PREPARATION STUDY ABROAD PERIOD. Hungary - Eötvös Loránd University (Budapest) Report 1. level bachelor s master s PhD

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1 Report 1 faculty/college Utrecht University level bachelor s master s PhD name study programme Language and Culture studies exchange application process PREPARATION It took some time after my application before the international office in Budapest contacted me. Most of my friends had already received an with the application details in april, but I still hadn't received an at the end of May. I mailed the international office and i got a reply very soon that it was not a mistake. It just takes a lot of time because the international office in budapest is runned by only one person. counselling &support at Utrecht University When is was worried that someting had gone wrong with my application in Budapest, the internaional office in Utrecht helped me out by contacting the international office in Budapest. academic preparation language preparation I didn't do any language preparation. ELTE offer a lot of courses in English and I chose not to learn Hungarian because it is a very difficult language. But in case you are thinking about Hungarian language classes; ELTE offers a special Hungarian course in the summer. It is also possible to attend Hungarian courses during the semester. You can find more information about those courses on ELTE's website. finances I had heard that Hungary is a really cheap country compared to the Netherlands, but during my stay in Budapest I spended more money than I would in the Netherlands because I traveled a lot in the weekends and went out for dinner and drinks more often than in the Netherlands. study programme (content and organisational issues) STUDY ABROAD PERIOD It can be difficult to find the humanities courses that are in English because they are all on different websites. I attended courses at the English department and the Media department. In the admission that the international office sends you, they will tell you where to find the available courses as well. academic quality of education activities The studyload was quite low and we did not have a lot of contact hours (only 1,5 hours once a week per course). I did, however, learn a lot because of the different perspectives in class. I attended a course about Hungarian history where i learned a lot about the everyday life in a socialist country. Another class I was in was about how enemies and allies are formed. Here I learned a lot about the perspectives of 'not western societies' on America and western Europe. counselling &support at receiving university abroad The international office and all of my teachers responded very quickly if I ed them with questions. The only difficulty I had was when I had to meet with Sandor Balaci (the international office). Because he runs the international office on his own he is always busy and not always in his office. But most of the time when i had to meet him he was there the first or second time i came by his office. transfer of credits

2 At ELTE they work with a gradingscale from 1 to 5(5 is the highest grade). At the end of the semester I had to go to all of my teachers to let them fill in the Transcript of Records. This transcript states my endgrades and ECTS. As far as I know, these results will be added to my studyresults in Utrecht. welcome &orientation programme STUDENT LIFE ESN ELTE organised different activities to get to know the city and the other erasmusstudents. They also work with a mentorprogram; just before the semester starts you can sign up to get a mentor who can help you with all kinds of things. accommodation Accommodation is a lot cheaper compared to Utrecht, for about euros you can find a really nice appartment in the center of the city. Because I had heard that it is quite easy to find accommodation in Budapest, I decided to look for a room after I arrived in Budapest. It took me a bit longer than I expected because there were more erasmusstudents than before, but after a week I had found a really nice place in the city centre. leisure &culture Budapest is a beautiful city and there is always something happening or to do and even in my last days i discovered new nice places. In summer there are a lot of ouside ruinbars and in winter there is a christmasmarket on ever corner of the street. Budapest has a lot of coffeeshops, restaurants, and bars. Especially the 7 th district is nice for going out to eat or drink. Budapest also has a lot of beautiful historic buildings and museums like the Parliament, the National Museum and the House of Terror. suggestions/tips I stayed in a hostel the first week because i decided to look for a room after my arrival in Budapest. At the hostel were some other erasmusstudents looking for appartments as well and I have met a lot of my friends there. After a week I had found accommodation. I am glad that I did it like this because you are sure that you won't be deceived and it is really easy to meet people when you are staying in a hostel. The best places to live are between the tram 4-6 and the Danube (district 5, 6, 7) CONCLUSIONS would you recommend this university/destination abroad to others? please explain I would definitely recommend Budapest as destination abroad. It has a very lively erasmus community and it is cheap compared to Utrecht. Another advantage of Budapest is that it is really easy to travel to other places in Europe. During my Erasmus I travelled to Poland, Austria, Slovenia and Serbia. do you have any additional advice or comments? Report 1 faculty/college Humanities level bachelor s master s PhD name study programme exchange application process Nederlandse taal en cultuur PREPARATION The application process at the senting institution went smoothly (it was clear what the expected me to hand in), and I was very happy when I received an (March 7 th ) which said that my application was approved and that the receiving institution would contact me with further instructions. But half

3 May I still hadn't received any information, so I wrote UU's to ask whether this was normal or not. They sent the ELTE's an and it turned out that something went wrong in the ELTE's registration and I wasn't in the loop, but now they knew they checked everything and approved my application anyway. I have to note here that I received the letter of general acceptance and invitation only end of June (so don't stress too much when you hear others saying that they already received it much earlier). counselling & support at Utrecht University Before applying for an exchange I attended two presentations about studying abroad: one from the faculty of Humanities and one that was for Dutch Language and Culture students only. At the latter one I was informed about the possibilities of doing an internship Dutch as a foreign language at an university abroad. Besides those presentations, the website of the offers a lot of information too. And a few months before thee exchange would start, the organized a pre-departure meeting in which they told a lot about the paperworks and culture shocks, etc. academic preparation Before leaving to Budapest I earned already 195 ECTS for courses in my field of study: Dutch Language and Culture. To prepare for my internship at the department of Dutch Studies, I took part in a course on teaching Dutch as a second language. The other two courses I took were in Social History, but I didn't specifically prepare for those. language preparation As the courses I enrolled in were in English and Dutch, I didn't really had to do any language preparation, but because I also wanted to understand more of Hungarian culture and to get around in Budapest a little more easily I participated in a 4-weeks Hungarian Language and Culture Summer Program at the University. I would really recommend others to do this Summer University as well, because you learn very much in a short time, even the smallest knowledge of Hungarian language makes your everyday life much easier (quite a lot of people don't speak English) and it is much fun. finances I received a student grant from DUO, Public Transportation compensation and had some personal savings and all that together was enough to live in Budapest. Every month I spent approximately 330,- on the rent of my room, 200,- on food, 40,- on leisure activities, 8,- on my mobile phone and 12,- on study materials like notebooks, binders and copying at the copyshop. And every month I paid 14,- for a monthly student public transport pass with which I could travel through whole Budapest by tram, bus, metro and HEV. study programme (content and organisational issues) STUDY ABROAD PERIOD I enrolled in three courses at the university: two courses on social history in English and one course on adaptations of literary texts in Dutch. The organisation of the dutch course was good. We know exactly what to read for the seminars, received the texts on time and we knew from the beginning that we were expected to write a paper about an adaptation ourselves which would be graded in the end. The history courses on the other hand, were chaotic. The teacher sent us the readings by , but that went wrong almost every time. I was one of the lucky ones who received her s, but a lot of students didn't receive anything at all. So I was one of the only ones who really read the literature, and even I wasn't able to read everything every week because sometimes she sent it only 1,5h before the seminar started (08.30AM for a seminar at 10.00AM). Besides that, the classes were a bit chaotic as well. For example: we had to tell about cases of the studied subject in our own country on the spot (after 5 minutes in which we could thing about an example). The discussions that followed weren't that profound as they had to, because a lot of people didn't have enough knowledge on the subject to discuss about. Another point is that the classroom was too small. Every class at least four students didn't had a desk and sat behind the teachter; something that must have been very annoying when she gave a PowerPoint presentation, as she - since the lack of a projector - held the computer in her hand. But, despite the bad organisation I really liked the courses, because we discussed topics I was and still am interested in but never learned about during my courses in Utrecht. And the organisation and seminars being so different from how they would have been in Utrecht was an experience in itself. Besides the courses I did an internship at the university for which I assisted the professors at the department

4 of Dutch Studies. One of my tasks was for example taking care of the conversation lessons for first and secondyear bachelor students and assisting in language acquisition classes. academic quality of education activities The academic quality of the history courses I took wasn't as high as it would be in the Netherlands, because the communication was very bad. For the rest, see above. counselling & support at receiving university abroad Before my exchange started the support wasn't good: I couldn't find courses I could take and the international office man didn't answer my questions, but during the exchange everything was more or less clear. At the start of the semester, I had to registrate myself at university in person at the. When I went there to do so, the man from the told me how to register myself for courses (collecting signatures of the teachers) and how to receive a Transcript of Records. For the rest I didn't really needed more counselling or support, so it was OK. The only thing I missed was more information about courses that were thaught in English. I could only find a few, but during the seminars I heard from other students about courses of which I didn't even know they existed (but which sounded very interesting and I might have liked to attend some of them if I knew about their existance earlier). transfer of credits Not all my credits have been transferred yet. The examination commission has approved all the courses I took but my grades aren't all registered in Osiris yet (but I handed in my complete Transcript of Records only a few days ago at the Studiepunt, so I assume that my credits will be processed soon). The credits of the intensive language and culture course (summer university) I participated in are already transferred and that went well. welcome & orientation programme STUDENT LIFE In the first week all the exchange students were welcomed in the main hall of the Faculty of Law where we were informed about course registration, student passes, the university and getting around in Budapest in general. After the presentations there was an information market were all the different faculties represented themselves and where you could collect information about sport, enviromental care and music clubs. After this ESN ELTE organized an scavenger hunt through which we could get to know the city and each other. accommodation I tried to get a room in one of the dormitories, but in June (when I was informed about the possibility to stay in a dorm) the only rooms left were shared rooms and I liked to have my own room. And besides that, I actually prefered a room closer to the city center. To find a shared flat, I was advised to look at facebook pages, but it wasn't as easy as people told me that it would be. In the end I rented a room in a shared (4 person) flat in the city center, district VI, from a student rental agency (SRS). leisure & culture In my leisure time did a lot of cultural things. I went to the Kürtőskalács Fesztivál were I ate a very big kürtőskalács (some kind of Hungarian pastry that is baked on a stick), the National Gallop (Nemzeti Vágta) at Heroes Square (Hősök tere), the city of red wines Eger, the basilica (bazilika), an escape room, some museums, and much more. And I also went a couple of times to the Hungarian State Opera (Magyar Állami Operaház) to see an opera or ballet, which was beautiful and cheap (tickets from 2 ). suggestions/tips Try meet with Hungarians and find pubs tourists don't go to. And if you like music: go to a concert. Hungarian culture is a musical culture, the quality of concerts is very high and the venues are beautiful too (visit for example the Hungarian State Opera or the Franz Liszt Academy of Music (Liszt Ferenc Zeneakadémia). CONCLUSIONS would you recommend this university/destination abroad to others? please explain Yes, I would definitely recommend this destination abroad to other students, because it is in a lot of aspects very different from the Nederlands: language, politics, food, history, wealth, how things are organized and

5 nature. do you have any additional advice or comments? Try to apply for the Intensive Language and Culture Summer University. I might take some effort, but it is absolutely worth it!