As a biomedicine student in the second semester we were strongly encouraged by KI to go on an exchange during the third semester at Leiden University. I thought this was a great opportunity since it would offer the experience of abroad studies without too much hassle regarding paperwork or having to retake courses because Netherlands is in the EU and they offered the same courses as at KI. Living at home with my parents up until that point I was a little nervous but also excited to be living alone in another country the first time; though it wasn’t the first time I had lived in another country since I’m originally not from Sweden.

Applying was really easy and our coordinators were all helpful and fast at responding. In retrospect I wish I would have tried to find an apartment a lot earlier but I only started my search in June after my semester was finished. At first we were around 8 people that applied but most of them dropped out to study medicine instead, which is pretty normal for the biomedical program at KI, so there were 3 of us left in the end. We tried to find a three bedroom apartment and then 2 of us tried to find a 2 bedroom apartment but most people either said it was too short of a period or that they don’t rent to students. Although Leiden’s coordinator tried to help, they mostly sent us places where you had to go visit first and then maybe the people would pick you or not which was definitely not an option since I would not leave Sweden unless I had a guaranteed apartment.

In the end I looked for apartments in The Hague thinking that if I can spend an hour traveling to KI every day here, it wouldn’t be a problem traveling by train between Hague and Leiden for 15 minutes. Turns out it wasn’t as easy as I thought but I’ll elaborate on that later. Finally I found a gorgeous one room apartment with kitchen and shared bathroom in the very fancy old center of The Hague.

Some useful tips:

http://www.housinganywhere.com/ is a great site where I found my apartment

Flying: Fly SAS ungdom! They have the best offers! If you register as a student you can fly for as cheap as ryan air but from Arlanda and luggage of 23kg is included. Too few students know about this and it is a pity

Check out Leiden housing group on facebook. Even though there aren’t many housing offers you can find anything there from cutlery, bike bags, muffin makers and what not.

My family traveled by car from Sweden with a middle stop in Germany and then we met with the dad of the student I was renting the apartment from. Everything went smoothly and after I was settled in we went to explore Hague a little bit. Luckily since I was there under 6 months I didn’t have to register. I also bought a prepaid card from Lebara, which I definitely recommend since for only 10€ a month you can have 1 GB of internet (and nowadays people use WhatsApp rather than text) and for extra 10€ you can get call and texting credit.  My parents left shortly and then the week before courses started we had a great introduction week. I highly recommend it! Whatever you do don’t skip the OWL week! It’s fun, informative, we made friends that we later hung out with the whole semester and it was so useful for finding your way around and also for explanations about the university and the platform they are using called blackboard (similar to our PingPong). During that week we had a wonderful Norwegian guide which helped us during the year and also they organized a bike sale where one could buy cheap bikes. If you live in Leiden, you need a bike for sure. I wish I had bought a bike there too but since I lived in The Hague I thought it wouldn't be unnecessary, which turns out to be wrong since I needed it in Leiden later on.

The economy part was probably the biggest issue I had in the Netherlands: They won’t accept Visa or Mastercard and they don’t have any international payment options for the train tickets. This was really problematic since I didn’t want to open a Dutch bank account. So I was forced to always take out cash and pay with that. Otherwise the Netherlands is cheaper than Sweden but trains are really expensive and you can’t buy any subscriptions unless you have a Dutch bank account so trains turned out to cost me a lot more than I expected due to not being able to buy a subscription. Therefore I don’t recommend living in The Hague since it would cost you quite a lot more and it’s more troublesome. Otherwise the hospital cafeteria had warm meals for 3.75€ and other things for even cheaper which is more comfortable than having to prepare your own meal in Swede due to ridiculous cafeteria prizes. I would estimate the cost of food at around 10-12 € a day and probably even less if you are vegetarian or try to buy only good deals.

Tips: Cheap, great grocery store right at the Leiden central station called Jumbo is great for shopping. Jumbo and Dirk are pretty cheap and have good variety. Albert Hejin is a little more expensive but also good.

As mentioned I had an apartment in The Hague and paid 540€ a month for it (water, electricity and WiFi included) which is of course on the expensive side but I wasn’t sharing and it was in a very fancy neighborhood only 10 min walk from the central station. But as the semester progressed I spent more time at my boyfriends place in Leiden rather than at my place due to convenience and the fact that we both didn’t want to move together from the beginning. I still had to pay my rent though so it was a bit of a waste but too late to change anything in the end. Also that’s when I realized I needed a bike since my boyfriends place was a 15 minutes bike ride from the university but more than half an hour walk. I know every single report advices the same thing but I’m going to repeat myself anyway: Look for accommodation early and in Leiden!

Leiden University had a very different way of teaching than KI since it is more workgroups oriented and less lecture oriented so as a student I had to work a lot harder but I felt like I didn’t achieve more out of that. Some people might learn better that way but I didn’t really enjoy it. I still passed all my exams but I do prefer lectures which were very sparse during our first course (maybe around 2 per week). The biggest minus was their lack of laboratory work. We only had very few labs and the one longer 1 week lab course we had was very nerve-wrecking for a lot of exchange students since many lab assistants weren’t very comfortable in English and wouldn’t talk much with exchange students so we had to figure out a lot on our own. My impression was that KI is a more international place than Leiden University and that is certainly a little frustrating for people who are abroad the first time which can be a little scary.

Our Physiology professors were amazing on the other hand and very friendly. And even though I found Immunology as a subject more interesting, I enjoyed the lectures and labs during Physiology more. A highlight was also patient demonstrations which we don’t have at KI. Sadly some of them were in Dutch which again was not helpful for international students.

I did enjoy my studies in Leiden a lot though but I thought they were more challenging than at KI and the grading system is also quite discouraging since the highest grade (10) is not reachable on essay questions unlike the A at KI. As a student with an average of B, getting 7 and 8 seemed very unrewarding even though I put more effort during my studies in Leiden than at KI and overall I feel like I remember less. Also I was more stressed out here than in Sweden with so many more exams due to these short courses and not as many lectures to guide me trough my studies.

Tips: The only book from your previous courses that could be useful to have with you is the anatomy one. Leave the rest at home, you won’t need them. Do buy the course notebooks!

Dutch culture and especially food culture was one of the best parts about the trip! They eat their fries with frittesause (which is similar to low fat mayonnaise), and they eat a lot of fried food and seafood. We exchange students were a bit confused by the fact that they don’t eat warm food for lunch but sandwiches instead which was a bit odd but a trend that I learned to enjoy after a while. Also what they put on their sandwiches was sometimes very weird. Everything from croquets to raw meat paste (American fillet) to raw herring or sugar sprinkles. I recommend you trying all these things out since for example the American fillet was something I started loving very fast. Small Dutch pancakes (Poffertjes) were absolutely delicious and if you like fish do try out the raw Herring. If you’re looking for a cheap big meal try the delicious kebab place Pide Huis, where the owner is really friendly and makes great kebabs. Home delivery is a huge thing in Leiden and the choice is amazing!

The language spoken in the Netherlands is Dutch of course but most people could talk English just fine. The only thing baffling for me was that the garbage pickup man and the construction workers at my place talked better English than some of our lab assistants.

Leiden is beautiful but I do recommend visiting the Hague and Amsterdam while you're there since they are both beautiful cities in their own way.

The free time is definitely the best part of exchange studies. I was a bit sparse on that due to being very serious about my grades but I still enjoyed the Netherlands a lot. A great thing about the Netherlands is that everything is connected by train and traveling to different towns isn’t too expensive (unlike traveling with SJ) so traveling to Amsterdam is a must! Also don’t miss the great celebrations for Leidens Independence Day on third of October which were truly memorable. Leiden has a lot of charms with its cute cafés, many canals, pancake houses and everything is fast to reach by bike.

If you are curious about gym the university has one which costs around 100€ per half a year and offer a huge variety of courses and team sports. They also have several treadmills and other cardio machines. For weight training people such as me it was a little crowded sometimes since they only have one of each machine/rack but it did work and it was cheap.

There are many activities organized for exchange students by the Student organization and also our introduction week group would cook dinner together almost every day. Although I didn’t join in many of these activities there are many options for the willing.

Overall the Netherlands were really fun to live in and it was an amazing experience. However the greatest advice I would give new exchange students is to not take their studies lightly since it’s really hard to catch up once you’ve fallen behind. If you worry about being lonely, don’t! There are so many activities organized for exchange students. The dutch students were a little distant at first but international students are very friendly and down for socializing! Also if you have issues, the international coordinators are always very helpful. I enjoyed my time in the Netherlands a lot and was satisfied with most of my experiences.