ERASMUS+ Study Report

faculty of arts

ERASMUS+

Study Report

This form needs to be completed by every student who has completed an

Erasmus+ mobility.

Last name

Halsema

First name

Maximiliaan

RUG student number

S 3592340

Please enclose a 2-page report on your experiences abroad, using the

following headings:

1. Your study programme

2. Language

3. Finance and other conditions

4. Preparation and contacts with the faculty before, during and after

your stay

5. Housing

6. Culture

7. Free time

8. Travelling

9. Your host and home institution’s management of Covid-19, and the

extent to which the virus (countermeasures) affected your mobility

10. Other

I hereby give permission to the International Office to publish my report on the Faculty of Arts

Repository to inform future students

X Yes

☐ No

Future students may contact me for additional information ☐ Yes X No

Signature Participant

Max Halsema

………

Date: 04.05.2021

University of Groningen, NL Groning01 Erasmus+ KA1 Mobility

1. Study Program

I followed two programs in Oldenburg technically. One is called Social Studies and the other was the so-called EuGl Program (European Studies in Global Perspective). Technically it works differently in Germany in the sense that I do not follow a specific program that is mandatory but that I have a free choice out of a certain amount of courses and modules. In both programs together I did a total of 30 ECTS. The EuGl program was specifically designed for exchange students, containing mostly courses that were taught entirely in English. In my case there was one exception, namely Politik im Mehrebenensystem which was taught in German. However, I was allowed to fulfill my exam obligations in English.

2. Language

Being able to speak German in Germany is in a lot of cases almost a must. Because I went to school in Germany when I was younger, I did not have any issues and I am sure that people can find there way, however, one will find a lot of obstacles if one is not able to speak any German. Germans are known to be ‘good’ in English, however, any dutch student will confirm that a German speaking English by far not as comprehensible as a Dutch person speaking it. Especially in places like Oldenburg you will not get around as easily with English as you would in Köln, Berlin, or Hamburg.

3. Finance and other conditions

Germany is not as expensive as the Netherlands, nevertheless, the Erasmus Grand definitely helps a lot in covering some basic expenses. Especially being a lot at home can sometimes drive up certain gas and electricity bills. Other than that, saying that going on exchange to Germany is easy would in my case be wrong. I had plenty of difficulties mainly regarding how everything was organized. Covid 19 or not, there is a huge difference in time and organization when it comes to the University in Oldenburg and Groningen and was left without sufficient information ahead from both sides. Access to course registration was extremely late for exchange students, even though regular students from Germany where already able to pick courses a month earlier. This caused a lot of stress in the beginning because I had to pick courses and change course even though the semester had already started. There were certain language courses that I was not able to enter anymore for example because they had limited space and everything was taken by the time I had access to course registration. I had several meetings and phone calls with the exchange office there and had to manually enroll in most courses by mail to the respective coordinators. All of this could have been avoided if exchange students would have been granted access at the same time as regular students. Apart from that there was also trouble initially about exam periods. Because the semesters start at different times, they end at different times too. While I was expected to be back in Groningen by beginning of February I still had an official semester until the 31 of March in Germany with exams and everything. If it werent for Corona that everything was online - I would have had a real problem. For the future this needs to be consulted with the Universities

beforehand and a plan should be made in order to prevent a student (who is not informed about this before leaving) from having delays in his main studies or something like that. Also, some teachers in Oldenburg were not very understanding about that situation and initially did not agree to an earlier date for my exams or projects that I had to submit for grading. After a lot of arguing and phone calls during two weeks time, I finally got everyone on board with my proposal that I can deliver my submissions around january or beginning of february so that I do not have to take all my exams from Germany and Groningen at the same time. The mere fact that I had to deal with this and this was not agreed upon earlier or something is ridiculous. Either I am the first student from Groningen or some people have just accepted it

the way it is. As it is now and having in mind that there might not be online exams for future exchange students I do not recommend going to Oldenburg if one does not want any study delay. It should not be the case that one has to deal with two exam periods from two different universities at the same time.

4. Preparations and contacts before, during and after your stay Was okay.

5. Housing

I took care of housing by myself which was not a big issue. 6. Culture

Due to Corona I can barely say anything on this. It would have been better without Corona but most of the time everything was closed.

7. Free time

Same as under Culture. Not much to say on this. 8. Travelling

Coming from the Netherlands this should not be a big issue. I went by car.

9. Your host and home institution’s management of Covid-19, and the extent to which the virus (countermeasures) affected your mobility

As mentioned above, there is some serious miscommunication between both universities. Corona makes a nice mobility almost impossible, one would have had more freedom in Groningen.