Details

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

1. Preparation

The application process is not very complicated. After selecting your preferences, you will get interviewed, mainly about why you want to go on a exchange. Afterwads you get assigned to the university. You also have to take the class Cross-cultural Competences ("IKK") before going abroad. I just informed myself a little bit about the university, the city and Norway in general, espeicially about how things are organised at the university and what you can do around Bergen (hikes, trips, events, ...). I would also recommend to read the exchange reports from former students here at the NHH to get a good picture about life in Bergen.

2. Accommodation

Everyone gets a guaranteed spot in a student residence provided by Sammen. Most of the exchange students stay in the F block at Hatleberg. It is located right across the street from the NHH, so your walk to the university takes only couple minutes. Also you only need about 20min to the city center with the bus, which goes almost every minute and even quite often during the night. The view over the bay from the windows is also amazing. In general, the location of Hatleberg is almost perfect. However, the student residence itself was very difficult. You share a room with another person (you can ask to get into a room with a friend but for me and another student from WU it didn't work somehow). In the room there is a bunk bed, a wardrobe, a desk with a chair and a bathroom. The kitchen and living room is shared with 11 other rooms (so 24 people in total), but often people from other floors come to your kitchen to cook here as well. Therefore, it is often very crowded and it gets often extremly dirty, which is very frustrating at times, espeically later on. You have only very little privacy and space for yourself at Hatleberg. The only advantage of this would be that you are in the same building with almost all of your friends and thus never lonely. As the housing market is very expensive in Bergen, this is still the best option you have here, so you got do deal with it.

3. Academic life at host university

Compared to the WU, the campus is rather small, but located very beautifully with a view over the sea. On the campus you find everything: classrooms, library, study halls and a cantine. The academic culture at NHH is more informal, but everything is very well organised. There are less students at the university and in lectures, so everything is more familiar and relaxed. For studying, there is a library where you are allowed to talk and several smaller study halls, where it is quit. However, Norwegians start to study very early in morning, so during exam period everything is full at seven or eight in the morning. A lot of exchange students studied in the common room in the C block at hatleberg, but I didn't like that at all. The courses are structured a little bit differently compared to the WU. You have to pass the compulsory activity to be allowed to take part at the exam. The compulsory activity is usually a presentation or assignments (doesn't count towards your grade), the exam is mostly a term paper or written exam. The woarkload for the exams is rather low, however because you have so much time for the exam, they expect rather long answers from you. The academic level of this university is not too difficult (especially bachelor courses, master courses can be more challenging), so coming from the WU you should be well prepared, however people from different countries struggled a little bit more. In most of the courses, you don't have mandatory attendence. As a bachelor student, you can also select specific master courses. I chose two master courses (ENE423 and ECN423) and two bachelor courses (SAM15 and SAM20). I really liked my choices except for ENE423 where the professor was very weird and his teaching methods made it uncomfortable to sit in class. The other three courses were very interesting and the workload wasn't too high either so I can definetely recommend those (espeically SAM20). Be careful when selecting the courses regarding the exam dates as I would defintely avoid having exams at the end of the exam period!

5. Every day life in the host country

The bus system is very good in Bergen. There are buses going from the university almost every minute and there are are also good bus connections in the Vestland region, sou can do quite a lot with the bus. There is alos the Bybanen to the airport, but it takes very long to get to the aiport. It is very, very safe in Bergen even when it is dark outside (which can be very early), so there has never been a situation where some of us felt unsafe. You also notice immedeately that trust is very important in Norwegian society, so Norwegians trust each other a lot, so it feels like there are hardly any crimes in the city. Bars and restaurants are very expensive in Bergen (espcially alcohol). When we went for a night out, we were always pre-gaming before at the student residence before going to a bar or club to avoid the extremly high prices there. The clubs in Bergen are better than expected and the Norwegians are relatively often very drunk, so there have been a lot of fun nights here in Bergen. Regarding sports options, the student association offers a lot of sports club, however it is almost impossible to get into most of the clubs, because they do not take any exchange students. Besides I can really recommend to go hiking in the fjords or also running in the city, which is so beautiful in Bergen. There is a nicely equiped fitness studio at the campus where most of the exchanged students signed up for. Very popular in Norway are saunas. There is a free sauna in the gym, but you should defintely try a floating sauna on the see, where you can jump into the cold water in between. Besides that you should take this oppportunity to explore the fjords and mountains around Bergen. They are so easy accesible, but so beautiful. Places I can recommend: 7 mountains around Bergen, Trolltunga, Hardangerfjord and Flam for a day trip (or two days), for longer trips Oslo, Stavanger or Tromso.

6. Testimonial

The exchange semester in Bergen was truly an unique experience. The city and the region around it is so beautiful, you can do so many trips here that you don't even have the time for all of them. You meet so many new people from all over the world and make easily new friends immiedeately. The university is also very interesting as I learned many new things here. However, there are also quite a few challenges here: the prices here are extremly high (especially for alcohol), it rains a lot, it gets dark very early in the winter and the situation in the student residence is not easy either. A lot of my friends struggled with that and even for myself it was difficult sometimes, but it definetely helps you growing as a person. So before choosing Bergen, you need to be aware of those challenges. If you want a relaxing semester on the beach under the sun and nothing to do for the university, there are probably better options than Bergen. But if you want a completely unique, different experiece that you will never forget in of the most beautiful countries on earth and a university where you will get a different perspective on economy, I can defintely recommend the NHH and Bergen.