Study abroad at NTNU Trondheim winter semester 2019/20

Preperation

It is important to know that the semester times in Trondheim are different than in Germany. In Norway there is a Spring and an Autumn Semester. The Autumn Semester starts at the beginning of August and ends at the end of December. This can sometimes lead to overlaps with exams or block internships, etc. In addition, this also means that you are free from January to mid-April, which I took with a mandatory internship.
For the module selection at NTNU it is best to have a look at the online course catalog for Erasmus students in advance. You should be admitted to the courses as an Erasmus student, unless there are special admission criteria. As a Bachelor student, I only took Master courses there, which was no problem. It is best to choose more courses than you will eventually take, the organization is very good, but it may still be that you have to change your courses on site due to overlap, but that works without problems. It is best to discuss this with your Erasmus coordinator in order to receive credit. After the successful application and admission, the search for an apartment begins. I was not lucky to get a place from the university and therefore had to look for a room on my own, which proved to be quite difficult, but more about that in a moment.
I highly recommend you to go to Trondheim by train and bus, on the one hand for climate protection reasons, on the other hand because the landscape is really beautiful, especially the train ride from Oslo to Trondheim. On the way there, I took the bus from Hamburg overnight to Oslo and then continued by train to Trondheim. On the way back I stopped at several cities in Norway, Sweden and Denmark. Furthermore, it is (unfortunately) so that a smartphone and a credit card make your life in Norway much easier. I bought a smartphone for the time and needed it right on the first day when I had to download an app for rental bikes. But you also have your student ID and bus ticket on your smartphone. Cash is rarely used for payments, and is often not accepted at all.

Housing

Most international students receive a place in a dormitory from SIT (like the Studierendenwerk in Germany). Unfortunately, so many students always come to Trondheim in the Autumn Semester that the places are then no longer sufficient. I was not lucky and had to look for a room on my own, which was very difficult, especially if you are only looking for half a year. Since it was important to me to have a place to live when I arrived, I finally signed a one-year contract in a private dormitory. The university offers "emergency accommodation" for students without a room, but one night costs between 300 and 600 NOK (10 NOK = 1 €).
I would not recommend signing a yearly contract, because it is very difficult to find a subtenant in January. I had to pay double rent in January and finally found a person from February. The rents are very high, between
4000 and 6000 NOK for a room. However, most of the Erasmus students got a room from SIT, most of the international students live in Moholt Studentby or Steinan Studentby. Moholt is located between the two largest campuses of NTNU: Dragvoll (mainly social sciences and humanities) and Gløshaugen (mainly natural sciences and engineering) and has good bus and bike connections to them and to the city center. There is quite a lot going on here and therefore it is often very noisy. In addition, it is located quite on a mountain, so riding up by bike is always very exhausting. If you prefer it quiet, I would recommend Steinan, which is very far away from everything, but you are quickly in the woods and so it is also very quiet.

Study at the NTNU

NTNU is the largest university in Norway, with approximately 40,000 students. The modules at NTNU have either 7.5 ECTS or 15 ECTS, so mostly two or four courses are taken. I was very motivated at the beginning because there were so many interesting courses that I started with six courses, but in the end I only took four exams because the effort for the individual courses is very high, sometimes with weekly assignments or lectures. The level of the courses is very high and I learned a lot.
I took Biodiversity and Conservation Biology, Natural Resources Management, Ocean space: Marine Biogeochemical Processes, Climate Change Mitigation and Landscape, Planning and Management. I can recommend all of the courses. The Natural Resources Management course incorporated a field trip to Oppdal and the nearby Dovrefjell-Sunndalsfjella National Park, which focused on cabin and national park management. In addition, Norwegian courses are offered for the exchange students, here I was able to get one of the highly sought-after places. Unfortunately, the course was rather disappointing, which was probably largely due to the fact that our teacher became ill after the first hour and we then had a different teacher every hour, which meant that the content no longer built on each other. The relationship with the lecturers is very good and less hierarchical than in the German university system.

Daily life and leisure