Report about my exchange semester in Valparaíso, Chile. Universidad Tecnica Federico Santa Maria Winter semester 2012/13.

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1 Report about my exchange semester in Valparaíso, Chile Universidad Tecnica Federico Santa Maria Winter semester 2012/13 Daniel Weinberger Costs Maybe one of the most interesting parts of such a report. I know that I didn't find very much information about it when I prepared for my exchange semester. That's why I put it right in the beginning of my report. How much a flight costs depends on when one goes, how far in advance one books (more far is better), from where one wants to fly, how good one is in searching flights etc. etc. Travel agencies are usually way too expensive, so booking on the web is suggested. For a one way ticket one has to pay the same or even more than for a round trip ticket, in most cases. Therefore, one should (a) get a ticket with an open return date, (b) get a ticket where it is possible to change the date at a reasonable price or, the preferred but often not working solution, (c) plan already in advance very carefully where one wants to go to and how long to stay there. I can tell, (c) didn't work for me (as for a lot of others) and so I was happy I had (b)... My flight ticket cost approximately Euro, travel agencies started for my date etc. at Euro, but for other times I found also flights (slightly) below Euro. However, most exchange students from Europe I talked to paid at least Euro. If one gets all the "suggested" vaccinations - like rabies, yellow fever, hepatits etc - it can cost, depending on what one already has and what not, even more than 300 EUR. As I point out later, how much you pay for a place to live depends on several factors, e.g. the city (Viña, Valparaíso - a.k.a. Valpo) or if you life on your own or with a host family etc. Long story short, one should calculate between 250 and 650 EUR. However, most people will be more closer to 300 Euro, including more or less everything except food. There is no such thing as a week or month or semester ticket for public transport. Not even a day ticket. One pays for each ride. On the other hand, it is not that expensive. For a trip on the micro (city buses) within the city one gets on the bus, i.e. Viña or Valpo, costs in average about 0,45-0,55 EUR ( CLP), between these two cities it is slightly pricier, about 0,60-0,70 EUR ( CLP). There is also a student price for micros, but exchange students don't get it as a special card from the government is necessery. We would get one but it takes several months until it is delivered, they told us. Anyhow, it is possible to get a student card for the Metro, one just has to go to the office, e.g. in Viña del Mar metro station and show them the confirmation of enrollment and the passport - and the student card is handed out immediatly! In the metro, the price depends on the zones one is travelling through. One is Valpo, one is Viña, the others are more out into the country side. With the student card, one pays from Viña to Valpo (e.g. going to

2 university) less than 0,20 EUR (about 110 or 120 CLP, as far as I remember). Of course, one has to eat and so this topic should be covered as well. Going out for having dinner is quite expensive (as far as one doesn't get fast food which is ubiquitous), i.e. about ( CLP). Having lunch is slightly cheaper as they have menus for around 8 (5.000 CLP). Because eating out is expensive, one might cook most of the time at home. The best option is to buy fruits and vegetables at the markets, as it is very cheap there, often half of the price than in the supermarket. At the fish market in Valparaíso one can get fresh and also very cheap fish and sea food, e.g. 3kg clamps for less than 4. However, as I didn't really track all my expenses, it is hard to estimate how much I spent for food. Books are more expensive than in Austria but I didn't have to buy one for university. In one course we needed a book but the teacher gave us his and we copied it. There is a copy service in university where it is possible to bring a while book and for just a few Euros they copy it (it takes usually one our two days). Chile in general is a quite expensive country, at least pricier than expected. So in total, about four and a half month cost me, excluding food: - flight: flat: 280 * 4 month = public transport, supposed one goes only once a day to the other city and back and uses only the metro with a student card: 0,20 * 7 days * 20 weeks = - vaccinations: approx student visa: 75 - I also had to make a new passport (express) : 100 Courses Although a list of courses are available on the OAI website, one should be aware of, that the list might not contain the acutal courses, as it happened in my case. I had been told, that the courses I had chosen before, are not tought in this semester and I had to choose other courses. It was hard for me to find some which might be accredited for my career and matched my schedule. One sees the list of the real, actual courses as recent as she gets the account for SIGA, the online portal of the UTFSM, which was the case in my semester in the first week of courses. It's also seems to be a quite complex tool, especially when nobody explains it to one, as it also happend to me. I think it was part of the work of the tutor which one gets assigned to - but never happend, not only for me, also for most other exchange students I talked to about it.

3 The tutors also should usually help with the visa stuff one has to do once she is in Chile - in case one has a student visa, which is recommended. Some people didn't have it and had problems with the university. However, I'm not sure if they had to apply for the visa within Chile or if the managed it somehow. Also be aware that names are spelled correctly. A friend from Denmark had a special character in his name, which the Chilean embassy in Denmark "translated" wrong! After trying to register as one has to, he was told that he has to apply for a new visa... However, as far as I know, all the tutors did this with their assigned people. But as far as I remember, one has to do this within four weeks after entering the country. And the earlier one came to Chile, the more likely is it, that the time gets tight to do it. So if one comes to the country earlier, she should tell her tutor as soon as possible until when she has to do it - once she got assigned to a tutor, which also happened quite late. The tutors can probably also help to choose your courses. Of course, it could be the case, that they do not study the same as one and can not help at all. However, if they can, one should still be carefull, as not every course which is easy for a Chilean is also easy for an exchange student, especially one with (very) limited Spanish skills. Some friends took courses which Chileans recommended them and were said to be easy and the had quite a hard time to pass it (actually I don't know if the did...). As I didn't know a Chilean in the beging who studied Computer Science, nobody could recommend me anything so I had to choose just courses I was interested in and/or I thought might be useful. In the end, it seemed I had quite good choices made, compared to the majority of exchange students I got to know. I don't say one shouldn't ask or listen to locals about courses, just be critical and do what you want! Apparently, nearly all of the courses had compulsory attendance. Of course, some absent lessons are no problem. Depending on the teacher, around 15-30% of absence is usually tolerated. There are hardly courses which don't have compulsory attendance as well as blocked courses. It's hard to tell about the amount of work as it depends very much on the different courses, from only a few presentations in the whole semester until a test every week plus presentations, everything is possible. In average I would say it was a little bit more workload than most people expected. The university seems to have a focus on teamwork, so workload also depends on how much and good the other people in a group work, obviously. Contact If one wants to contact teachers of the UTFSM, all addresses can be found on the university website. However, I definetly do not recommend to use this way of communication as one usually doesn't get a reply. Or maybe very late. So it's better to just go there and talk to them directly, which in most cases isn't a problem at all. Most of the people are nice if you talk to them. But generalizing, Chileans seem somehow more shy or introvert than other people in South America, though helpfull and courteous. In fact, they are so "nice" that the don't tell one directly if they don't like something one did. Or that they don't want to meet - e.g. they just don't show up. South America is quite famous for people not being somewhere on time. However, I didn't really experience this as much as people told me. Maybe they where 10 or 15 minutes late, occasionally more, but I think I never had a situation where it was more than 30 minutes. And in university a lot of teacher want the students to be on time - some of them even lock the doors after 10 minutes! If one is later - bad luck, try it next time again.

4 Traveling For travelling within Chile, as well as outside of Chile, one only has two options: bus or plane. Buses are comfortable, especially in the a little bit pricier cama class, and they are still quite cheap. But it takes a looooong time to get anywhere - don't understimate the distances! For example going to the Atacama dessert in the north of Chile, which is a popular destination for foreigners, takes between 20 and 24 hours by bus. A little bit in the south of Chile (not even in Patagonia!), a popular destination is Pucón. The bus needs between 10 and 12 hours from Viña/Valpo. Planes within Chile are quite cheap, but often still a little bit more expensive than the buses, but one saves a lot of time by using them. LAN has quite good offers which are only visible and valid for people in Chile. One can see them by choosing Chile as country on the website of lan.com and then there are "promociones". Within Chile, these are usually the cheapest flight one can get. Outside of Chile, one can still go by bus, but beside quite close destinations like Mendoza (Argentina, about 8 hours including border crossing) but it takes very long. Popular destinations are: In the north of Chile: San Pedro de Atacama, Calama, Antofagasta, La Serena + Islas Damas + Valle Elqui In the south of Chile: Pucón, Torres del Paine, Puerto Natales, Puerto Varas / Puerto Montt, Chilo é, Islas Magdalenas, Punta Arenas and maybe Osorno and Valdivia. Outside of Chile there are a lot of destinations, too much to write down all of them here. But most of the exchange students go to Argentina (e.g. Mendoza, Ushuaia and El Calafate in the south, Salta in the north and Buenos Aires), Bolivia (at least La Paz, maybe also Uyuni and the Titicaca Lake) and Perú (e.g. Titicaca Lake, Cusco / Machu Picchu, if one has time also to Nazca and Lima). The high season is usually more expensive, no matter where one goes. In Chile this is from about December until February, but also the week before and after the national holiday which is on September 18th. If one plans to go to Patagonia, going closer to high season is preferable as in winter it said to be really cold and not nice for hiking and similar activities, which are the "main tourist attractions" there. In other countries, the high season might be at another time, e.g. in Perú and Bolivia the time between December and February is low season as it is rain season there. However, between Christmas and the first or second week in January is holiday season there so it is similar to high season. Living Student dorms don't exist in Chile, so one has the following options: - residencia - host family - private flat

5 - shared flat A residencia comes closest to a student dorm. One has its own room, some other exchange students usually live there but one also gets meals there and the room gets cleaned. Altough this sounds quite good, it is very expensive, at least the few residencias promoted by the Santa María: about 800 USD per month. Although living with a chilean family might be interesting to learn about the "real" life of Chileans, I was not really interested in that so I can't tell a lot about it, i.e. no prices or how to get in contact with them. If one considers this, it might be the best to contact the OAI at the USM. Especially in Viña Del Mar there are a lot of private flats for rent. One possibility is to go to the buildings and ask the concierge if there are any free apartements. However, for me it was not really successful. Another way is to study newspapers or, of course, search the web. The rent often doesn't include the "gastos comunes", which are for maintenance of the building, water, current, etc., so they depend on how many people live in the flat etc. Most flats are for two to four people, having usually two bed and two bath rooms, a kitchen and a combined living/dining room. Internet is often not present, but one can get a contract e.g. with Moviestar, also for only a few months. On the other hand, the flats are usually fully equiped, from kitchen - including crockery and cutlery - to beds, couches etc. As I didn't live in such a situation as well I can only tell what I heard from other students, but for three or four people living together it is about EUR. And consider that a lot of buildings in Viña have a roof terrace, a pool (which might also be on the roof terrace!), BBQ places, a gym, a laundry,... and 24h security. For me, a shared flat was the best option as I wanted to live with a chilean to learn Spanish. Eventually someone told be about the website which serves exactly this needs. It is platform where people can sign up (you have to if you want to use it, there is a free and a paid membership) and write that they are searching a flat or that they are searching a room mate for their flat. The only bad thing on this web platform is, that if both have only a free membership, they can't contact each other; But if you are a free member and the one who searches a flat mate (or the other way around) it is no problem. However, this eliminates a few opportunities but one still has enough to choose from. Some people on the website also rent you only one room in the flat without living their themselves (which was not so nice, I think). The flats are of course fully equiped as others live there as well, sometimes also a cleaning lady is included, all the gastos are included and - usually - also internet. Costs are quite similar to the private flats, around EUR. One thing is to decide if one wants to live in Viña del Mar or in Valparaíso. Valpo is more beautiful, has more charme, it's just more "south america". Viña on the other hand seems more european, more touristy, but it also is much safer and the standards in the flats are much higher than in Valpo, e.g. I didn't hear anything from people living in Viña about problems with hot water where in Valpo it seemed quite common in a lot of flats to not have always warm water... I also suggest to not try to get a flat before beeing in Chile. When one is there, it is possible to first have a look at both cities, visit all the apartements, have a look in which neighbourhoods they are etc. Just book a hostel for e.g. a week and search a flat in this time. But of course it is possible to already filter out some interesting seeming apartments.