Vorarlberg University of Applied Sciences

The reason why we chose to study abroad for a semester was to get some new life experiences and honestly just try out something new. All three of us are born and raised in Jönköping, so going away on exchange for a while would benefit us. It was something we knew we wanted to do even before we started studying at JU. One of the many reasons why we chose to JU, was because of the possibility of doing an exchange semester. Furthermore, meeting new friends across the world and learning new cultures and languages was another bonus.

We lived in a little city in the Alps near St. Anton, for any of you ski lovers. Dornbirn is a small city with 50 000 inhabitants. It’s located in the federal state Vorarlberg, west of the country. There are other beautiful cities located in the state, Bludenz if you want to see the Milka factory, Feldkirch for amazing flea markets and Bregenz for an incredible view (Pfänderbahn). Another highlight with the city (Dornbirn) is the river that went through straight outside of our apartment complex. We spent a lot of our time there, doing a bunch of different things like morning/ night swims, bonfires, picnics, workouts, walks around etc.

The city is located at a nice meeting point between a lot of other nice destinations. Munich 2h away, Zurich 2h away, Lichtenstein 1h, Innsbruck 2h, Salzburg 4h and Milan 3h (Flixbus). During our exchange, we travelled a lot, and that was the whole reason why we chose this place to begin with.

On our first week of arriving, we got a bus/train card that cost us 100€ for a year. This card was used frequently when taking the train to all of the cities mentioned above. Along with this card came a lot of discounts when booking tickets and travelling to other places around Austria. The city is small so walking to places is very common and simple. But if you do happen to live at a complex a little bit outside, there are great options, and the bus stops right outside your accommodation and campus.

We were enrolled in nine courses during our semester. Some of them started earlier and ended after only a week and others lasted the whole semester. In FHV, it’s more common to be active in the class and participate in discussions, seminars etc., something that we were very unfamiliar with. Attendance was another thing that they were strict with, yet another thing that we were not used to. Something else worth mentioning is that the school mixes full-time students with part-time students, which meant that we had lessons at night and sometimes even on the weekends. Despite this, you would have plenty of time to travel and do other fun activities with the other exchange students.

We lived at a student accommodation called Kolpinghaus, where the majority of the other exchange students also lived. This meant that we lived with people from Mexico, Australia, Ireland, South Korea, and the USA. Our living situation helped us achieve social relationships with other students. We threw parties together, cooked dinners, studied together, shopped and we were a big family living together.

The highlights were so many, it’s hard to pick. Karaoke nights at the Irish Pub, the Lake Como trip and hiking the beautiful mountains. These were some of our favorite moments.

The biggest challenge for us was the language barrier. It was hard to understand and be understood by the locals. We did encounter other challenges, but we always figured it out together, with help from everyone around us. We developed so much as people, living in another country and got to know a different version of ourselves. We recommend you give it a shot, if you want to grow as a person, meet friends for life, and experience crazy things, GO ON EXCHANGE!