Personal Erasmus Report: Oslo as an entry into Scandinavia
Christian Hoekema
L.c.hoekema@student.rug.nl Rijksuniversiteit Groningen BA History
Honours Programme in Philosophy BA Philosophy of a specific discipline
The first thing you’ll notice about studying at the University of Oslo as an exchange student is the fact that they provide a guarantee for housing which saves a lot of trouble. Especially compared to the enormous housing problem in Groningen at the time of the start of my semester, but also to friends of mine who went to other countries, not having to worry about the roof over your head is an enormous relief. The distribution of rooms is centralized by a single institution (SiO), where you apply for a number of buildings with different sizes and different arrangements of which the price is
dependent (think around €370-550 a month; I thought I signed up for a cheaper choice, but in the end was so satisfied with a more expensive one I decided to stay). Furthermore, the student-house where I live (Bjerke) is further away from the city and not among the student villages from which you can choose; I can tell this has a pretty big influence on your experience as a whole. Depending on what you’re looking for, I would not take this lightly and if you’re desiring a social community - don’t expect to find it in one of the flats or student-houses that is separate from the student villages.
I started my exchange by signing up for a large number of courses, because I wasn’t sure whether or not my initial interest in the topics of the courses would be sufficient to actually take and complete them too. I highly advise to do the same because this will allow you to be flexible with the course- substance of your semester once the deadlines for the registration is done. I started with 60 ECTS:
- Inventing Mass Extermination: Holocaust and Genocidal Policies in the Twentieth Century - Korea: History, Society, Politics
- Runology – General Introduction - Economic Anthropology
- The Anthropology of Contemporary Islam
During the Mobility I dropped the first two and added ‘History of Consumption’; and in the end decided I didn’t want to take the exam for Runology. I don’t have experience taking courses at other faculties such as the social sciences (anthropology) or linguistics and Scandinavian studies (runology) so it is hard for me to give an adequate judgement of these courses. I can say that the runology course was of high quality because the teacher was clearly a (rare) expert, young and able to handle the highly interested students despite the fact that the class was 40 students big and mixed between BA and MA. The economic anthropology course was huge, had multiple teachers and was the most similar to my history classes in Groningen with regards to structure; the anthropology of
contemporary Islam was the total opposite and was more personal than anything I ever had before;
the history of consumption was in between and had a topic most similar to the ones I take in Groningen, of which I can say the focus was more on broadening than on deepening.
I experienced a lot more freedom in Norway compared to Groningen, partly because there is no mandatory presence for any of the classes and because the courses were spread out over the entire semester instead of two separate blocks. Having only one exam period during the entire semester also meant having only one moment of assignments as check-up for your progress. Also, I
experienced no problems with the teachers whatsoever as everything was taken care of and
expectations were clear from the start. Moreover, it was easier to pass the courses thanks to the different grading system in Norway; grade A-E is a pass, while F is the only way to fail.
During the semester, I had a lot of contact with my study advisor because of doubts about my study programme and in the end this helped me decide to prolong my stay in Oslo with another semester (although the role of the study advisor for BA History is bigger than with other studies, if I’m not mistaken). This decision was troubled by the fact that the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen does not provide Erasmus grants for more than 5 months (the reason for which is still entirely unclear to me because other universities don’t limit their students in this regard). The mobility office in Groningen has turned out to be very receptive to questions and I have no complaints at all; whenever you have questions, just ask. The University of Oslo was very easy in my request to extend my registration, as long as you’re staying within the boundaries of deadlines.
I must say I had to do a lot of the organizing and the administrative tasks on my own, which can be explained by the fact that the faculty of arts in Groningen doesn’t have a partner-contract with it’s sister-faculty at the UiO and in the end I occupied the place at the neurolinguistic department (which does have a partner-contract). This taught me that a lot of obstacles can be worked around by just asking; university members are keen to help out once you mention you’re an exchange student from abroad, so don’t be shy to weaponize this role for your own gain.
Although I was told Norwegians are timid and not easily motivated to share their lives and culture, I can say that Norwegians are easily approachable because everyone seems to be capable of speaking English perfectly fine. I must admit most of the people I met were part of the international student community in one way or another, but I have also been able to befriend some peers that have lived here for longer times. Moreover, I would like to emphasize the point of the last paragraph by pointing out that on my trip to one of the cities to be found most north of the country (Tromsø), I have been able to talk to some very friendly and stereotypical Scandinavian scholars just by showing interest and by asking kindly. If you desire so, one way to keep in touch with the larger international student community and meet students of other universities is through the Erasmus Student Network and the events it organizes which tightly keeps the international student community together.
It might be good to point out some obvious implications of living in Norway during the autumn semester: there is a long winter, which you need to get used to. At least compared to the
Netherlands, having way shorter days and loads of snow for weeks in a row might not be ideal for everybody. For example, some people I knew started to complain about how public transport got mildly disrupted because of the weather for a while. Also, the phenomenon of the winter depression as a result of the long nights is something people might have to deal with. On the other hand, you will get incredibly beautiful landscapes and sunsets in return and I can say I’m still not bored of the snowy city. The UiO also provides plenty of opportunity to explore winter sports through training and practices. In general, this is in line with how the university takes care of students with introduction weeks, organized cabin trips, etc.
The single reason I can think of why you might avoid Norway and Scandinavia in general as a place to study is the cost. Everything is expensive: drinking in public is easily twice as expensive as in the Netherlands, groceries require a lot of attention if you don’t want to end up paying a lot and in general I tried to avoid paying for things I could get in the Netherlands too (for the few times I visited there in the meantime). Flying in and out of the country is made cheaper by the fact that the
Norwegian airline company has a discount code for students. And, moreover, there are cheaply organized trips to e.g. Lapland, Russia (which I joined), or on a party cruise.
In the end, I can highly recommend coming to Oslo or going on exchange in general. It is an extremely useful experience to not just improve your English but also broaden your horizon beyond national borders. Oslo is the perfect place to acquire a taste of culture and has proven, for me at least, to be an enormously fun challenge.
