Erasmus Experience in Leuven, Belgium by Rehanna

Why did you choose to go to Leuven, Belgium?

Before I applied for Leuven, I was told that the Faculty of Law at the University was highly ranked.

How long is the scholarship? How much money do you receive to help you with living costs?

The scholarship is for one semester and I received 800 euros.

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What is the student lifestyle like in Leuven?

The student lifestyle in Leuven is not for me. The students are very young and tend to drink a lot and make a lot of noise. So, if you don't mind seeing piles of vomit in every street corner every morning and being kept awake by neighbours partying, then this is a city for you.

The students basically run the city and there are many options to be engaged in the student life.

Would you recommend the city and the University of Leuven to other students?

To be honest, I would not recommend it. I was honestly surprised by the quality of the education and teaching methods; there's basically no interaction at all between students and teachers. Therefore, you don't get any feedback and you get the feeling that the professors don't really care if you fail or not. It's more about trying to remember for the exam than learning methodology for life, and I don't think that's the best way of teaching and learning Law. If I knew that there would be so little interaction, I would've chosen another University.

What is the food like?

The local cuisine is actually quite good, albeit a lot of pork which I don't always think is the best. The mussels are good, the stew and casseroles as well. And if you like fries, you're in the right country.

Did it cost you to find your accommodation in Leuven?

It did not cost me anything to find an accommodation since I found it on a Belgian site for renting apartments (immoweb.be).

How much does it cost to live in Leuven?

My rent is 545 euros per month which is extremely expensive considering the standard of the buildings. You can hear your neighbours breathe. But I rent an apartment in the heart of the city, just by Grote Markt, so I guess that's the price you must pay. It's not really expensive to live here, you can get by quite cheap. I spend around 900 euros a month.

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Is the language easy to get to grips with? Are there language courses available in the University?

Dutch is quite easy to understand when written, but almost totally incomprehensible in speaking. Most of the people in Belgium are bilingual so if you speak French you will get by pretty easy. There are language courses available at the University.

What's the easiest or most economical way to travel to Leuven from your city?

The best way to travel to Leuven from my city (Uppsala) is by plane from Arlanda to Brussels and then the train to Leuven. The flight takes about 2:10 and the train 0:12.

Where would you recommend going on a night out in Leuven?

If you are 17 and want to get some company for the night, you go to Oude Markt.

There is a Gin Bar that I really enjoyed, where they have around 200 different gins. It's really nice and cosy! De Blauwe Kater is a place that has live jazz music on Mondays, which is nice.

And for eating? Can you recommend some good restaurants in Leuven?

I mainly went to cafés and my favourites are De Dry Coppen, Café Noir and Quetzal Chocolade Bar. Krua Thai is a really nice restaurant down by Brusselsestraat and Nepali House on Dirk Boutslaan is just wonderful. Le Pain Quotidien on Parijsstraat is also a favourite.

However, don't expect the service to be good at most restaurants. I highly value being polite and nice, and many of the times the staff don't even greet you welcome. At four occasions me and my company have had to wait for 2 hours before getting the bill, and we reminded them three times. The food is good, but the overall grade is average.

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What good cultural sites are there to visit?

I would really recommend to visit Bruges. It's a pretty city, even though it's full of tourists.

Since Belgium is right in the middle of Europe, you have lots of possibilities to travel. I've been across Belgium from Bruges to the far east, in Germany and in Luxembourg in two months. You should really take the opportunity to travel if you go to Leuven.

Is there any other advice that you could give to future students who are going to Leuven?

Keep in mind that this part of the country is quite conservative. As a liberal feminist, this didn't fit me at all. I can honestly say that a big part of my disappointment with this experience is the extremely prejudicial mentality that I recognised in many of the students. Even strangers I met that would start a conversation with me would go from being very friendly and interested to being extremely hostile and telling me how much they hate feminists when I mention that I think that men and women should be equal and treated with equal respect. It happened more times than I could ever imagine before going here. Several times I had to "defend" going to the gym and lifting weights because I’m a girl. Also, the students at University are in general much younger than in Sweden. If you are concerned about these issues, the way I am, then I would definitely recommend that you go to another city. Maybe a bigger city.