ERASMUS UNIVERSITY TIPS & ADVICE (WATCH BEFORE COMING!)

hi everyone it's Janette and today I'm going to be talking about how I got into arasmus University and talking about my life here and what's it like living in rdam so firstly I'm going to talk about my decision of why I chose arasmus University I just really remember being very confused about which university I wanted to apply to watching all the YouTube videos I could find and there were a couple of UN iers ities I was interested in in the UK and there was also the arasmus university and I just felt that be going to the UK many singaporeans do that I'm Singaporean by the way that a lot of my cousins did that and I just wanted something different and I did some research that a lot of people in the Netherlands actually speak English and there's a big international student Community here so after that research I kind of went ahead and made my decision um because many people in the Netherlands do speak English and it's going to be super useful if you know Dutch but you can survive with English year the amount of study years is also 3 years here so that means one years I'm one year ahead of what I could be compared to if I did my studies in the UK and that was definitely a big Pro to influence my decision to be here so one question I always get is what are the credentials that you need to have to get into the the university it really depends on the program I would say so I'm in the IBA program which is international business administration and there is the exact same program and same courses just conducted in Dutch called a which is business administration where I am in h we needed to send in our CV or a motivational letter as part of our applications as well as our high school transcripts me I did my high school in Singapore and um we did the IB Program which is a international boret program I hope I'm pronouncing that right and it's a internationally recognized program and I got a pretty nice score of 41 out of 45 which allowed me to have a quite an array of options and I decided to come to the arasmus University really based on this one aial video shot of the campus that I will insert here if I can find it and that really that really inspired my decision to be here and now I am here which is crazy two years into it and a CV of course really suggest to just um put in things that you have done extracurriculars uh sport any teamwork activities that you have done over the years like to show the university that you're a diverse whole rounded holistic character so also another part is what is ibaa like and how is the course system the academic year starts in September and it goes all the way until around the end of June or beginning of July before our summer break starts and at least for how Myers are split up I'm not sure if they changed it in the coming years we had a system of four blocks so each block runs about two or 2 and 1/2 months it's 8 weeks I think that's 2 months we have a lot of group projects individual assignments as well as exams and there's just a good mix of it between the courses so I said there's four blocks each block has around three to five or six different courses depending on how intense that block is so some blocks are more intense and difficult compared to other blocks and different courses have different curriculum in terms of how they were going to conduct their grading system in some courses you might have an exam that's 100% graded based on a final exam some courses that might have a midterm and a couple assignments and another final exam and it will be split into like 20% 10% 10% that kind of weightages or you might have uh projects that is just report based and it might also be conducted over a couple blocks which is in the case of one of our courses called strategic business plan conducted within like a three block span so it's like 6 months and it's a much more um EC points which is like credits basically you also work in a group for 6 months so it really teaches you a lot of teamwork and team building and communication ation skills that's what I really love about IBA the fact that there's a lot of options and a lot of things that we get to try out different courses our courses range from uh Human Resource Management HRM to finance Corporate Finance accounting and what we also have is we have a lot of mathematical course so we have a lot of numbers involved and also a lot of narrative um theoretical site some courses that are more heavier on the content side heavy on the practice side compared to others but I think it's a good blend of both part of the University experience obviously besides the studying side it's the accommodations the living the social life how is it like here I never been to rdam I've never been to the Netherlands before I moved here and coming here for the first time Landing like at Amsterdam airport coming to roddam Central Station me and my parents they came with me for moral support of course for few weeks was really chaotic in the first few weeks of University everyone's just down to make friends everyone's super open and also when I started University it was when Co kind of ended Co was kind of a thing still obviously we had to do like the swap test and stuff we had lots of parties House parties and like one month into first year clubs opened up so it was crazy I wish I could relive that memory because the way everyone was just going at it and I don't think like the next few years it's the same experience because now clubs is a norm now and it's always open so I'm pretty sure that's still the case now for every first year batch of students you just want to make friends you just want to meet new people and that's the thing in University you're going to meet so many new people in high school you're kind of still in the bubble where oh okay everyone's like this I grew up with them these are how people are but when you go into University you realize wo there is so much more you have never even seen and that's definitely what I felt especially coming from so far away lifestyle is different the food's different the weather's different the everything is different if you are still contemplating whether you should take that leap and move out or even go to university some place some country different go because it's definitely worth it I realized I kind of drifted off topic I was trying to give informative information about housing I got all my housing information online um and online I found this place called hat and it was located on a Rasmus campus and a share apartment you get your own room and you share like a kitchen in a bathroom with your roommates I managed to find a room where it was two rooms and I will only have one roommate instead of two roommates um it's a very very very competitive process for everyone who underestimates this there's a housing crisis in the Netherlands I'm I hope like people know this before they come here a lot of students actually apply they get in they're ready to come here and they can't find a place finding a house in the Netherlands is more competitive than getting into universities in general because definitely try and get a place before you come here because if you come here without place you're going to suffer and it's not going to be pretty I got really lucky with hat when the the site open opens somewhere in the summer you have to be on the site you have to get your apartment and this is the same for other student housings like zor uh TSH the student Hub and also another one called EI Erasmus international house I believe they're all the same process like there's a certain deadline or like an open application process and it opens at a certain specific time and you have to be on the side to get the apartments cuz if you're late 1 hour it's gone you if I if this video gets posted and you guys did not manage to get a place some other websites I can recommend for housing anywhere pararius um room Plaza and CET so give it a shot um it's a bit harder as an international student for sure but I'm pretty sure you guys can finesse your way through it so traveling in the Netherlands it's a whole different culture cuzz one thing they use here a lot is bikes and I'm from Singapore we don't really bike in Asia ever like you bike everywhere you bike to the parties you bike to the grocery shops you bike to the campus you bike everywhere and in the Netherlands don't make the same mistake as I did because when I Google the Netherlands all I got was sunny flowery tulips images perfect pictures in the summer but almost 8 months out of the 12 months the Netherlands is having rain it's having a cold wind it's like cold here to the point where it's wet cold and it's gloomy where there's very limited sunlight so and people still bike these um Dutch individuals are really really strong in their biking culture so that's amazing cuz it's eco-friendly and everything but personally I have fallen off my bike like three times already so I don't really do that often I take the tram I take the metro they have a really good efficient Transportation Systems in the Netherlands so you can really rely on that as well if you don't want to bik it if you do bik it you should definitely check out this um renting option of called swap feeds and you pay like a monthly subscription and you just get a bike and you can ride it and if you lose your key if you lose your bike they have numbers you just call and they bring a new bike over or they bring a new key over um and you just have to pay like $1 155 or something like this that happened to me recently I I recommend this because my first bike which I got from uh the cathlon and I thought it was such a pretty bike I named her and everything stolen within like the first 2 months and that happens a lot here where people just steal your bike it could be a whole bike that just disappears because someone just took it I don't even know how I locked my bike I locked it to a pole I went down the next day and it was gone so it happens to everyone everyone I speak to really have experience like a stolen bike alth not even stolen bike some people just steal the pedals some people steal the bike seat it's a really weird concept I don't know what they do with these things so coming to University obviously everyone's making concern is how am I going to make friends how am I going to meet people like I'm here in a foreign country alone or like definitely be open and everyone in University in first year even especially in first year is just so open to making new friends you're not going to have a problem with it as long as you put yourself out there to just be friendly and be be nice one big tip I would recommend is to join Eureka week in arasmus the orientation week and it starts about 2 weeks before actual classes but eure week was where I made most of my friends that I even still have to G and obviously you'll make friends along the way through classes it's just I think the first two weeks when everyone's social battery is like alltime high and they just want to come to a new country and make new friends that's where you're going to get cast a bigger wider pool of like potential friendships you know you meet so many different people and obviously the ones that you really click with stay I had a really good time in y week with a lot of the after events that were not exactly hosted by Eureka week I went to these after events that were like informal and that's where I meet a lot of friends as well during the actual event sometimes it can be a very hectic experience like just prepare yourself for it meeting so many new people you're in such a different environment that everything can be so overwhelming so don't be afraid like the program is like a 5 day long event I think but don't be afraid to say hey I just don't want to do it today go to your room and just like rest the whole day like that's completely fine you don't have to follow the program every single time and you need to also know like your boundaries and limitations with everything obviously with University culture there's also a lot of partying involved so you have to know your self-control and if you know um burnout or you're not feeling well to do it just say no and that's always always possible so don't be afraid to do [Music] that yeah

Channel: Jeanette Jesslynn

Views: 5,713

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Id: VaHJmNfZhTc

Length: 12min 0sec (720 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 23 2023