Details

• Belgium
• MAWiRe-21
• Graduate
• WS 2025
• Time spent at the partner university: 5 months

1. Preparation

I experienced the application process for Business Law students as rather easy, as I only had to write a motivational letter about my semester abroad. More challenging was the decision on my preferences. A tip for that would be, to rank your favourites at the position 1 and 2. At number three I decided for a city, that I also wanted to go, but which I considered less popular. I also think that in the end, it doesn't really matter where you are going for your erasmus, as the experience to go on erasmus itself is the highlight. I also chose 7 preferences to make sure that I really can go on erasmus. Before going to Antwerp, I made a packing list to not forget anything for the trip. Furthermore, I booked my train a couple of months in advance. That way I got cheap prices. I think going with the train is favorable to flying, as you can take more luggage with you and I also wanted to travel more eco friendly. I took the öbb night train to brussels and then the regional belgian train. To go back I took the german train. What I can really recommend is buying the interrail ticket for erasmus students, which offeres a very good price. Furthermore, the university of antwerp published their course offered for erasmus students early. A big recommendation is also, that you should attend the dutch course "survival on arrival". It gives you a perfect opportunity to meet up with other exchange students before the start of university. The people I met there got really good friends of me.

2. Accommodation

There are mostly two types of searching for an accomodation: You can apply for the university offer for accommodations. That way you can really get cheap accomodations which are sometimes also very well situated. But the rooms can also be not so nice and small. The other method is to apply on private websites like kotweb, which I decided on. I was already searching for a room in March. My student housing was situated in the student quarter, which was perfect, as I mostly walked 5 min to the university and also was not far from the city center. In that quarter I felt really safe.

3. Academic life at host university

The university of Antwerp consists of a lot of buildings. The mensa and library are situated next the the main building, which is also a old and very beautiful building. For the library you have to reserve a seat and one reservation is limited to approximately 4 hours, but you can also guarantee a longer stay at the library with more than one reservation. In the exam period, there is also a nice offer which is called study360. Normal rooms like co-working spaces, are temporary offered to students to study for exams. I really liked that and used it quite often. The academic culture is similar to WU. Mostly you have to come to class prepared and than participate in class. What was new were oral exams. I had two and it involved a preparation of 30 minutes and after that present the results to the professor. I think as it mostly involved reading out to the lecturer what you had prepared, it wasn't that different from normal written exams. But there were also some questions asked, which could not be prepared beforehand. In general as a law student you can decide if you want to make a cluster which consists of three subjects amounting a total of 21 credits. These clusters have to be taken at once and are rather challenging and time-consuming, as you have to write a lot of assignments. On the other hand, you can also pick individual courses. Then you have less to do during the semester but more exams in the end. I took that option and really liked that. I really can recommend the Transnational legal scholarship, as you heard three different weekly lecutres from guest-professors outside of Belgium and in general I would consider the subject as rather chill. And I would also recommend the course Private international law, as it is an important topic and you don't have to attend the classes too.

5. Every day life in the host country

There is a very good train system in Belgium, which is very affordable for students and I used the train to visit a lot of cities in Antwerp. To get to destinations outside of Belgium I used the flixbus, which functioned really good as the bus station is situated in the center of the city. You can also easily go to Paris, London, Luxembourgh, Lille and a lot of other places via flixbus or in case of London with the train. Furthermore in Antwerpen I mostly only used the Velo Bike, which is a bike you get at stations and can be compared to the next bike in Vienna. There are a lot of stations all around the city and the year subscription only costs around 50€. The city of Antwerp felt really safe for me. Unfortunately I heard from others that they felt different in specific parts of the city. In my leasure time, I went to the beatiful bars or cafes in Antwerp. The university offers with the so called sport sticker a very good option to try out a lot of types of sport for little money. With that they offer everyday different sports you can go to if you bought the sport sticker for about 30€ a semester. Also in the beginning of the semester, the university organised two big open air parties, where they played a lot of good songs and a lot of people attended. It felt more like a festival than a party to be honest.

6. Testimonial

I made a lot of new friendships and after a few days it felt we knew each other for a long time. As daytrips were so easy to do from Antwerp, I got to see so many beautiful places and each place had something unique. I also really liked, how open people were in Erasmus, it was never easier to make new friends. Now I have friends all over Europe and I can't wait to meeting them again.