Erasmus report –Dominic Heslin-Rees
Leiden is an incredibly beautiful place to live and study, it has everything you expect from a classic
Dutch town; beautiful canals, old wind mills, and hundreds upon hundreds of bicycles. However, I
started off my ERASMUS year living in a student apartment block in The Hague. I was allocated the
room via the university’s student housing system, but found the rent too expensive and the
commute too much; I did enjoying cycling to and from The Hague and Leiden everyday though. For a
town which struggles to accommodate students looking for housing, I found it surprisingly easy to
find accommodation online via the ‘Leiden Housing’ Facebook page and I moved to Leiden after 2
months. If you want to find a place independent of the university, which I thoroughly recommend,
be prepared to go through what’s called a ‘hositeren’, it is basically a really informal interview
process to decide on a new housemate.
The house I moved into was situated close to the observatory, the oldest university observatory in
the world, and was on the same road as a house which was Albert Einstein’s place of living when he
would come to Leiden to give lectures. Coincidently, it was also the same road Dexter and Lucy lived
on, two 8 year old Dutch children; I read and taught English to twice a week. If you are considering
taking part in the ERASMUS programme I would definitely recommend seeing if you can find a
teaching job.
Leiden University has a very active international student community in the form of the ISN
(International Student Network). The ISN board coordinates lots of clubs including; music, arts &
crafts, and sport. You are never stuck for something to do. There are so many people to meet from
all over the world which makes the ERASMUS year such an exciting one.
If you read this and decide to take up an ERASMUS year in Leiden I recommend taking bike rides to
the nearby beaches, lakes and tulip fields during the spring and summer. They offer up a great place
to relax.
Studying in another institute in a foreign country provided a great insight into how students outside
the U.K. learn and what student life in another country is all about. Leiden University has
tremendous facilitates akin to that of Warwick. The lack of societies was one observation I made, but
it was made up for by the sports clubs on offer, the academic clubs, and Leiden’s numerous
museums including the Naturalis. I found the Dutch learning experience slightly different from that
of Warwick as classes were much smaller, for example, my class on Ergodic theory and Fractals, had
only eight students most of which were masters student.
During my year of study, I took part in an interdisciplinary semester long module on sustainable
development which had been a personal interest of mine. The classes were all in English and
consisted mainly of Dutch students from all types of disciplines with only two international students,
including myself. The course gave me a great opportunity to get to know Dutch students and make
some really great friends. The standard of teaching was high, and the classes were well organised
and the content well structured. The minor in sustainable development culminated in a 4 week long
educational trip to the Philippines where we participated in a course on ‘water management and
land use change’. The course was made up of half ‘Dutch’ students and half Filipino students; we
travelled the area of North Luzon visiting museums, institutions, and culturally important landmarks.
The course was assessed through a report based on a week’s worth of field work in isolated villages
on the border of the Serra Madre rainforest. We worked on the reports with our Filipino
counterparts which presented many challenges, but also provided both sets of students with a
unique opportunity to make news insights. I was incredibly grateful to be accepted onto the
programme and travel, learn, and experience so many things for the first time, all of which would
not be made possible without the ERASMUS programme and Leiden University.