Studying Abroad During Corona

Humans of Intermate Studing Abroad During Corona

Every Intermania edition, master student tell about their experiences while studing abroad. However, this semester did not go as planned for most of them. Still, Jobert and Nienke are willing to tell their stories Text & Images: Jobert Zoetbrood and Nienke Buikstra, master students

Jobert Zoetbrood – Milan (Italy) I started my international semester with the expectation of being away for over four months. However, since Milan’s region Lombardy had the first outbreak of the Coronavirus in Europe, the universities in Lombardy had to close their doors. This meant that I had to return to Eindhoven within a month. Luckily, I had picked a university with relatively difficult courses, meaning that I had enough work to stay busy during quarantine. Nonetheless, I still had a very nice time in Milan for the time being! I met some very nice people and made a trip at least every weekend, meaning that I do have the feeling that I saw a bit of the environment. However, I did not manage to visit the famous Milanese Duomo yet, so I still have a reason to travel back someday.

Nienke Buikstra - Aarhus (Denmark) Just as for Jobert, my internal semester lasted way shorter than expected (7 weeks instead of 5 months). However, I enjoyed my time there and I would like to share my comparison between Denmark and the Netherlands. At first sight, Denmark looks a lot like the Netherlands. The people have the same mentality, everyone cycles, during the winter it rains a lot and they eat bread for lunch. The Friday bars on Aarhus University are a lot like our Thursday drinks. It’s very hyggelig (Danish for ‘gezellig’). But of course, there are still a lot of differences. Reading Danish became easier over time, but understanding spoken Danish is very difficult. It’s almost as if their written and spoken language are two different languages! Also, Danes are a bit more reserved than Dutch people. They do not chitchat to strangers. However, Danes have a high trust in people. In the beginning, I had to get used to converting Danish Krones to Euros, because dividing by 7 is not that easy but you’ll get used to it. And sometimes you just don’t want to know you’re paying 5 euros for a jar of Nutella ;). All in all, Denmark is a great country to live in and I’m definitely going back to see more of the country!