Hello everybody! 

My first month of studying abroad is over. As you may not know: I am a German girl studying "Science" (yes, it is called like that) in the Netherlands. Studying abroad sounds like such a big deal but actually I am only one and a half hour drive away from home. So let's get back to my first experiences:


The first month was very exausting. Especially the last two weeks were really hard because I had to learn for two test (Mathematics and Biochemistry). It is a lot of impact you get. In Biochem we made already in the second lecture a huge step from water to DNA. Yeah, let's not talk about it how much I struggled because I never had real biology lessons before. But in the end I am really proud that I understood so much. On friday (today is sunday) was the test so I am super curious for my result.
I am extremly bussy with studying. Additionally I don't know yet how to study best. I still have to find out. When I am not studying, I am netflixing because there is nothing else I feel able to. I would really love to read more but at the moment I cannot manage doing it. 

Beside all of the study things and getting to my private life, I still have to arrange a lot of things. What I already managed was register in the community, opening a bank account and getting my sportscard (yeah!). There are still some issues. Especially asking for huurtoeslag (rent subsidy) will shatter my nerves because I cannot reach the service number with my mobile phone - don't I ask why, I don't know either. But at least I am living in the students complex I wanted to live in (didn't happen without a lot of effort).

You may ask yourself 'but what about the language?'. Well, I had to learn Dutch because my study programme is in Dutch. Actually I only have one subject in Dutch (Panorama Science, the only Science subject I have, the rest is with chemistry and molecular life science) and the other subjects are on English. I think that's quiet good because I think it would be even harder to study when I had more subjects on English. So I only talk Dutch to my flatmates and the sport classes are mostly on Dutch as well.

So let's talk about something positive:
I already participated to some yoga classes and I finally feel some better. I really needed this and at home I barely get up to do some yoga. Then I already made some friends. Maybe not real friend friends but this will take time. And last but never least I love this city. It is so awesome that you are able to get everywhere in up to 20 minutes by bike. I am living at the best location 4-8 minutes from university and 10 minutes to the city center.

At the end of the month there will be the exams. Here in the Netherlands you have most of the courses for a quartal and not a semester. I think that's a great thing to deepen everything. So while in Germany the study-year just started, I am already halfway through my first part.

Let me know if you want to know something special about studying abroad. You can contact me here via my blog or via any social media platform.

I think the next update will be at the beginning of November when I am done with the exams.
Kind greeting from the Netherlands!