My name is Denis and I'm study Industrial Systems Engineering at INSA Centre Val de Loire in France. I am currently an ERASMUS exchange student at the University of South-Eastern Norway (USN) in the Industrial IT and Automation master program. I ave been studying for one semester at campus Porsgrunn and unfortunately I now need to return to my home school.
In France, all engineering students must study do one semester abroad and I therefore chose to come in Norway. Having to pick in my home school partner universities, USN immediately stood out. Norway is such a beautiful country that I really wanted to visit and USN provided a wide list of courses to choose from. In fact, I picked the subjects that interested me the most among all the 4 engineering masters in both first and second year. The lectures I took were spanning only in three days of the week but I had class for 8 hours on those days. Compared to my home engineering school, there aren't much of exercise class at USN and personal works is required outside class.
While Norwegian is the main language, everyone passing by in the street speaks a perfect English and is always happy to help you. Porsgrunn isn't very big but you can find anything needed to live and Skien is only 10km away. The cost of living is a bit higher than in France and I found the grocery smaller than the one I was used to (but there are some on every street corner). In November, the length of the day begins to decrease and the first snows appear but unfortunately it only starts settling in December.
When I arrived in Norway, I felt very welcome. Everyone from the university was there to help and meet-ups were organized for new international students. It was also easy for me to find an accommodation as the SSN have 4 student housing area on Porsgrunn (most of us lived there). I was in Grenlandsgate area, just a few minutes from the campus, and I shared my kitchen and my bathroom with one other person. Attention to international student continued throughout the whole semester with a Coffee Hour organized every Wednesday by the Student Assistant. At the end of the semester, all international students even went on a ski trip near Lillehammer.
This semester was an opportunity to travel around Norway. I visited Oslo, Bergen and we rented a car to drive along the southern coast of Norway. To discover Porsgrunn region, I also bought a second hand bike and rode 700km uncovering fjord, lake and mountain in the area.
Going abroad is always difficult at first because it requires jumping into the unknown. However, it always ends up highly rewarding in terms of self-development, new relationships and discoveries.
- Denis from France (Discord: @denisd3d)