Already for studying at KI, I came from another country and I also had done an exchange before, so I knew what I could expect when I decided to go on exchange to Dublin. An exchange term, no matter where you go, is always a helpful and worthwhile experience. The help that is provided by home and host university makes it as easy as possible to live in another city and country for a while. Even if it needs some more effort in the beginning, it will always be worth it in the end.

Since I had never studied in an English-speaking country, I decided to go to a university in Great Britain or Ireland. I was happy to be given the opportunity to study at Trinity College in Dublin, which is an old and prestigious university with a long tradition.

As the exchange agreement with TCD was only newly established, it took quite a long time until I received all the necessary information. However, in the end all uncertainties were cleared well in time and the administrative part of the exchange went smoothly.

There were no requirements for vaccinations or certificates.

The term in Dublin started with Fresher’s Week in the middle of September, during which several introduction events were available for international students, which were mainly organized by the International Society at TCD. These dealt with general information about Dublin, Trinity College and life in Ireland. During this week, all societies and sport clubs, which form the student life at TCD, introduce themselves on the main square. I strongly recommend looking at the different offers of clubs and societies, which cover virtually all interests. However, there were no mentor programs offered.

In general, the help during arrival is limited, since the international office only deals with registration and exam issues and has little overview of the departments and courses. If you’re in need of any information, it is better to address the student union and the international student society. They are students themselves and usually know their way around and are generally very helpful.  Also, the homepage of the international office contains plenty of information (http://www.tcd.ie/international/).

My courses started already on Wednesday of Fresher’s Week. As there was no information on course schedules available in the international office, it is necessary to get this information independently. Since I participated in courses in the Master’s Programme in Molecular Medicine (http://www.medicine.tcd.ie/molecular-medicine/postgraduate/msc-molmed/), the program director could tell me the schedule. It is therefore essential to contact the course responsible directly upon arrival.

For students, it’s very easy to open a bank account with the major banks. As an international student, you need a form signed by the international office for this. On departure, the accounts are very easily closed again.

I was officially registered as an Erasmus student, which meant that there were no costs except the usual costs of living. In college, societies and clubs usually require a small fee of 2-5€ for membership.

The international office gives an estimate of costs of living: http://www.tcd.ie/international/pre-arrival/cost-of-living/.

The major cost factor is rent, which is quite high in Dublin (approximately 400-500€ per month). Since the public transport is rather bad, it is recommendable to look for an apartment close to college (preferentially post codes D2, 4, 6, 8 or 1). Since Trinity College is located directly in the city center, prices drop the further away you get.

As usual, there are supermarkets with very different price categories. It is very useful to find bigger supermarkets close to where you live in order to reduce costs.

Finding accommodation will probably cause the biggest trouble when organizing your stay, since TCD doesn’t offer student rooms to exchange students who stay for less than one year. Thus, you need to find accommodation on your own.

For online searches, www.daft.ie has proven quite good. However, I found it very difficult to find a room over the internet and I would also advise everybody to be in Dublin for the search. It is very difficult to judge the surroundings and the flat itself without seeing it. I was also warned of scams.

The student union offers an accommodation advisory service in the weeks before start of the term until the end of Fresher’s Week. They offer internet access and a phone (you only pay the credit you use) to contact ads. They can give information about the area, public transport connections etc. More importantly, they have their own database with accommodation offers, which was very effective (I could find a satisfactory room in 2 days of searching).

Another possibility is the internal TCD noticeboard, on which apartments are regularly advertised by members of the college community. However, this can only be accessed by college members. So if you have contacts to the college (e.g. to a lab), this might be an interesting source of offers.

While apartment hunting in Dublin, you could stay either in a hostel or book a student room directly in Trinity College, since these are rented out during summer.

Since the courses I could attend were part of a Master Programme, which is similar to the Biomedicine program at KI, also the courses themselves were comparable. The Programme had only around 25 students of which not all were present for all courses, so group sizes were quite small. The interaction between student and teachers was also quite close, not unlike in the Swedish system (last names are used at least at the beginning, though).

The courses I attended consisted only of regular lectures. A nice feature was podcasts, which were offered for some of the lectures. They would consist of a recording of the lecture with the respective slideshow.

Lectures in this program were only held on two days a week (Wednesday + Thursday), leaving the rest of the week for individual studies or lab work.

Since I also did a project in a lab (in the School of Biochemistry), I could experience the life in the research institutes. They resemble very much the various institutes at KI and there aren’t many boundaries between senior researchers and students.

It should be noted that all the courses in the Master’s Programme in Molecular Medicine are not held at TCD main campus but at St James’ Hospital, which is about 5km away. Since the public transport between the two places is not very good, one needs to calculate some time to get from one to the other.

This also has implications for the choice of labs for projects. Since there is research both on main campus and at the hospital, one should take this into consideration. If there are interesting groups at the hospital, this is definitely preferable. I did my project at the main campus, which was also possible, but I ended up walking the distance between lab and hospital quite often.

Since the official language is English, no problems should arise. However, it may take some time to get used to the Irish accent, especially if you’re used to American English. Otherwise, there should be no major concerns except cars driving on the “wrong” side of the road.

Because of the history of Ireland, all signs are written both in English and Irish (better known as Gaelic) language. There were introductory courses in Irish offered at TCD. However, the language is not used in daily life.

Student life in Trinity College revolves very much around the various societies and clubs organized by students. There are societies for drama, philosophy, science and much, much more. For international students, the International Society (http://www.duiss.org/) offers activities such as movie nights, pub crawls and weekend trips. This is a great opportunity to meet other visiting students and also to get to know Dublin and Ireland.

There is a big sports center right on campus which includes sports halls, a gym and a swimming pool. As a student, you’re automatically a member. Team sports are organized in college clubs, which usually also have teams in college leagues. Again, a vast selection of clubs is available.

Both clubs and societies offer good opportunities to meet local and international students.

Dublin is not a typical student city. However, the city is very compact and the city center comparatively small with the beautiful and old campus of Trinity College right at its heart. Throughout the city, Dublin is very lively and charismatic.

 The city center is packed with sightseeing opportunities, such as the castle, the river Liffey, St Patrick’s Cathedral and St Stephen’s Green. The Temple Bar district is located close to Trinity College and is the city’s tourist center with plenty of restaurants, shops and pubs. The central shopping street however is Grafton Street with many larger and smaller shops.

The nightlife in Dublin is dominated by the big variety of traditional and modern pubs, which can be found around every second corner. However, there are also clubs and music venues around town.

In the Docklands, a big arena (The O2) holds events of all sorts. Also, many sports events can be visited, such as Rugby or the Gaelic Games (Gaelic football and Hurling) that are mainly played in Ireland.

The exchange period in Dublin was a very good experience during which I had a chance to get to know the city and TCD. I experienced the city and the country as a whole as a very enjoyable place. Trinity College offers a lot of opportunities for students and employees, which leads to a very strong feeling of community. Moreover, it offers excellent academic opportunities. I could establish valuable contacts with research groups in Ireland and will also personally consider returning to study or work in Dublin in the future.