Stay abroad in Denmark in the 5th semester of the bachelor's program
My semester in Aarhus winter semester 2015/16
First of all, if you are still unsure whether you should do a semester abroad, no matter where - do it! You will gain an incredible amount of experience during your time abroad, such as how to deal with teaching methods that are completely different from what you are used to, or how to communicate with hands and feet because no one understands you.
Before stay
It is advisable to take care of all the documents you need for the application early on. Be it a letter of recommendation from a university teacher, a proof of the language level, the grade overview in English or even things like passport photos (you really need a lot of them in the course of time). And apply as early as possible for a place in a dormitory, because even for exchange students this is not guaranteed everywhere. I got a rejection for the dormitory place with the useful tip: "check Facebook". So I started looking myself and only got an apartment outside the city. But for an unbeatable price in Aarhus.
And then you can actually already pack your bags. And they should contain a lot of bathroom products, food and drink. Because it is really expensive in Denmark, because there with an average wage of about 15 € / h for student jobs simply more is earned and just more can be spent.
Arrival
Fig. 1: The university campus with a view of the harbor.
It's best to arrive a few days early and take care of all the formalities, because on the official Welcome Day, the International Center is a hive of activity. You'll be glad if you have to wait in one less line. And apply for the cpr card and NemID in advance, because you need them for the bank account, internet and library card. What I really liked was the welcome bag with all the useful stuff like pen, pad, SIM card, free tickets and a rain poncho.
During Intro Week, both the International Center and the Biology Department organized events for us about life in Denmark, what to expect from a year abroad, how exams work here (they are very careful about plagiarism), and lots of getting-to-know-you games. Thanks to climate change, we had an unusually large number of warm and dry days for Aarhus. This changed punctually with the beginning of the lectures and the Aarhus Festival (every year at the end of August/beginning of September) could be spent in the rain, just like Denmark :D.
In the lecture you should definitely sit next to someone Danish at the beginning. They can usually tell you what's important and where it's worth paying attention. Because the lectures are different from ours. There are more papers read and more work is done with the book. And the Danes love to discuss, which is also noticeable here, and in every course there is at least one presentation.
And what I learned: Don't say too loud what's funny in Denmark or about the Danes (something like "your city hall is really ugly" or "who the hell is Tina Dickow who is so celebrated"?!). They understand you. Because many learn German at school and even if they don't speak it anymore, they still understand enough to give you a very nasty look.
After a while
It's getting colder and colder and you understand what "it rains a lot in Denmark" means. Therefore, you wrap up thickly and since the wind is too strong to use an umbrella, the fancy poncho that you got at the beginning comes over it. With that, you shouldn't attract any attention in a rainy nation, right? But when you go outside, your Danish neighbor, who does without all the extras, just smiles at you, swings on his bike and miraculously hardly gets wet.
How do the Danes do it? But you get used to it pretty quickly, that it is always wet. If your jacket and shoes are reasonably tight, it's no big deal. Because when it's not raining, it's foggy. But when the sun comes out, it's just gorgeous and from the rainbow walk in the Aros you have a fantastic view over the city.
October is the first round of exams. Here, the year is not only divided into semesters but also into quarters. Since two of my courses went over both quarters and I only had one exam during the vacations, I was able to use the time for trips to Sweden and Copenhagen. The second round of exams will come in January. I did not have a single "normal written" exam like it is common in Jena.
In Stream Ecology I had to give a presentation during the semester and at the end of the semester there was an oral exam for which I had 2 days preparation time after which I gave a short presentation. Afterwards there were questions from all topics of the course. In addition, a river near Lemminge in the middle of Denmark was visited in the fall as part of the course. There the different sampling techniques were explained and a few current channel experiments were shown. In the weeks that followed, the invertebrates of the river were determined.
For Macroecology and Biogeography, a catalog of topics was published in December and half an hour right before the exam, the topic to be examined on was published.
For GIS, a paper had to be handed in after three weeks. The assignments had to be done using ArcGis.
Also for Environmental Economics a paper had to be written on some tasks, half of which consisted of calculations in Excel and the other part of internet research on the given questions. However, the processing time was only 48 hours.
Overall, the exams are much more relaxed than I knew, because not factual knowledge but understanding was tested. However, this is probably due to the fact that I have attended master's courses except for GIS and that these are no longer basic subjects in Germany, in which it is only about facts.
In Aarhus, they try to create a climate that is as productive as possible, and in addition to the study halls and group rooms, there is also a relaxation zone with beanbags, Playstation and massage chairs.
Departure
Before the departure we have to take care of the formal things in Aarhus and Jena again but for this we send early enough mails with the important details.
And of course the last parties are celebrated, tons of souvenir photos are taken and everyone is incredibly fond of each other. :P
In summary, I can only say: It was a fantastic semester that I would definitely not want to miss. I made friends from almost all over the world (even though a lot of the internationals were German), whom I took very much to my heart.
I also saw that there are other teaching and learning methods than I have experienced so far.
Contact: via Dirk.Merten@uni-jena.de