Exchange Report

Start looking for accommodation early, but don’t stress if you don’t find anything right away. There are constantly new rooms becoming available, even if it might not seem that way at first. Think carefully about where you want to live. The university is in a rather boring neighbourhood, and due to really bad traffic, getting to the city centre isn’t as quick or easy as you might think and can also cost you quite a bit. However, the other way around, having to commute to university, comes with the same problems. If you plan on doing as little for university as possible and have a good budget, I would recommend living in Roma Norte or Condesa. Those are really nice and trendy districts that you’ll love. If you’re taking a lot of classes and want to save some money, stay around campus. In that case, really try to live as close as possible, since public transport is shit and Uber can also add up to quite a significant amount.

Start looking for accommodation early, but don’t stress if you don’t find anything right away. There are constantly new rooms becoming available, even if it might not seem that way at first. Think carefully about where you want to live. The university is in a rather boring neighbourhood, and due to really bad traffic, getting to the city centre isn’t as quick or easy as you might think and can also cost you quite a bit. However, the other way around, having to commute to university, comes with the same problems. If you plan on doing as little for university as possible and have a good budget, I would recommend living in Roma Norte or Condesa. Those are really nice and trendy districts that you’ll love. If you’re taking a lot of classes and want to save some money, stay around campus. In that case, really try to live as close as possible, since public transport is shit and Uber can also add up to quite a significant amount. If you choose the option close to campus try to stay at Hidalgo 26 or 32 it´´s the same landlorde and it is the perfect location, really nice price and amazing rooms!! Try contacting him as soon as possible since everyone knows that: edtenor@hotmail.com His name is Edgar and he is really nice. Personally I would not reccomend staying at Casa Magdalena/Alpina 11 it seems like the cheapest option, but it is also eqipped that way is moldy and doesn´t feel like a home.

ITAM University is really something different, and if you expect this to be a super chill semester where you will just pass everything without any effort, you are definitely in the wrong spot. Every course is worth around 7.5 ECTS, and for a reason. I had around one exam a week, as well as a lot of presentations, assignments, and quizzes. Classes are more compareable to school. Small and the teachers will know you by name. When it comes to the courses, I picked some of the easier ones, so at least the content wasn’t that hard. However, I heard that finance courses are really difficult, and most exchange students dropped them after a while. Professors are definitely more chill in classes meant for exchange students, even though the workload is still quite heavy. But don’t worry too much you’ll still be able to travel and do a lot around Mexico. Also, during the first week of classes, you are still allowed to switch courses however you want, so you can just go to the first class and see if you like it or not. Don’t worry about not getting into certain courses at first either; you’ll definitely still be able to join them. The campus is really cool, and they offer a lot of free time activities like salsa classes, all types of sports, and music.

Mexico City is very safe I would not worry about that. Ubers can reeeaally add up though and also eating out. It is really hard to put a number on expenses in Mexico since price ranges a lot! Taccos are really cheap but I promise after a while you can´t see them anymore. There is a metrobus which is really handy and I really recommend using it, the rest I didn´t really get a hang of Busses since they are privatly owned and kinda unpredictable. However you can save crazy money using some busses and cooking at home. Mexico City is really really cool and you will love it! For the beginning I recommend joining the "hang out" whatsapp group, they also have inta and are hosting events for exchange students and have some rooms for rent, but once you´re settled in Mexico has a lot better to offer.

University was definetly a lot more work than expected, however I loved Mexico a lot and traveled to a lot of different places. Maybe I even overdid it a little. Take your time to take everything in and just enjoy!