Letter Home - Nguyen Hien Linh

       1.In what country and University are you studying?

Austria - Upper Austria University of Applied Sciences, Hagenberg Campus
2. In what Study program are you studying at Centria?
I am currently in my last year of Information Technology major.

3. What are the courses like at the host University?
I and my friend Nhi Ngo, both of us spend a semester for doing an exchange in Austria. We did almost attend to the same course in Hagenberg Campus which is about Informatics, Communications and Media. We joint a lot of interesting courses: iOs, Generative Art, Mobile Marketing and Business, German(A1), Online Multimedia, Usability and Interaction Design. 

4. Describe the study culture? 

 In Finland, the timetable is fixed each semester but in FH, it changed every week which made me shock at the first time. There were some subjects which took from 8:00 until 17:55, but of course they had break in between. However, it was a nice experience there and I also gained a lot of practical knowledge on exchange term.

5. What is your study group like?

Most of our Austrian classmates are nice, kind and friendly. We had a great time to get to know each other.

Last FKF - Austrian classmates

   

Besides, we also love to spend time with another exchange student and international student who are currently studying their degree in FH(none- exchange students). We also traveled together to neighbor countries and some nice cities in Austria.

Vienna

Birthday Celebrating

After German Exam 😂

Trip to Steyr - another campus of Upper Austria

Summer Festival

Budapest with Kim-Korean and aDu- Vietnamese 💗💙

Fun time with Shievam and Nhi Corn 😂😂

6. Please describe what the everyday life is like in your host country? What do you like in particular?

We do not have class almost everyday so it was mean time that we could do some stuffs together or just stay at the dorm for doing assignment. It was great that our dorm is nearby our university, just 1-2mins walking. Yeah and I have to say those  buildings are closely. Therefore, it was easy and convenient for us every morning left the room to school.We also prefer to spend time to study in FH than at the dorm. The university also let the door open till 11pm so we can even stay as long as we can. 

In FH, they provide us the equipment to study in case we do not have it or ours are damaged. and of course with the iOs course, they require the Mac for doing the coding and I do not own any apple device, they lend me once at that time. Yeah and how amazing that time was.

The professors are very enthusiasm and helpful. Austrian students are active and hard-working. I can learn a lot from them :)
The FH have a lot of activity for students in every department which impressed me at 1st. Sometimes they had the conference and a BBQ party after that or going hiking, and everything was sponsored by the FH. 

They also organized the party every 2 weeks for students. from Monday to Wednesday every week they offers great deals in eating and drinking for students.

 

                                     

7. What has been challenging? Why?
Almost the subject we registered have not had exam, we did project instead. There were some courses that we could do in group of 2, however, when I and Nhi already been in group and realized that the rest of the class they all did individually. Yeah , how weird it was. Then we decided to do it separately. 

Austrian student they were too shy to make friend at the first time. Therefore, we also felt awkward every time coming to class but it was just for a while and everything went fine after that. We can make a lot of friends.

It did suck because there was nothing around hagenberg, even the market also far away from our place and its closing is pretty soon, around 6pm and nothing open on Sunday. yeah the most challenging thing haha. But everything were all fine after few weeks and I started love this place:)
8. What has been the highlight of your exchange so far?

I have had learned a lot in FH, really good university as well as the environment for studying. I met all the good friends in Hgb , learned about their culture , their countries.