Details

• Chile
• BaWiSo-23
• Undergraduate
• SoSe 2026
• Time spent at the partner university: 5 months
• Contact: Login to see contact information

1. Preparation

Listen in the IKK course of WU, know at least a basic level of spanish, most chilean people that didn‘t receive a private school education don‘t really know english, so for everyday live it‘s useful to know the basics. I traveled to Brasil before going to Chile, so I took a flight there from my hometown and then 3 weeks later another one from Sao Paolo to Santiago, I can recommend this if you want to travel anyways because it splits the long travel.

2. Accommodation

There is a lot of companies renting houses specifically for exchange students (santiago exchange, rumi,..), which I did too. I can recommend this because you get to live with other exchange students, which is really fun. I shared a house with 8 other people and it was an amazing experience that I would definitely do again. I would also say that this is what most people do. I would recommend to live in Las Condes because it is one of the safest, cleanest and for me also nicest comunas in Santiago and also closest to Uandes. Las Condes doesn’t have all the partys, but at night you need to take ubers anyway and it is pretty cheap, so you shouldn’t take that into acocunt. If you can, in general, I would recommend to live close to a Metro Station of the Line 1, because it gets you pretty much anywhere.

3. Academic life at host university

Uandes made me feel like I am back in High School again, they have pretty strict attendance, a lot of homework/assignments and three exam weeks, which can be stressful. The organization is really not the good and you can expect a lot of confusion, especially in the beginning when you need to choose your courses. However, the campus is really nice and has a lot of facilities that you can use like tennis, padel and football courts, a gym, coffeeshops and cafeterias. I would recommend to ask your buddy (that you get assigned from uandes) to help you with course selection because the courses rely heavily on the professor and how he likes to handle things.

5. Every day life in the host country

Santiago has a great public transport with a lot of busses and metros, you can get everywhere you need to go during the day by public transport. Areas like Las Condes are super safe and you don‘t need to worry, however, there is parts of the city that you shouldn‘t go (but also don‘t need to) and some that you need to be careful at night. Upon arrival everyone will tell you where that is and if you take ubers at night you should be fine. I personally never had a situation where I felt unsafe, but I also went to the „unsafe“ zones only with Chilean people, who know the city. The sports options are great, Uandes has a lot of them but there is also public free outdoor gyms that you can use and plenty of other sportsclubs in the city. For events/parties there is also always something going on and most of the time it‘s free to go for students. Chilean people are considered the most distant/coldest people in south america, but their hospitality and friendliness is amazing and could never be compared to Austria. A lot of them are also really curious, so don‘t be surprised by random people approaching you and asking where you are from etc. (Especially if you are blonde or very european looking)

6. Testimonial

I loved traveling a lot, discovering new places and experiencing especially the chilean culture. Meeting new people and talking to literally everyone was also one of the best parts!