10 advices to survive as an X-change student

Hey!

Guess where it is! Exchange student is exchanging!

As a member of student exchange organisations, I've mixed with lots of exchange/Erasmus students. As a personal guide for some of them, here are some advices.

1. Get a mobile phone card as soon as possible. A sim-card will be a good deal, they are cheap now and most of them already have a certain amount of credit in it. Using your usual sim-card would cost you an arm and a leg. Most of the communication services don't accept contracts for one semester, so a top-up card is your last choice... For Japanese students, look for a cellphone with simcard slots!

2. Does the university you're attending have an Exchange Students organisation? Some of them provide you a personal guide for the first days! Try and e-mail a student over there, or if there's nothing of that kind, look for them on couch-surfing website!

3. The priorities when you arrive in a new city are transport card (if needed!), and administrative stuffs. Do that first, and then enjoy  your freedom. Be careful about how INSURANCE COMPANIES work. You might have to subscribe to a student insurance for your semester.

4. Visit the campus/school before the beginning of the semester. It'll prevent you from getting lost (like me).

5. Second hand shop are great! I guess you would not like to bring your pots from home, same thing for forks, knives, plates, kettles... and that's usually not provided in a student home!

6. Meat's expensive. You'd better eat vegetarian for a while and have a good piece of meat when you find a cheap one. Spinach, eggs, cheese, tofu, lentils and some other stuffs will bring you the proteins and trace elements you need. If you don't want to cook, pastas and pots of sauce are a good deal. Choose your supermarket. Don't go to Harrods/Globus/Les Galeries Lafayette to buy your toasts! I don't like Aldi or Lidl's working policies, but well, they're cheap! Some markets that close on Sunday make huge discounts on Saturday evening, keep that in mind!

7. What's the voltage in your new home? It'd be awful to burn all your electronic the first day! Buy converters before you leave!

8. Free leisures! I was in Exchange in London, and my leisures were actually the cheapest thing over there --> museums. In Paris, museums are free on the first Saturday of the month. Not sure about it, but  friend of mine saw all of them. And she's as short of money as I am. Museums are only an idea, I think there are plenty of things to do in a new town!

9. Students home are cool, but what about host families? For the same level of expenses, you'll have food ready when you come back home!

10. Don't take pets. If you find a poor kitty starving in the freezing night, bring it home, and find it a loving family, as soon as you can. A healthy pet might be a cute friend, but an ill one is really problematic. Vets are everywhere as expensive, and finding a family for an ill kitty/doggy is really difficult, trust me! A friend of mine was so afraid her little kitty, who suddenly had a tineae, got "the ax"... She finally managed to find him a home, but it was a stressful week!

And enjoy!