Travel Report. Ljubljana, Slovenia. Spring Semester University of Ljubljana. Faculty of Economics

Transcription

1 Travel Report Ljubljana, Slovenia Spring Semester University of Ljubljana Faculty of Economics 1

2 1. Preparing for the exchange Slovenia is a EU-country, the requirements for EU-citizens are not too extensive. Personal top-tip: Unless you are living in the dorms (where it is a requirement), skip the residence permit. Nobody will ever ask you for it and at least for me it was quite an inconvenience to get it. I went to the agency and filled all the papers with a clerk there, however, all of it was wrong. First, I had to come again, because the form I filled (which was handed to me by the lady there) was the wrong one. Later, I had to hand in a copy of my e-card again; I only copied one side, but both sides would have been necessary. Finally, when my application was processed, they lost my residence permit card. After a week or so, they informed me that they found it in another guy s application folder. The whole endeavour took from the beginning of February until the beginning of April and I have been to the agency about 5 times there is always a long waiting line. Nobody ever asked me about the permit and most EU-students just never applied for one. There are multiple ways to travel from Helsinki to Ljubljana. There are no direct flights, but you can change at any bigger German Airport or in Stockholm. The flights to LJU can be quite expensive, consider also going to close Airports like Trieste, Venice, Klagenfurt (e.g. with Germanwings) or Graz. From all of these Airports there are buses and trains going to Ljubljana. Another great way to get around here are car pools, such as blablacar.com. They are very cheap and widely used by students. I was able to travel to Graz for only 9 and saved a lot of time compared to the train. The whole application process is done online at the Faculty of Economics, be on time with submitting your stuff in order to avoid inconveniences. The deadline for the summer semester was November Exchange studies My studies started with the orientation days on th of February and ended on June 15 th. The courses that are available for exchange students are online, however, the timetable is not. A lot of students, including me, had to reschedule classes during the first week; the procedure was rather straight forward (online-form) and the International Office was very helpful. BE AWARE, that there are periods, just like there are periods at Aalto. From the course list that is published online, one could get the impression, that all courses would run for the whole semester which some of them don t. I had one course that was running for the whole semester, two in the first period (end of February to End of April) and one in the second period (End of April to mid of June). The first time was very stressful for me, during the first month I had to already 5 tests, one seminar paper, presentations and more. On the one hand this was a good thing, as I had more free-time in later months, when the weather would be better on the other hand, I missed quite a lot of introduction events (e.g. trips or parties) consider both when you make your study plan! In general, I would advise you to take Bachelor-Level courses if you have the possibility most of the exchange students are there and the courses are easier. Don t get me wrong: As you will see in the later descriptions, I took only Master-Level courses and I would do it again; the higher workload was okay for me, because I was really interested in the topics. The course selection is free and you don t have to follow a certain program. The English of my lecturers was very good. Here are the courses that I took and some brief descriptions: I attended the first lesson of Taxes and Tax-Harmonization in the EU, before I changed the course. Avoid this one at all cost. 2

3 Economic Growth and Development Master level, 8ECTS This is a very interesting course about the mechanisms of economic growth. You will discuss the factors of economic growth and depict the differences between nations. Among other things, we discussed why some nations are rich, some are poor, the influence of institutions, the influence of democracy/ dictatorship and global warming all on a scientific level of course. However, this is a master-level economics course, therefore you should feel comfortable with mathematical models (e.g. Solow-Growth-Model or Ramsey-Optimization-Model) and their derivation. The workload is rather high (lots of articles to read, seminar paper, 2 tests), but the topics are very interesting. I am glad that I took this course, most of the stuff I learned there was new for me. The teacher took a lot of efforts and was always available for questions. Another thing I want to point out is, that the number of students that took this course was rather low this year, therefore we were allowed to write the seminar paper individually; this was the first time for me in a long time to carry out a project of such extend (15 pages) alone. Don t get me wrong, I have nothing against group work, it was just that nowadays everything is done in group, therefore working on my own was something special. International Competitiveness Master level, 7ECTS In this course you will learn about the concepts of measuring competitiveness of nations and the principles behind it. The focus is thereby lays on the frameworks of three institutions (IMD, World Bank, WEF), which will be discussed in depth. The course is very straight-forward. It has a high workload at the beginning, but ends a bit earlier. You can write a couple of tests and do a seminar paper OR have one big examination at the end. I chose latter option, which did not go very well; I mixed up the three frameworks at the test and got a D, which then also represented my final grade. I could retake the test, however, none of the available dates fitted my schedule. In hindsight, I regret not writing the seminar paper, in which you evaluate three countries competitiveness and derive suggestions for improvement a rather interesting topic. International Finance 2 - Master level, 7ECTS One of the most interesting courses that I took in my academic career. The professor is a former Finance Minister and advisor to the government of Slovenia and is very competent and passionate about the topic. The content includes macro-economic theories of currencies and exchange rates, international institutions, such as the IMF or the Worldbank as well as a seminar work on debt-sustainability-analysis of a certain country. My group evaluated Greece; we examined 10 years of financial data and came up with future projections a task that I enjoyed very much. Furthermore, the principles of the financial crisis were examined on a macro-economic and a political level. I found the contents very enriching on both, a professional and a personal level, as I now understand current political debates and economic mechanisms better. The workload was okay, in this course it is more about understanding then learning by hard, the exam at the end was open-book. One of the best features of this course is that the professor has personal real-world examples for nearly every topic, taken from his impressive career. I can highly recommend taking this course. 3

4 Corruption and Development, 7ECTS This course teaches you the theories behind corruption. You will learn how corruption is measured and what is currently done against it. The topic is interesting, but you should not underestimate the theory behind it. The course is similar to Competitiveness; it is also held by the same professor and his wife. The workload is again rather high, there are tests at every lecture (covering the content of two scientific articles) and a seminar paper OR an exam at the end. This time I took the first option and I am very happy with my choice. 3. Free time and other information The cost of living is lower compared to Finland; you can get a 0.5 beer in a bar in Metelkova (you will figure out rather soon what this is when you are in Ljubljana) for 1,60, average price is about 2,50. Food is cheaper than in Finland as well, travelling of course depends on your preferences most students managed to get around on a very low budget. A place that I want to point out because it might be overlooked in the vast amount of possibilities, is Predjama, a castle that is built into a cave. Go there and explore it it is amazing (picture below). There are multiple possibilities for accommodation. You can life in the dorms, you can life in a shared apartment or you can rent your own. Although the dorms are very cheap (about 130 per month) I cannot recommend them, as you do not have your own room, but share it with someone else. I took a private apartment, but I also would not recommend that, as it might be unnecessarily expensive (I wanted one for several personal reasons, for me it made sense). The best option in my opinion is to invest about per month for a shared apartment. The most helpful sources are the Facebookgroup for exchange students in Ljubljana. The homepage is also useful, but it is in Slovenian. Rooms that are suitable for exchange students there are marked with Primerno za tujce. One thing that I want to point out here, is the social component of the students dorms; although the shared rooms might be uncomfortable in terms of privacy, most of the social life is happening there, because a great share of students stays there (in my exchange semester I d say about 80%). Travel plans, 4

5 excursions, or just plans for dinner everything is easier when you live in the dorms. Although I had my own place in the centre, I spent quite a lot of time in the Bezigrad dorm. There are many possibilities to get to know other exchange students, the student s association is very active in that sense. A very helpful tool is again, the Facebook-group for exchange students in Ljubljana. In my experience, Slovenian Master-level students were a bit more difficult to come-by, because most of them were actually working full time. Also, a lot of Slovenian students come from other cities and often go home over the weekend. I met many friendly and interesting Slovenian students, however, making plans was very difficult because of their tight schedule. For these reasons, most exchange students (including me) were hanging out more with other exchangers rather than Slovenians and a lot of us found that unfortunate. Ljubljana is not too popular with Finnish students, I barely met any; whether this is an advantage or disadvantage lays in your own evaluation. The biggest groups were Germans and Spaniards. A thing to point out here is the food-voucher systems for students in Slovenia. Once you registered your phone at the Student Union s office next to the brewery, you are able to get discounts in a great number of restaurants throughout the city. Every month you get 20 vouchers. A student meal consists of a soup, a salad, a main dish, a dessert (usually an apple) and a glass of water. You can try many different restaurants and it is a vital factor of an exchange student s social life (when, where, with whom). Some limitations: The system is only usable until 8pm (6pm for some restaurants in the centre) and between the uses there has to be a 4-hour period. The preferred choice of transport in Ljubljana is the bicycle. Buses are slow and run on long intervals, there are no trams. There are bike-lanes throughout the city and they even have a free rental bike system (biciklj.lj). I would recommend to get your own bike, a used one costs around 50 and you are easily able to sell it after your stay here. Life in Ljubljana is wonderful. The vast majority of exchange students that I met would confirm this sentence without hesitating, however, this is of course a very subjective statement. For me, Ljubljana s size is something that I see as an advantage; ideal distances to cover by bike, no heavy traffic, smog or other disadvantages of metropolises, but a very cosy students-scene that is mostly compressed onto a handful of hotspots throughout the city, which makes it very easy to meet people and make friends. Other people might have a completely different opinion on this topic; I reckon, if your first choices are Tokyo and Shanghai, Ljubljana should not be your third one (you get the idea). 4. Final Comments The part with the recommendation is difficult. You might disagree, but I strongly believe that the place of exchange does not determinate your experience as strongly as one might think; an exchange semester depends mostly on you and your preferences and choices throughout the semester. There is no such thing as a perfect exchange semester ; forget about people s perception about what you must do when on exchange and focus on what you want to do. Ljubljana s central location in Europe empowers you to travel - there are places for every taste nearby. The city is small, whether or not you perceive that as an advantage depends on you it is just a factor that you have to keep in mind. There are more international students that the size of Ljubljana might suggest, e.g. on the Faculty of economics alone we were 160 (you sure won t be lonely) and there is a lot going on in the city, especially when there is nice weather. There are many places where you can just hang out and meet with friends (parks, the castle, the inner city, next to the river,...) a very popular 5

6 activity among exchange students. The university is great and there are many interesting courses available. In order to be more neutral I tried to find some disadvantages as well: - The location of Ljubljana might be central, but the public transport is very rudimentary: Flights are expensive, trains are slow (really, really slow). The preferred mode of travelling for exchange students was the rental car (which were rather cheap) or carpools like blablacar. - Don t expect everyone to talk English as well as the Finns do. In tourist areas it is okay, other than that you might experience difficulties - A lot of things are not as streamlined and modern as in Finland, e.g. payment with card is not as widely accepted For me, the exchange was a great experience, on a personal and on an educational level. You get to know different cultures and you learn to be more open. Personally, I gained most from talking to people from cultures, that differ completely from ours. It is very rewarding to leave your ethno-centric point of view and during an exchange you are simply forced to. In the end it can broaden your horizon and change your perspective. A thing that is often neglected when talking about exchange semesters: My courses were great and it were my first ones about Economics, therefore I really learned (and had to learn) a lot! I would do it again anytime and I have no regrets for choosing Ljubljana. As I said in the beginning, I am convinced that the place of your exchange is just a minor factor among many: An exchange semester is what you make out of it! 6