E-mail: g.p.w.denbiesen@tilburguniversity.edu Study Program: Bedrijfseconomie Exchange semester: Fall Academic year: 2016-2017 Host University: Noregs Handelshøgskole (NHH) Country: Norway I. GENERAL INFORMATION ABOUT THE SCHOOL The University: NHH (Noregs Handelshøgskole) NHH is situated in the second largest city of Norway called Bergen. The university is not located in the city center, but if you take the bus you can be in the center of Bergen in 10 minutes. NHH is compared with Tilburg University a small university. The university is a business school so everyone is doing something with organization and/or economics. NHH has around 3300 students. This includes bachelor, master and international students. Each year there are coming more and more international students to NHH. In my semester (Fall 2016) there were around 270 exchange students from all over the world, a new record for that university. The university is very international orientated. More than 50% of their students go on an exchange. The university consist of only one building. The building is surrounded by a lot of nature and has a view on the sea. So if you are studying in the library you have a beautiful view. The university is open 24/7. So if you feel the need to study 3 o clock in the night you just can go to the university and go in there with your student pass. The lecture rooms that I used were much smaller than in Tilburg. I liked it very much because then you can have more interaction with the professor and other students. The library of NHH is much smaller than the library in Tilburg. There are not that many computers but there are tables to work on when you have a group assignment. There is also a silence part where you can study well for your exams. The building can has an old and new part. In the old part you will find the cafeteria and the library. And in the new part are a lot of study rooms. You can compare the cafeteria with the Menza in Tilburg but then a little bit smaller. You can buy warm meals but also salads, yoghurt, drinks, etc. The best thing about the building were the study rooms. They were very modern and big enough to work with a big group. You can reserved a room so you are sure you can work in one of them. Doing a reservation is necessary because the study rooms are very popular among all the students. The university has a lot of associations. There are associations for studying, sports, music, (in)formal events, and much more. So if you want to do something besides only studying you can join them. I joined the volleyball team of the university. The sports hall was located right beside the university. You can buy a membership there to go to the gym or participate in different sports. The university has also their own international committee. In the beginning of the semester you can join them and help organizing great events for all the international students. When I was there they organized a cabin trip, a course in curling, an international dinner, a farewell dinner and much more. The city: Bergen As mentioned before, NHH is situated in Bergen. The city is also called city between the seven mountains. That s because Bergen is surrounded by 7 mountains. On two mountains you can go up by cable car. In contrast to the Netherlands, Bergen has a lot of height differences so there are not many people riding on a bike. People in Bergen like to sport. The most common thing to do there is running in
the mountains. It is nice to see people running up and down the mountain while you are struggling to get up and down in a normal way without falling or anything. The main thing you do when you have leisure is hiking. You just go with some people to the mountains and try to climb them all to the top. So if you don t like to walk that much don t go to Bergen! On your trip to the top you see beautiful nature, landscape and it is a nice work out. You will find a lot of shops in the city center of Bergen. But because Norway is much more expensive than the Netherlands I almost never visited them. The places I visited the most were the bars. There are a lot of them. Most of the bars are small but have nice music. The day to party for students in the city center is the same as in the Netherlands; Thursday. The bad thing about going to a bar is that alcohol is very expensive. If you go to a normal bar you have to pay around 8 euros for a beer. That s why you have to search for bars that offer special prices on special days. For example, there is a bar named KOK and there you get a beer for 3 euro on Tuesdays. There are more bars like this so definitely search for them. Because it is so expensive to go out, we often organized our own parties for international people in the kitchens of our residence. In the summer the city is full of tourists. They come to see the nature and the touristic spots like Bryggen, the fish market and the harbor. Bergen is an old city with old houses and small streets. So in the summer all the streets are full of people. In the fall/winter the streets are almost empty. That is also because of the weather. People say that Bergen is the place where it rains the most in Europa. When I was there that was not the case. We had very nice weather in the summer and also in the beginning of the fall. Only the month December was very bad. It was raining all the time so we had to find indoor activities. The problem with that is that there are almost none activities inside. This is also not strange because Norway and Bergen are known for their nature and not for their indoor activities. The places where we went were the aquarium, ice bar and nice coffee shops. II. PRACTICAL INFORMATION Information before I left the information I received before I went to Norway was good. We received a lot of information from Tilburg University and the people form the exchange office were very helpful. There are a lot of things you have to do before you really go abroad so it is important to have a checklist of everything that has to be done. Make sure you keep track of the deadlines! Otherwise your opportunity to go abroad is gone. You can find all the information you need on the NHH site. It is very clear which subjects you can choose from and what the content is of those subjects. The semester at NHH starts earlier than at Tilburg University so it is important that you search for information earlier than you would do for Tilburg University. I also send the exchange office of NHH a lot of emails and they replied really fast and with good information. So don t hesitate to contact them. Visa procedure and arrival You don t need a visa to stay in Norway. The only thing you have to do is going to the police station and ask for a residence permit. NHH organize days that you could go there so don t worry about that. You will get the information about that in the introduction week of the university. When you arrive in Bergen you have to pick up your keys in the city center of Bergen. They is no opportunity that someone will pick you up so you have to take the bus. There are busses that go every 5 minutes to the city center. They are called Flybussen. It is smart to download the app of Flybussen before you go to Norway because you can buy tickets for that bus cheaper than the price you have to pay when you ask a ticket from the bus driver. After that you take the public transport to your room. If you stay in
Halteberg (where most of the international people stay during their exchange) then you should go to the bus stop called NHH. Orientation/Introduction activities The first week at NHH is an introduction week. In the morning you get information about the subjects, how to register for courses and exams, associations, rules, etc. In the afternoon you are having social events with your group. Every group has a mentor who gives information about the university and the city and that mentor stays with you during that week. You are going to drink a lot and have a lot of parties. There are also sport events like rafting, shooting, sports day, etc. Even if you are not into drinking the university has organized special activities without drinking. This week is a great opportunity to meet other people and become friends with them for you stay in Bergen. Housing Alsmost every international students at NHH stays in Hatleberg. The organization that is organizing the housing is called SiB (they said the name will change in the future). They guarantee international people that they get an apartment, so that is really great. You just subscribe at their website and they will give you a place in Hatleberg. This is also the best place to stay during your exchange. So don t search for anything else. Here is where the parties take place, where you can meet other people, cook with each other, chill with friends and the best thing about it is that it is only a 3-5 minute walk to the university. Also the view is stunning! I had to share my bedroom with someone else because there were to less rooms for everyone. Before I went I taught that would be a disadvantage of living there but after a few weeks it became an advantage. When you sleep together in a room you go out your room more and have a better experience while being abroad. This is the website of SiB: http://www.sib.no/no Living Costs Cost of living: NOK 10,000 / 11,500 per month, based on the following costs: Housing: NOK 3,000 / 4,500. Depends on which room you want to live in. there are private and shared rooms. More information can be find on the website of SiB. Food: approximately NOK 2,500. Everything is much more expensive in Norway. Clothes: approximately NOK 400. You need good shoes for walking in the mountains in Norway. My shoes weren t that good so I had to buy new ones. I also bought some sports clothing to go play volleyball there. As a souvenir I bought a sweater from NHH. Transportation: approximately NOK 300. If you live in Hatleberg you don t need public transport to go to the university. Only if you want to go to the city center of Bergen you have to buy a bus ticket. A monthly bus tickets costs NOK 460 per month but I experienced that I didn t went to the city center that often so I just bought a single ticket every time. Books: NOK 750. I only bought one book because the other books weren t necessary. You can also find all the books in the library so don t spend much money on books. Social Activities (trips, events, going out, etc.): approximately NOK 3,500. See Social Activities. Remember that you also have to pay for your flight and special/warmer clothes for Norway!
Academic Calendar My introduction week started at the 15 th of August. I went there the 9 th of August to get used to the city, my apartment, living on my own, etc. This was a good idea to do. NHH works with semesters so there are no vacations or mid-terms, only exams. The exams started around the 14 th of November and they finish around the 6 th of December. I was lucky and my exams were finished at the 23 th of November. Social Activities I did a lot of social activities. In the first week we had the introduction week. After that week I planned a trip almost every weekend. I had a Dutch friend who came by car to Norway so it was really easy to go everywhere. When you don t have a car the best thing to do is rent a car because it is hard to travel long distances with the public transport. It is smart to do as much as you can in the beginning of the semester because the workload is not that much at that moment and the weather can be really bad if you wait a few weeks. We searched for nice places to go and reserved a Airbnb in that area. There are a lot of Airbnb places in Norway for a good price so I recommend you to sleep there. Another advantage of Airbnb is that you have a kitchen. It is way too expensive to eat in a restaurant (I never ate in a restaurant during my stay in Norway). The places I recommend to go to are Preikestolen, Trolltunga, Tromso, and Geilo. I was done with my exams really early and I decided to stay one month in Norway to travel after my exams. First I did a road trip up to the north of Norway. After that, we flew to Tromso to see the Northern Lights and to do a husky sledge tour. Tromso is a very touristic and expensive place to go but it is worth to book a Northern lights tour because it is hard to find the Northern lights all by yourself. After that I flew to Helsinki (Finland) to meet up with a friend of Tilburg University who also did an exchange there. We stayed there for a few days and flew together to Riga (Latvia). It was really nice to go there because the alcohol and eating in restaurant was so cheap! After my trip to Riga I flew back to Bergen to have my last few days with my friends there. Also the international committee organized amazing events where I participated in. The most memorable social activities were the parties that we organized in the kitchens of Hatleberg. At these parties there were only international people and it was very fun to have a party with all those different nationalities. III. Academic Information Academic Level the academic level of NHH is almost the same as the level of Tilburg University. The difference between the two is that NHH has more (group) assignments. Therefore you have to do more during the semester. But if you put some effort in this your exam period is more relaxed because you already know a lot of things. Because I didn t have a job there or other obligations I had more time to do my school work. So I was every time well prepared and it felt like the level was way easier than in the Netherlands. I also liked the relationship with the professors. All of them were very good in the English language so communication was no problem. In general I was very happy with the academic level of NHH and I passed on every course I had Exams The different types of exams I had were: Written exams: These are just exams you have to make at the university. These are the most common exams.
Home exams: these are exams you can write at home. Assignments: some courses only have assignments Oral exams: I followed a language course so I had to do an oral exam. Description of Courses Course Prerequisites Exam ECTS Comments FOR12 Economic Crime None Assignments + home exam 7,5 Interesting course. Recommended! SOL13 Purchasing Strategy and Supply Chain Management None Assignments + written exam 7,5 Not that special but if you are interested in Supply Chain it is a nice course to choose FIN11 Trading and None Assignments 7,5 Not only lectures but also real Market Microstructure NOR10 Norwegian Language for Foreign Students level I SAM15 Firm Strategy and Competition None Assignments + written exam + oral exam None Assignments + written exam trading games! Recommended! 7,5 Nice to learn some Norwegian. Easy course. Recommended! 7,5 A lot of different topics related to microeconomics TIPS FOR FUTURE STUDENTS: JUST DO A STUDY ABROAD! Even if it sounds cheesy I would say that it is a time you would never forget!
A picture is worth a thousand words Kitchen parties with international students. View from Hatleberg. The building at the right is the university. Me on a the top of Trolltunga. Trolltunga is the longest hike I made in Norway and it is a very touristic place. But you definitely have to go there when you are in Norway!