| 2008-11-19 | Exchange in Europe can be very rewarding! Last year, a student asked me about exchange in Europe. Jiazhen came to my mind immediately. Jiazhen was the only student in her cohort who listened to my advice and ventured into a new world. Initially Jiazhen wanted to exchange in the United States. I suggested her to go to Europe. She did.
So, when a student asked me for advice, I turned to Jiazhen. The following is her sharing.
----- Jiazhen's sharing (dated November 16, 2007) -----
I am Yin Jiazhen, a year 2 E&F student minor in German now on exchange in European Business School, Germany. Last year I was in Prof. Wong's microeconomics class too and he kindly offered to be my referee during my application to the exchange program. He forwarded your email to me, thinking that I might offer you some insight on the exchange program in Europe and I am more than glad to share.
Germany is treating me well. I am very glad that I made the decision to come here. I would particularly recommend my exchange institution -- European Business School. It ranked no. 2 in German private institutions, and is the best business school in Germany, famous for its stunning finance courses. The Vice-president is the former president of European Central Bank. Because it's a private school with only 800 students, classes are on average small; it's funded by many big international or German companies, so the school has close relationship with them and they are interested in recruiting EBS students on campus. The finance courses are very practical and intensive. They are not just following textbooks. For example their finance courses pull together knowledge from different areas. Last week, in the asset management class, I finally found the application of Mathematics, Statistics as well as Visual Basics in finance. And I am very excited to see those applications because before that I always question myself why should I spend so much time learning all those seemingly far-fetched stuff. And now I found all those efforts are not in vain. Plus the student associations here are very influential. The students run a business symposium every year, which is an event that attracts the attention nationally. This year the former German priminister gave the opening speech. And if you look at all the 40 guest speakers, they are all CEOs or CFOs from renowned multinational companies, just to name a few, the CEO of General Electronics, CEO of Adidas.
Though it's a new exchange partner of HKU, because of the similar curriculum outline, I am able to transfer as many as 39 credits back home, which means I don't have to take extra credits when I come back, not to say defer graduation. Plus as I declared a minor in German, there won't be a better chance for me to improve my language skills.
The life style here is slower than that of Hong Kong, which is something you might need to learn to cope with if you decide to go on exchange in Europe. Shops are not open on Sunday; people stop working after 4 or 5pm.
Living expense here in Germany is not cheap in Hong Kong standard, but is probably among the cheapest in European countries. Food is not expensive if you limit yourself from going out to dinner too much. Transportation and rent are major expenses and can cost around 300 to 400 euro per month. Total monthly expenditure could be around 500 to 600 euro. Of course it could be more if you travel more heavily.
I see eye to eye with Prof. Wong in that Europe is a great exchange destination and in my case Germany in particular. I come from Shanghai, where the second biggest volume of foreign investment comes from Germany. If I go back to Shanghai sometime later, which could be the case, I could have gain some advantage because this exchange background, the language and the culture competence. An European background could be very helpful in your future career (of course you'd better pick the right country, don't go to Italy or Turkey ;) )
Europe is the root and cradle of western civilization. You would be exposed to a wide range of culture, not only German, but also French, Spanish, Protugees, Italian, Danish -- just too many to be mentioned. And they are so much more sophisticated and rich than fast-food American culture. ;)
Germany is located in the heart of Europe, and Frankfurt is a transportation hub. So it's pretty easy for me to get around. I went to Belgium, Luxemburg, Netherlands in September, going to Italy and France in November and am planning to go to Spain and Portugal in December. And of course I traveled to within Germany to Munich, Bonn, Berlin and so on.
I hope I didn't write too much and all those things could be helpful to you while you are making up your mind. Please don't hesitate to email me if you have any further questions.
Best wishes, Yin Jiazhen
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