Two semesters in Belgium

My name is Martha and I am 26 years old. From 2016 to 2017, I was an exchange student in Belgium in connection with my education at SDU: BSc in Engineering (Energy Technology).

I was only supposed to stay during one semester but ended up staying for a whole year. My biggest motivation was that I wanted to try something new and get a great experience. Even though I love the student life, it can still get a bit dull and I wanted to shake up my daily routine.

My main goal was to get an amazing experience more than developing myself professionally. I believe that a professional development comes naturally when you arrive at a new university so therefore my focus was to meet a bunch of new people from all over the world. I lived and went to university in Leuven, which is a big university city. I found it interesting to live in a place filled with other students and especially international students. At the same time the city is not too big and I could go anywhere on bike, which is nice and important to me.

The best experience was definitely to meet all those people. I made friends for life on that trip and I am still visiting them today. Actually, I just went to see a friend in Germany. I was lucky to live in a house with eight other people where five of them where international students. Those people became like a family to me, and it was great to experience how nine different people could be like a close community. 

When I figured out that my other roommates had planned to stay in Belgium for an extra semester I decided to do the same. It was hard to say goodbye after only one semester and it was important for me to end our stay together because we started it together. And of course it meant even more experiences. 

Economically it was fortunately easy enough. My living expenses was the same as back home – except that I wanted enough money to travel and experience stuff. I had my SU from the Danish government, and I also has my Eramus scholarship, which was super easy to apply for and I got it both semesters. I only had to apply for it through my university back home and take a language test before and after my stay, and that was actually enough. In the future, I would love to work and live in another country and I think my stay in Belgium made mere more capable to jump into it in the future. 

Updated on Tirsdag, 17/03/2026