Erasmus report
Host Institution: Norwegian University of Science and
Technology, Norway
Home Institution: Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden.
Written by: Usman Saeed (July 2014)
Part One
1- Preparations:
1- Preparations:
Norwegian University of Science and technology, Trondheim (NTNU)
was my first choice for exchange studies; I applied during my first year of
Masters in International Project management and got nominated for the exchange
studies. Therefore I was really excited. I applied for Erasmus in February 2013
and got nominated for Erasmus in March 2013.
The response of the NTNU international office was quite late.
But they already said on the facebook page that they accept almost all students
that are nominated for exchange. I was nominated for two semester in the mid of
March 2013 and within a few days I submitted all the documents at the Chalmers
International Mobility office after applying online (The information of
applying online is provided by the Erasmus coordinator). But I received the
official confirmation of admission from NTNU in the mid of June 2013. The documents
include the learning agreement, transcripts from chalmers, copy of the
passport, the print of the online application that has been submitted at NTNU.
After nomination I started the facebook group for NTNU
International and Erasmus students autumn 2013 and in a few days the NTNU made
it an official page. So there were a lot of prospective students that discussed
many issues on the page, tried to communicate the information about residence,
permit, costs, courses and especially future roommates on that page.
The insurance was
covered by Kammarkollegiet. The information can be seen on the following link
The cost of living in Trondheim is around 8-10 thousand Swedish kroner
per month. The Erasmus grant is around 200 euro per month. Therefore it is necessary
to have own funding. Swedish citizens can apply for CSN.
Since I had a lot of luggage therefore I booked a train ticket
from Gothenburg to Trondheim.
2- Accommodation:
NTNU do not assure the residence for the EU and Nordic country
citizens, for the rest of the world they guarantee accommodation. Most of the Swedish
students contacted Svenskar I Trondheim group on facebook or used their
personal contacts to find the accommodation in the town. The cost of accommodation
in the town is around 3500-5000 Norwegian kroner depending upon the location
and size of the room. Normally the rooms are shared.
For non European students NTNU provide a booking code to book an
accommodation. SIT is an organization that has thousands of houses in
Trondheim, there are many student villages spread around and in the city. I got
the house in the biggest student village called Moholt.
Figure 2: Moholt student village
In
moholt there are two kinds of houses, one is in Moholt Alle, and they are relatively
new and modern. The other one are Herman kragsvei, they are relatively older
and cheaper. In moholt the student apartments are shared between 4 students.
The room was around 10 square meters and was furnished. The kitchen and
bathrooms were new and two students shared one refrigerator. There was a
dishwasher in each apartment in Moholt Alle. All students were responsible for
cleaning of the common rooms, if the common rooms were found dirty then all of
them was fined by SIT. So some houses have cleaning problems and some houses
had very good coordination between the residences. Since it was a multi
cultural environment, therefore every house had its own story. In short it was
a great fun experience to live at Moholt and I personally recommend everyone to
get a room in Moholt, because it is the center of student activities. A lot of
student bodies have basements in the moholt for gathering and parties. International
student union, International club of Trondheim, Erasmus students’ network and
some students also organize a lot of parties in the basements and their
apartments throughout the semester.
The monthly rent for a room in Moholt Alle was
3355 NOK and the security deposit for the room was 5000 NOK that has to be
transferred at the time of signing the contract.
The
video of the house in Moholt Alle can be seen on the following link
Moholt
is at a walking distance of 20-30 minutes’ walk from both Gløshaugen and
Dragvoll campus and just 10 minutes by bus. Many students buy the bicycles at
the start of the semester and sell them before departure. The monthly bus card
called the T-card can be purchased from www.atb.no
.
There
is one big laundry in the moholt. The laundry costs around 20 NOK for one run.
The laundry cards are provided by SIT and they can be recharged online. There
is a smaller laundry at moholt alle as well.
Figure 3: Laundry at Moholt
NTNU offers free Norwegian language
courses to the Erasmus and international students. For getting admission in the
courses the students have to apply in time. The information about the course is provided
on the following link
http://www.ntnu.edu/studies/international/norwegian-requirements-and-courses
If you think that you are better in Norwegian language than
level 1. Then they take a test before the start of the semester and if you pass
that, you can be given admission at level 2 or level 3 depending upon the test
results.
The basic Norwegian language can be learnt online as well on the
following link. It is a very good online resource made my NTNU. It has the
curriculum of Norwegian language level 1.
4-Social Activities:
Trondheim is known as the best student town in Norway and the
reason for that is the social life. There are so many opportunities to do an
unlimited amount of activities. The city has three universities and over 30,000
students. The biggest student society is student samfundet I Trondheim. It
organizes a lot of events for student throughout the year. It runs totally on
volunteer basis and if you work at student samfundet, you can make a lot of Norwegian
friends.
Figure 4 Student
samfundet i Trondheim
Every second year it organizes the biggest cultural festival of Norway
named UKA. There are over 1500 volunteers that work on UKA, it sells over
80,000 tickets and it lasts for almost the whole month of October.
The office of international
relations provides a lot of opportunities to make a lot of new friends during
the orientation week. There is a lot of information provided about Norway,
practical tips about living, things to do, exams, social activities and information
about how to integrate in the Norwegian society.
Figure
5: A free bar b que party for
international students organized by international office during the orientation
week
Fig 6: International Students gathered for information and welcome meeting at Student samfundet on first day of orientation week.
Fig 7: A lunch organized by international office on orientation day
It is easier to make Norwegian
friend if we understand their social life. They normally hang out in groups and
the groups are normally closed. For example you can be part of a football team,
then you will spend a lot of time with that football, but you are not allowed
to bring your friends in that group. Every Norwegian is part of some different
groups and they spend a lot of their time in these groups. However they are
normally shy and act very friendly when they are drunk. There are plenty of
parties if you are part of a group to get closer to the locals.
On the other hand it is much
easier to be a friend with international students. There were around 1800
international students around us during the orientation week. There were all
from all over the world and they are quite open. There are three student
organizations for international students, also having many Norwegian students
as well in them.
1-
International students Union
2-
Erasmus Students network
3-
International club of Trondheim
Then some smaller countries
and regional based organizations are also there. These organizations arrange a
lot of events, parties, trips and activities for the students. ESN have a buddy
program where they try to provide an international student a Norwegian buddy.
But there are always more international students signing up than Norwegian students.
You can find more information about these groups on their facebook groups as
well.
Figure
6: International students on Norwegian
national day (17th May)
SIT also have some activity
houses in the student villages. Where you can go in the evening, play some
games or take some coffee with the friends.
There are also some student
bodies at each faculty and study programs. The funding to those student bodies
is done by SIT and the departments. Besides these student bodies, there are
also students in the student parliament.
Fig7: List of different student bodies at NTNU
For sports, NTNU have one of
the biggest sports unions in Norway. It is known as NTNUI. It has more than
12000 active members and over 50 activities. NTNUI owns a lot of gyms, grounds
and facilities around Trondheim, specially the student cabins. It provides a
lot of opportunities to live a healthy and active life. More details can be
found on www.ntnui.no. A lot NTNUI member
have won many competitions on domestic and international level.
There are still more stuff
that a student cannot simply find out in one complete year. There are also
organizations like amnesty international, project management institute,
teknologiporten, TED talks, bridge NTNU and so many other organizations that
are working to make student experience valuable. And if you want to experience
all of these, you should always be ready to go out and participate. It is an
experience that will stay with you for forever as one of the sweetest memories
of life time.
