Details

• Italy
• BaWiSo-23
• Undergraduate
• WS 2025
• Time spent at the partner university: 4 months

1. Preparation

Application process: Consider what the real motive for your exchange is: Do you aim do have a very well-know university with higher work load, an university in a specific position (e.g. direct at the beach), a great city to go out and meet new people. Reflect why you aim certain destinations and due to your reflection you instantly prepare yourself for the interview, where they will ask you instantly about your motive. Preparation: Rome is an amazing city, but is facing an housing crises with high rents, especially in Parioli (the neighborhood where LUISS is located and very fancy and wealthy), so you should for sure try to secure a room 4-6 months in advance (I secured mine end of March for September). Besides that I would recommend learning some basic Italian vocabulary and just be excited for Rome. :-)

2. Accommodation

Search Experience: I heard that facebook or other ,sketchy' forms of accommodation search should not be used at all, I booked my room via. Spotahome which was costly (e.g. around 400 EUR as far as I remember for a fee), but they secure that the flat/room exists and that was one of my main goals. Type: I lived in a big 5 bedroom flat in Parioli with a single room (around 25m2, AC etc.) with a terrace. It was a 15min walk away from LUISS and as mentioned Parioli is an amazing and very very safe neighborhood with great restaurants and a very charming vibe. Never felt unsafe or anything sketchy happened to me or friends. Tips: Look early

3. Academic life at host university

LUISS feels like a vacation: Everywhere on campus are music boxes (you listen to ,Last friday night' on a monday morning) and has an amazing garden where you can study and hang out. It feels sometimes like a resort, but is very gated (you need to check in with a QR to even enter). Academic culture and teaching: I did 3 masters courses and 1 bachelor course and would say regarding business it is way more relaxed than WU but also a bit chaotic/intransparent regarding grading and you do not learn that much. What really annoyed me was that for an english taught course they invited great guest speakers but held every talk only in Italian...

5. Every day life in the host country

Public transport: Lets be honest it does not really work in Rome (buses do not come, or are too late for an hour etc), so I drove in total 320km with Lime to get on time to other places/explore the city, which was very costly. Saftey: There are some places where I would not go to at night (around termini/south of termini) but overall quite safe. Activities: Numerous museums, art galeries, hike spots, great monuments and also the beach is closeby. events: ESN hosts a lot of events and parties and in Rome there are always other events

6. Testimonial

Rome and LUISS was the best choice in my life: It is an amazing city and we went out every week multiple times to great parties and ate every day at really nice restaurants. The uni makes it possible to spent (despite the 80% attendance ratio) a lot of time exploring and enjoying Rome.