I’ve been here in Gent for more than two months now, so I guess it’s time to write a little about my exchange. I live in Gent, the biggest student city in Belgium, and study at Arteveldehogeschool. Artevelde has 9 different campuses and over 13 000 students.
The studies here consist of group projects and individual assignments as well as lectures, so it’s pretty similar to the education system in Finland. However, most of my group assignments are short reports and power point presentations so in that sense I have had to put way less effort in my studies here than in TAMK, even though many of my class mates complain about having too many assignments to do.
Since Artevelde is relatively big school it’s no surprise that there is about 125 exchange students from all over the world, not just from Europe.
One of Artevelde’s nine campuses
On my spare time I do basically the same stuff as I would do in Finland, which is going to the gym, running and hanging out with my friends. Gent has quite a few nice pubs where we often meet up with other exchange students, drink Belgian beer and play drinking games. Many clubs here stay open basically all night and, even though Thursday is the official student night, every night is a going out night here, so for the ones who enjoy a lot of partying there certainly is something happening every evening of the week.
Student kick-off in the beginning of the school year
And of course, I have traveled quite a bit during my stay here, since it’s relatively easy and cheap to visit neighboring countries. So far I’ve been so Amsterdam, Antwerp, Brussels, Brugge, London and Manchester. Next trip will be to Hamburg and I hope to still have time to visit at least Paris.
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