Experience report
ANR: U1253033
Name: Nanette Oomen
E-mail: nanette_oomen@hotmail.com
Exchange semester: Fall semester 2014
Academic year: 3
Host University: City University of Hong Kong
Country: Hong Kong
From what I remember, there were no difficulties before I left. Ada, the exchange
coordinator of City University, was the best. She always replied to e-mails very quickly. All the
information necessary, like visa, courses and housing, were all provided on time. All the steps that
had to be taken were really clear, were communicated well and on time.
To study in Hong Kong you need a visa. The university provides all the necessary information. First of
all you have to fill in a form which you then have to hand in at the Tilburg exchange coordinators who
send all the necessary information to Hong Kong. When the Visa is accepted it is sent by courier to
you and then all that you have to do is put it in your passport. Don’t forget to make sure that you
have a valid passport for 6 months after return already when you request your visa. The fee for the
visa if I am not mistaken was about €60.
Personally I arrived in Hong Kong a week ealier than the date that we were allowed to check in for
dorms. I was glad I made this decision, because you need to get used to the climate, the food and
the time difference and it is nice to do that in your own way and slowly, because from the day you
check into dorm, life becomes busy. It is also nice to use the first few days to get to know the city and
doing some sightseeing before the actual lectures start. Checking in for dorms was all very easy and
then you have to go through a whole check in procedure at the university as well to get a student
card and register and everything, but just following the signs brings you to wherever you have to be.
City University had clearly done this before, because it went super smooth.
In the first week of school there were a few activities organized. We went to a fishing village one day,
we had some information sessions from the exchange student club and about some academic stuff,
we had a campus tour and a IKEA tour, to get our beddings, because except for a bed, an empty
cupboard and a desk there is nothing, so you have to buy duvet, pillow, sheets, hangers and
whatever else you need, and there were some introduction lectures. I expected to have more
activities in the first week, but it was ok.
Most students live on the student residence which are 11 big halls with about 15 floors and about 20
rooms per floor. Most of the rooms are double rooms. Some are single and some are for three people.
You can give your preference for what kind of room you would like to have. For a single room you
need a doctor’s statement why you need to sleep alone. There is one common room on every floor
with a kitchen, a fridge and a tv which you can use and every hall has a big common room on the
ground floor. There were not enough rooms for everybody. But when you apply on time, the change to
get one is big. I was assigned to a double room, with a local Hong Kong girl. She was really kind, and
it was a really nice experience to live with a girl from another country. The room was not very big, but
when I compared it with other rooms outside the campus, my room was really big. And the rooms on
the student residence are really cheap! I was very satisfied with the housing. Personally I thought
living on a residence was a great advantage, because all the fellow students are very close, so you
can meet someone to have dinner or lunch or go and do something within 5 minutes.
Hong Kong is a relative small city, but the amount of people that live there is crazy. It is a city that
lives 24/7. It is always busy with many people. But besides the crowds, there are plenty of possibilities
to escape the busy city. You can go for a hikes or go to the beach to relax. There is for example a
hike next to the university (the Lion Rock), and there are also some hikes less than a hour away. For
example Sai Kung, a really nice beach where you can hike to, and you can sleep there on the beach
as well. That is a really great experience. The university is located in Kowloon. The closest MTR
station is Kowloon Tong. This stop is a few stops away from Mong Kok or TST and about half an hour
away from the MTR station Central or Wan Chai, where the nightlife is. So it is relatively close to the
nightlife, especially when you compare it for example with the Chinese University of Hong Kong,
which is crazy far away. In Hong Kong are also many touristic attractions like the Peak, Happy Valley,
Symphonie of Lights, Star Ferry, and many more.
The campus of CityU is not very big. It consists of three buildings, AC1, AC2 and AC3. From the
student residence to the university is about 5-10 minutes walk. All the classrooms are easy to find.
Between the lectures you have 10 minutes to go to your next class, but that’s enough time. In every
building you have a canteen, where you can eat different things. You can eat Chinese, but also food
from other cultures. On the student residence there is a canteen as well. The food there is very
cheap. The university has its own swimming pool. You can refresh yourself there during the hot
periods in Hong Kong. There is also a sportshall, where you can do different sports. And in Hall 11,
you can find a small fitnessroom as well. These sport facilities are really good!
The closest supermarket is Taste, a relative expensive but good supermarket. This one is located in
the Festival Walk, a big shopping mall next to the university. You can find here different shops,
restaurants and café’s, the MTR station Kowloon Tong, a cinema and an ice skating rink. A cheaper
supermarket is the Wellcome. This one is around 15 minutes walk from the student residence.
If you want to eat outside the University, there are many amazing places to go to. If you want to eat
local and cheap food, you can go to Mong Kok. If you walk around there you will find many small
restaurants. Even though it is a fluorescent lamp restaurant, the food can be very good. Definitely
worth to try. Also next to the ladiesmarket, you can find nice restaurants, but not all are cheap there. If
you want to eat more western food, Soho is a really nice place. Its much more expensive, but you can
find there really good restaurants. Also for a drink you can go to Soho, this is a place close to the
MTR station Central. You can find many bars along the mid-levels escalators. For the nightlife you
can go to Lan Kwai Fong, LKF. Close to the MTR station Central as well. On Thursday its ladiesnight,
girls can come in for free and can drink cocktails for free. On the weekends its really crowded in LKF.
Another really nice place to go for parties is Wan Chai. Here is ladiesnight on Wednesday. We liked
club X, pulse and mes amies the most. In club X there wasn’t ladiesnight.. But boys could come in for
free as well. In pulse, almost next to X, was ladiesnight and boys could come in for free as well. And
in mes amies boys had to pay an entrance fee, but there was also ladiesnight.
Comparing Hong Kong to Tilburg is impossible. Tilburg is small, Hong Kong is big and in Tilburg we
think that West-Point is high, but compared to the average buildings in Hong Kong it is nothing. You
cannot imagine how impressive Hong Kong is until you actually visit this amazing city.
What I really liked in Hong Kong was living with all the students so close to each other. There were 11
flats next to each other, with many many students. When you walked out your flat, there were always
students around you.
All courses for exchange students are in English. I did Service Quality Management, Human
Resource Management, Contemporary Business Communication, E-business and Event Marketing. I
liked Event Marketing and HRM the most. Event Marketing was practical. You had invent and develop
different events, which was fun to do. SQM was too easy in my eyes. So I wouldn’t recommend that
one.. I think you also want to learn something during your semester, and you will not learn anything
from that course. Business Communication was a really strange course. I learned presenting from
that course, so that is nice.. But al the other aspects of that course were really boring. And e-business
was much different from what I expected the course will be. So that was a little disappointing.
In general I would say that the courses in Tilburg are more challenging than in Hong Kong. The
lectures are all 3 hours, that is sometimes too long. To concentrate 3 hours, with a really short break
is hard. In the courses I took there was a lot of group work involved as well as case studies, but these
were also not very challenging, only time consuming. I had sometimes problems following the lectures
with respect to English since the lectures where locals, and mixed English and Chinese sometimes.
Without putting too much effort into my courses and having had enough time for other fun things
which I think is more important on exchange, I passed my courses with pretty good results compared
to the grades I normally score in Tilburg.
I mainly had contact with exchange students because they live the same life as I did. Furthermore, I
did have some contact with local students in classes, because in all my classes there was some
group work incorporated and in most of these classes there were at least a few locals involved. We
had a really big exchange friends group. We did many things together. Like camping on the beach
and we organized every weekend a beerpong tournament for the whole friends group.
During my exchange I also traveled a lot. My first trip was a 5 days trip to Taiwan. I travelled with a
Dutch friend. We went to Taipei en a little bit to the south. My second trip was a short trip to
Shenzhen, in China, with 4 fellow dutch exchange students. My third trip was to Malaysia. With the
same dutch friend and we stayed here 10 days. We travelled around Malaysia and ended on
Langkawi. We made this trip during the mid-autumn festival. My fourth trip was to the Philippines. I
made this trip with 4 fellow exchange studentes. We stayed in Cebu and did amazing things, like
swimming with whalesharks and going to many waterfalls. My fifth trip was to Beijing. I made that trip
with my mom, that was really awesome. We went to the Great Wall, which was unbelievable
awesome. And my final trip was to Vietnam after the exams. I went there with my twin sister. We
travelled around Vietnam in 2,5 weeks.
Unfortunately Tilburg University does not provide any grants anymore for students going outside of
Europe. Despite this, I still decided to go to Hong Kong, because I really wanted as far as possible.
The studiefinanciering and compensation for the ov-card give a nice basis and my parents and
grandparents sponsored me a bit as well. The big advantage of City University was that the housing is
pretty cheap. €522 is what I paid for 4 months, so the money I normally spend on my room in Tilburg
is what I had extra every month, because I paid for my dorm beforehand. Living in Hong Kong is
pretty expensive, but since the food on campus or in the food court was not too bad it was possible to
limit the weekly costs somewhat. The disadvantage is that you have to “go out” for dinner every day,
because cooking and doing groceries at Taste was much more expensive than food from the canteen
or food court. If you wanted to buy especially dairy and Western products at the supermarket, it was
very expensive. Going out for dinner elsewhere however was more expensive, but still cheaper than
European prices.
So my monthly budget was approximately: Housing €130 per month, Food €200, transport €20 per
month and for the rest I would spend about €200 excluding traveling which cost me about €500 per
trip, except for Vietnam, which cost me about €1000
I did not experience a culture shock while on exchange. I obviously did compare the cultures I came
across to my own culture to be able to see the differences and similarities. The Asian culture is very
different to any culture in Europe, so you constantly look for differences as well as similarities and
thus get to know the culture, because you can hardly become part of the new culture. The culture in
Hong Kong is similar to Chinese, since a lot of people that live there are Chinese. The main
characteristics in Hong Kong is that the people have to work hard and long hours in this vibrant city
that lives 24/7, but when they have free time they like spending it eating and with family or close
friends which is very important in Chinese culture.
Festivals and holiday are thus also very important. What I like most about the culture is the
friendliness and willingness to help. This is also where the Hong Kong people differ to Mainland
Chinese, because the people in Hong Kong speak English well whereas the Chinese are very shy
and scared to make mistakes on that point. While traveling through Asia I noticed that every culture
was different, but in every single country the people were so helpful and happy, which is something
that I found outstanding.
Due to exchange I have become very eager to visit more parts of the world and get to know other
cultures. I really enjoyed staying in one country for longer than just a holiday, because then you really
experience the people and the culture. I have made a lot of new friends as well who are situated all
over the world and I can visit whenever so that will make discovering the rest of the world a lot easier
and more fun, since the best way to get to know a culture is to have a local guide.
My best experience was the people I got to meet and the fun we had together. Without actually
knowing them you hang out with these new people a lot and it feels as if you have known them for a
long time already. In sad times they even felt like family to me when my actual family was too far
away. These people will be friends for life. I didn’t had any worse experience. The only part what was
less fun, was saying goodbye to your friends after an amazing semester together.
I would definitely recommend an exchange period! It is a lot of fun, a time to get to know new people
and get to know yourself, because you have to do everything by yourself now. No parents in the
neighborhood and no roomies or other friends. It is a time you would never ever forget anymore.
I would also recommend City University and Hong Kong, because the university is not too big and
organized well and Hong Kong is the most amazing city I have ever seen. It has so much to offer and
so much diversity, I am unable to describe what an amazing time I had in Hong Kong.
Hereby one picture, which was made during our last goodbye party with all my exchange friends. For
other pictures or stories, you can always send me an e-mail!