the oldest product first, and in North America no associate will ever argue with you if you ask for the fresh coffee/bread/fruit. But if you do not speak the language, this can be annoying.
When on exchange, it is crucial to be social in the beginning and go to events (even if you are jetlagged, or homesick, or Netflix binging). It is very easy to become isolated as time flies by so quick.
You and your significant other will have to adjust to each other’s schedules, and you may be a constant conflict to go out and explore or stay in on skype. Paranoia for cheating is heightened, as well as temptation yourself.
In Toronto, on Sunday most places are open (other than hair salons). If you live in a Catholic country, your closest grocery store may be closed or retailers. Banks will be 100% closed. Thus, no errands can be ran and if you have no social plans (or are not hung-over from night before) you can feel quite lonely or bored.
You may need to adjust to carrying around a lot of cash, or constantly running to the ATM if you want to splurge. If you do not have the cash I your account, you cannot charge it and pay for it eventually like you can so easily in North America.
In Vienna and Munich, a lot of places did not take Visa forcing people to carry around cash. Turns out Germany has the highest debt-free society and lowest home ownership, indicating they associate credit cards with debt. The average German also has 123 Euros in their wallet, indicating a cash society.
In North America, universities focus on rigid testing with memorization based on scholarly articles; combined with lectures to deliver the content and tutorials to debate the content. In Asian universities, there may be more frequent and harder exams. In Copenhagan, I ended up with ¾ of my classes taken at a Masters level had oral exams worth 100% of my grade ! Having never had an oral exam, this was intimidating for me; as well as the heavy weight of them. (P.S: the content at KU was comparable to UofT, scholarly articles)
To start off, dorms in Europe are not on campus like North America, so you may have to commute to class. Secondly, they do not have 24/7 security to deal with students losing their keys or suspicious activities. If labor is cheap in your exchange country, you may have cleaners or cooks which is a plus.
Apartment fraud is common, and international students are targeted. The scariest thing that can happen is arriving on your new adventure alone, and not having a place to live and out thousands of euros. In this case, the University will usually put you up in a dorm or help you find a new place.
But unfortunately everyone on exchange knows someone, or knows by a degree of separation someone who has had an experience with fraud. Even more annoying is the struggle to find an apartment abroad, and finding out it is a fraud after spending hours communicating and searching.
If you lose your keys that will probably be coded, you may end up with a bill of hundreds of euros or have to wait till their office opens to get back into your dorm. If you need immediate access, you may have to pay a locksmith. Worst of all, if you live in a family house and lose your keys you may have to pay to replace all of the locks ! Even scarier, what if you do not get along with your host family ! Meanwhile, at St. Mike’s College at UofT we had access cards and could get into our dorm almost immediately if we lost the card.
In Toronto, banks are customer-service oriented. Some are open on Sundays, and the wait is generally quick. Also, you can get a bank card the day you open up a bank account. In Vienna (Bank Austria) , there was a separate line at the bank to deposit and withdraw money, as well as pay bills. In Copenhagan, their bank Nordea had you take a number and wait 20-30 minutes.
It is annoying to have to decide if you want to spend 1200$ to go home for Christmas or Easter for a week, or be with your exchange friends and use that money for travelling instead. On one end, you miss your family. On another, travelling internationally is exhausting (jetlag, airports themselves, the flight if you can’t sleep on planes, etc.).
If you come from a university town where drinks are under 5$, moving to a European city like Paris or London can be a price shock. Eg. WHY AM I PAYING 10 EUROS FOR A BEER I CAN GET FOR 5$ BACK HOME? In Scandinavian countries especially, as well as London going out can be more than double what you are used to. Conversely, you can also luck out on drink prices if you go to Spain or Poland.
The worst is trying to find a grocery or item in a foreign language yourself. For almost an entire semester me and my roommate used softener to wash our clothes, thinking it was detergent. This was until a maintenance lady laughed at us for not using detergent. Then there are little things like mistaking ham for turkey, ground pork for ground turkey, yogurt for sour cream or heavy cream, etc.
As annoying as adjusting to life as an exchange student is, it is a experience of a lifetime. Only in university will you have an experience where you can go to almost any country, and be given easy permission to live there for a lengthy time. The most annoying is coming back home, and finding yourself missing your old country and finding your own city annoying itself.
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