I recently finished studying abroad for a year on the Erasmus scheme at University College Utrecht, Netherlands. My home university, Exeter, UK, have asked me to write a learning log about my year, and here it is.
It is also a place for people at home and in Utrecht to see what I got up to while I was away – and to encourage anyone to go on an Erasmus year abroad. You will not regret it – I certainly didn’t!
I have made friends with students from around the world, travelled to 14 countries, hitchhiked across the continent twice, attended quite a few parties, “Discovered the Dutch“, learnt about key days in the Dutch calendar from Sinterklaas to Koninginnedag, and wrestled with the Dutch banking system, all while studying eight different subjects and coping with a workload significantly greater than anything experienced before.
The blog was written through the year “as it happened”, so you can…
- Follow my adventures chronologically including my aims and expectations before I left, my first impressions upon my arrival on 22nd August 2011, what a typical working week is like, and so on until my return to England on 1st July 2012 – or
- you can select the posts by month or date on the right, or
- by subject in the index above, or
- if you do not have time to read through all the entries (and especially if you are aiming to find out what studying at UCU is like) – you can read the Edited Highlights.
However, above all, leave some comments and let me know what you think!
Nichola Birch
A year at University College Utrecht 
Thank-you very much Nichola, I enjoyed reading your reports very much. I must see if I can print them off so I can reread them if ever I feel a bit blue.