My Year In Heidelberg at the European Study Center Past Review

Academic rigor, intensity, resources, etc.

On-site administration of your program

How satisfied were you with your living arrangements?

The European Study Center was such an amazing place to live. I lived there for 10 months and never had a complaint. The house is quite old, and as big as a castle. I had never seen a house like this until I arrive there in August 2015.

They provide a a shared kitchen on each floor for the students to use. The kitchen is fully equiped with anything you need, even things such as a blender and water kettle for tea (which was super cool because I had never seen one before). I was in the kitchen cooking all the time. The ESC also gave us free meals for different occasians. I'm vegan and this program always had a meal for me.

How integrated did you feel with the local culture?

Cultural integration honestly depends on what the student does to be integrated. The ESC provides many different opportunites to meet locals and other international students, it just depends on if the student takes advantage of these opportunites. During my first semester in Heidelberg, the ESC had their students participate in an International Week at a local university. People from all around the world attended, and I had so many lifelong friendships because of that opportunity. Some of the students also particapted, but didn't care to make friends with the people at this event aka did not experience a cultural integration.

How well were health issues addressed during the program?

I'm the person both semesters that was sick almost all the time. Even arriving on my first day in August 2015, I had to see a doctor. The ESC staff is extremely helpful with scheduling doctors appointments, and they will even go along with you on the visit so that you are more comfortable with the whole situation. I honestly went to about 15 doctors appointments during my academic year here and they still helped me schedule the appointments, find the office, and fill out the claim form each time. The director was very helpful also because she was basically like a mother figure to me when I was sick. She always made sure I was ok, gave me tips on how to fix the problem, and even ran to the drugstore for me to get me cough drops. That was quite comforting since I did not have my family and loved ones here to do such a thing for me.

Heidelberg is such a safe city. It's honestly way more safe than my hometown back in the US. I had walked home alone many times, many of these occasions even at night, and I never felt unsafe. The house is also very safe because no one can just walk in. The front entrance has a code to enter the house, and the dorm halls even require a key card to enter them.

This program was one of the only one I could find that allowed me to do an academic year abroad. All other programs repeated the same classes each semester. But I had the time of my life, and the ESC is definitely like a second home to me. I would also choose this program again because they including many different excursions in the tuiton fee when many other study abroad programs do not provide any excursions.

(1 = not very easy/$200+ on food & personal expenses/week, 2.5 = $100/week, 5 = very easily/minimal cost)

It was not easy for me to live on a students budget because I just honestly didn't try to. It's hard to when you are located in the center of Europe and want to travel almost every weekend.

0 = No encouragement, 5 = frequent encouragement to use the language

There is a language school inside of the European Study Center that we were allowed to attend. This program was very helpful and improved my German skills quite rapidly. We were encouraged to use our language skills mainly when on excursions or even just in the town. But this is really up to how much the student tries to speak the local language.

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• Dorm

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• Americans
• International Students

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• Local Students
• Americans
• International Students

• The excursions
• The house
• The staff

• Nothing.

The Networker