Hello!

My name is Marit and I have studied a semester at the University of Zagreb, Croatia! In this report I will give you, a potential future exchange student, an honest insight into how my exchange semester went and some useful tips on how to prepare.

City and country

As I said I studied and lived in Zagreb, Croatia. The city itself is not very big, but it does have some nice parks, places to hang out and get a beer/coffee and interesting museums. The people are nice and, compared to Rotterdam (where I am from), the prices are low! The city is also very safe. It is something the Croatians are very proud of and the internationals notice immediately. Even late at night I was able to walk home alone as a woman without any stress or fear of others.

Croatia has a beautiful coast you can visit in the early weeks of the exchange semester, when it is still summer. I absolutely recommend using Flixbus! It might take a little bit longer, but when planned in advance you can find very cheap deals to go to the sea. The city is also very central compared to cities in neighboring countries, so I have made many trips outside the country as well (also with Flixbus). Cities such as Ljubljana, Belgrade, Sarajevo, Budapest and Vienna are great to visit during the weekends, you will probably have enough time to see them all. If your ambitious and okay with more travel time, I recommend going to Italy as well.

Courses and Education

The faculty I studied at, the Faculty of Croatian Studies, was very helpful with the administration stuff. The exchange coordinator gave us his personal phone number for emergencies and helped us with getting the student card and registering for courses. When I arrived, I already had some courses in mind, but on arrival we received a paper with the courses which were available. These did not completely align with the courses I found on their website, so I had to switch some of them. This was not a problem at all, but you do not really have to worry about which courses you are going to take in advance: in my experience the exchange coordinator will inform you about the possibilities when you are there. You can even choose the courses according to schedule: a friend of mine did this and had Monday and Friday off (long weekends -> trips!!).

In my experience the academic level and studyload was much less at my faculty at the University of Zagreb than here in the Netherlands. I studied at the Faculty of Croatian Studies (don't worry it does not only have courses about Croatia) and the professors were very understanding, thoughtful and I think sometimes even a little honored exchange students were following their courses. The semester was structured differently than at EUR: courses were given throughout the whole semester, which meant that I had to follow seven courses at the same time. At first this sounded very scary and stressful, but this was very doable. The courses had different amounts of ECTS, mostly between 3 and 6. This means you have to follow more courses if you choose the ones with less ECTS. Classes were generally small: maybe 20-25 people in the biggest course I took. The course with the least number of students had five. At my faculty we were with nine exchange students in total, because of this low number we all became good friends.

Social and student life

When I arrived, I was very worried about making friends or missing home. In my experience this was not necessary. I joined the ESN groupchat, which you can find in their Instagram Hightlights. In this groupchat people talk about where to meet and what to do, espescially in the first weeks. The exchange community in Zagreb is pretty big. I cannot compare it to other cities, but there are people for everyone. Every Monday is Rakhia Monday, which is the day people meet at a bar in the citycentre (like ESN Tuesday in Rotterdam). You meet a lot of people there, and you see them almost at every ESN activity. This is the place I met my friends in the first week, we already went on a trip in the second week! ESN also organises other activities like some games, karaoke nights and trips. They also offered a buddy system. To be honest, I have not really participated in many, but from what I have heard their activities were always a lot of fun.

Housing

I looked for an apartment with another girl from my sending university who was also going to Zagreb. On the housing site “Home in Zagreb” we found an apartment in the center for a good price (450 excl, 525 incl). We both had our own (large) bedroom and shared one bathroom, living room, and kitchen. In ten minutes, we would be in the city center. We looked for housing pretty early on, I think around May or June, so I would recommend doing the same. You can also choose to live in student dorms; I have met many people who did this. This is very cheap (around 100), but the buildings are far away from the city center, and you have less privacy.

Expenses

To be able to finance the whole semester, I kept track of all my expenses. I will give you an estimate of my expenses in some categories:

• The travel expenses from the Netherlands to Croatia are very cheap. You can travel from Eindhoven Airport or Brussels Airport with Ryanair. I have had a return flight for 50 euros. With baggage, it will be around 80 euros.
• Travel expenses within Zagreb are very cheap. In the city, they have trams which can get you almost everywhere. You can get a card for 13 euros per month, but to be really honest I have never encountered someone who checked 😉
• Travel outside of Zagreb was my biggest expense. Sometimes I had buses for 8 euros, others were 40 euros. It depends on where you go and how much time you book the bus in advance. You do not have to pay for baggage. You also have to book accommodation, I spent around 120-170 euros for trips per month.
• Daily life in Zagreb was in my experience much cheaper than in Rotterdam. I paid around 100-120 euros for groceries per month. I spent around the same amount for eating out and drinking coffee with others. We also had a menza on campus where we could eat for 70 cents per meal! You can also go there when you just want to have a cheap dinner.

I hope this information has given you an insight in my exchange semester in Zagreb!

Kind regards,

Marit