Nina
English Literature and Creative Writing BA (Hons)
Aarhus University
As soon as I found out that Surrey offered students the opportunity to study abroad at other universities in the summer, I knew that I had to do it!
I have always wanted to travel more and learn about how education works outside of the UK. While there was a lot of choice, I eventually decided to apply to Aarhus University in Denmark, the second-biggest university in the country after Copenhagen. I had never been to Scandinavia or any Nordic country before, so I was very excited to experience life there and hopefully learn some Danish! (sadly, Danish is a VERY hard language to pick up, so I only managed to learn some basic things like Hello – Hej, and Thank you – Tak.)
I had also never heard of Aarhus before; it is the second-biggest city in Denmark and while Copenhagen is obviously the capital and has the most people, Aarhus also had so many interesting things and was a key centre of trade as a seaside city on Denmark’s main island Jutland.
The uni campus was so beautiful and full of trees and nature. Some of the buildings even had carefully maintained ivy climbing up their brick walls. They even had a lake at the heart of it like we do at Surrey! I stayed in a 1960s dorm building about twenty minutes away by bus from the main campus. It was only a short walk from one of Aarhus’s beautiful beaches and ports, and the sunsets from my window on the third floor were gorgeous.
I had so much fun exploring the city both on my own and with the friends I met. Aarhus is quite a small place with only around 300,000 people (it was kind of the Danish equivalent of Liverpool), so I was able to visit and do everything in just over three weeks. I went to ARoS (Aarhus Art Museum), one of the biggest art museums in Denmark; their deer park where we could pet tame deer; pretty much all of their beaches; their AMAZING open-air museum where you could go into buildings dating back to the 1600s; and so many more incredible places.
I would highly recommend visiting Denmark as the people are friendly but not too overbearing and the culture is great. I travelled around the country a little to go to the LEGO museum in Billund (where LEGO’s creator is from), the historic seaside town Ebeltoft and the picturesque island Samsø in Aarhus Bay, and naturally Copenhagen at the end before flying back to the UK: and all the transport was so efficient and clean. I met people from all over the world and learned lots about Danish customs (and also Bollywood Movies as that was what my module was on).
Although it was 100% very scary at first I feel like I relaxed so much and just had an unforgettable experience studying and staying in a foreign country for the longest time ever (and also without any family or established friends present). Going into my final year at Surrey I feel much more confident and assured in myself, and that I can apply everything I learned to improve my life and approach to education from now on.
