Details

• Viet Nam
• BaWiSo-23
• Undergraduate
• SoSe 2026
• Time spent at the partner university: 4 months

1. Preparation

Most importantly: get your vaccinations! In terms of finding flights or accomodation, you will be fine. Some exchange students started in an AirBNB for a few days. There are plenty of options, so do not stress out. There are no direct flights from Vienna to Ho Chi Minh City. I would recommend to book a ticket via Singapore or Taiwan.

2. Accommodation

I found an accomodation pretty easily as I just overtook the apartment of the last semster´s exchange student from WU. It was a apartment in a nice district. Affordable, pretty central and overall nice. It is located in a good district (D3) so it wasn´t far at all to get to the center. It takes about 15 minutes to reach University if u take a Grab which I would always recommend. When searching for an accomodation, again: don´t stress out! I think on Facebook you can find the options for a long-term stay.

3. Academic life at host university

Well, it is obviously different. Expect to take part in at least 20 presentations in your exchange. On the other side I don´t think thecourses are easy to fail. Just keep in mind that you should meet the attendence criteria, which is about 80%. If you do that and also keep up with the assignments, you will be fine and have enough time to travel around South East Asia. You are going to be located in Campus B, District 10. Expect to wait at elevator quite some time. In terms of course recommentdation: I can´t really recommend anything as I think they mix the courses up every semester. Maybe try to get in "Principles of ..." courses, they are pretty straight forward

5. Every day life in the host country

Public transportation is basically non-existent. Everybody moves around on motorbikes. You will need Grab or Be or XanhSM to get from destination A to destination B. Safety situation: Not for one second I felt unsafe in Vietnam. You will see that the people here a extremely peaceful and harmless. There was no problem even for some female exchange students moving around at 3 am by themselves. So you will see that you feel much safer than in Europe. Social activities, depends on what you like. I was playing football with the university team and went to the gym. Other thatn that I dont know if there are any activities by the university.

6. Testimonial

I didnt feel any culture shock at all, even though I never was in Asia before. Expect hot weather from January to March, friendly, peaceful people - but there is abig big language barrier though - and a comparatively cheap stay. The food here is also extremely nice. I think Vietnam in general is very easy going and the perfect choice when coming to Asia the first time. You will have a good time.