Studying Abroad in Vienna, Austria Was The Best Decision I Have Ever Made Past Review

Academic rigor, intensity, resources, etc.

The differences that arise when comparing my home university to the University of Vienna come as a direct result of the differences between private education and socialized education. My home university has roughly 2,500 students while the U of Vienna is home to about 80,000 students. Not only was the U of Vienna much larger than my home university, but there are no educational standards or requirements to be accepted into the U of Vienna. There are not SATs, ACTs, or anything of that sort that are required for most American Universities. As a result of a huge university student wise and no educational standards, I found the educational experience at the University of Vienna to be very lax compared to my home university. Besides my German course which met 5 days a week for 8 weeks, my other courses only met once a week for a couple of hours. There was a small amount of homework with light reading assignments. I would not say that the education was easy, but it was definitely not challenging compared to what I am used to at my home university. The most refreshing part of my educational experience was that I found my professors to be extremely interested in what the students had to say and spent most of the class time interacting with us instead of just straight lecturing for the whole class time.

On-site administration of your program

When it comes to the host country program administration, my expectations were exceeded in every possible way. Our actual program directors are located in the States, but for the first week or so and the last two weeks, they were actually with us in Vienna. These directors are actually the founders of the program and used to stay out in Vienna for the whole time so they are extremely familiar with the city of Vienna and everything there is to do there. They had lots of great connections and tips that made our adjustment process much smoother than I expected. When our directors were not there, the Austria representatives were easily accessible. They were not only our actual professors, but also took us out to dinner once a week and also took us on frequent outings to museums, galleries, or cities other than Vienna. If needed, we could contact them anytime of the day via cell phones or if we had just a simple question we could email them and they usually got back within the same day.

How satisfied were you with your living arrangements?

The dorm, or what the Austrians called a student hostel, was great. The rooms we stay in have double occupancy, which means two desks, two closets, two shelves, and their own private bathroom with a stand up shower. Within the dorm itself, there is a kitchen on every floor, TV rooms, music rooms, a gym, two saunas, bike storage room, ping pong room, and its own bar that hosts students parties every Wednesday night. The building is modern so everything is in great shape. The kitchens are large and have two sides with two stoves, fridges, and sinks. The kitchens weren't too busy so it was easy to cook your own meal if you wanted to. In order to cook, you do you need to either bring or buy (suggested) cooking materials such as pots and pans. You can buy them used for a couple of Euros at a local thrift store.

The quality of the food was great. It is much higher quality compared to the States. Most Austrian meals include some sort of meat and potatoes served several different ways. Their portions are much smaller than in the States. What is a LARGE size for Austrians would be a MEDIUM for us.

How integrated did you feel with the local culture?

My most memorable events during my time in Vienna were Oktoberfest and the Christmas Markets. I went to the original Oktoberfest in Munich, which was AMAZING, but smaller Oktoberfests can be found throughout Europe, including Vienna. I was also fortunate enough to visit Germany (twice), Czech Republic, Poland, and Slovakia. I did not travel as much as some students but definitely enjoyed my time traveling by train and staying in hostels. Krakow, Poland was probably my favorite city I visited.

How well were health issues addressed during the program?

Vienna is one of the safest cities in the world and you can find various articles and research on the internet to confirm that. I never felt threatened once and never found myself in a sketchy situation. There was a large Police presence but I never saw them in action, which is a great thing. The only minor health issues is that you do do a ton of walking around Vienna and the various places you visit and so often times students felt pain and soreness in their legs and feet. Make sure to wear comfortable walking shoes because sometimes you do walk several miles in a day when you visit some beauitful, but quite large, European cities.

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

Part of the IGE requirement to study abroad with them is to be enrolled for the German language course for at least one term, which is 5 days a week, 3 hours a day for 4 weeks long. Most of the students, including myself, actually took two terms which was a total of 8 weeks. I know this sounds pretty brutal, but in all honesty it was not bad at all and most of the time I actually found myself enjoying the German class. My favorite part about taking a foreign language while abroad as compared to in the US is the fact that you can use the language outside of class. I will be the first to admit that I struggled greatly with learning German, but the locals were very kind were I did attempt to converse with them in German. They were able to tell that I was obviously not a native German speaker but appreciated my efforts and helped me along. We were also able to practice our German with the other college students in our dorm, or what they called a student hostel. Most of the international students in the dorm were not fluent English speakers and so we would try to speak to them using our butchered German while they spoke to us in their rough English. It was not pretty at all but it helped tremendously. If you struggle with the German language, like I did, most of the people you encountered spoke at least a little bit of English.

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• Hostel
• Dorm

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• International Students
• Americans

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• Friendlisness and Helpfulness of the IGE Faculty
• Oktoberfest
• The price was very affordable

• Internship opportunities
• No more students who just graduated high school