Studying in Cyprus

- Pernille Hjortholm Holmberg - Financial Management

I am a twenty-one year old Danish girl who studied Financial Management at UCN in Aalborg. 

While the other students from my class were struggling to find a tranieeship for their final semester, I wanted to do something different for my dissertation, and decided to go abroad for the final semester.

Soon after this decision, I started to investigate my possibilities. My university’s international coordinator introduced me to the Erasmus Programme, which had a wide range of opportunities.

Choosing Cyprus

I wanted to go somewhere far away from the Scandinavian culture and welfare society, so I chose Cyprus, a relatively new member of the European Union, and before I knew it everything was fixed, and I was on my way to the Island of Aphrodite! I

A university in Nicosia

I was going to study at a private university in Nicosia, and had through this university reserved my accommodation, so everything seemed to be in perfect order, but still I decided to go there about a month before school started, just to be sure that everything would be in order, before I had to concentrated about the classes, which would be in English; not my mother tongue.

This turned out to be a wise decision, because I immediately realized that I was no longer in Scandinavia, and there was some difficulties with the accommodation, the classes and the learning agreement, which we all managed to solve before school started.

But also I had this whole month of spare time to get to know the area and its people, me housemates and the other international students arriving to study at the university.

A great support

Through out my stay the Erasmus coordinator at my home university, and also the one at my host university, was a great support. My host university continuously made special Erasmus events and trips for the Erasmus students to get to know each other and also for us to get to know the island.

This kind of conduct is kind of a characteristic of the Erasmus Programme. You are from the beginning to the end taken nicely care of, and that’s very relaxing to know, when you have a thousand other things to care about.

Language and culture

The classes in English were not as advanced as I feared, and very quickly I started to pick up on the technical terms and improve and develop my vocabulary, which I am happy for, with English being a very strong international language.

I also got a close up look into the culture, society, the way of studying and career building in another part of the world then where I come from, not only in Cyprus, but also from the big variation of Countries where all the other Erasmus students were from.

The social relations

The social relations from my trip are definitely one of the best experiences altogether. We learned a lot from each other, we had some awesome barbeques and parties, of course, and I am still in contact with nearly all of them.

The experience from this trip altogether also gives me an advantage in my search for a job and I can only encourage other students to do a similar Erasmus semester. If you are really into experiencing another culture and meeting a lot of new and different people, you will definitely get a great experience out of it.