Student Report
Name of the University: University College Dublin, UCD – Quinn School of
Business
Exchange semester: Fall 2014
I. PRACTICAL INFORMATION
Before leaving Norway
You are provided with all the information you need both from BI and UCD on email.
I got continues emails from when I started to apply for exchange until 2 weeks before
departure. The application process was easy to understand and I think the process was
easier here compared to other colleges and countries. I also bought ANSA’s student
insurance, which is a good offer to students on exchange. You don’t need a visa to
study in Ireland!
Travel
I travelled with SAS from Oslo to Dublin; the ticket was pretty cheap since I bought
the youth ticket. Ryan Air and Norwegian also have cheap flights from Oslo, but
because of loads of luggage I thought it was best to fly with SAS.
On the airport I was met by a team from UCD, who helped me getting on the aircoach
and gave me all necessary information. This was very helpful!
Housing
I lived on Belfield campus, which I’m so glad for! In Glenomena Residence there are
mostly exchange students, and it is a brilliant way to get to know people from other
countries and cultures. I lived with three Americans, one Brazilian and one Irish. I
would recommend applying for housing on campus as soon as it is possible. Because
of the huge demand there might be hard to find housing outside campus. In
Glenomena Residence you have your own bathroom but you share kitchen with your
roommates. And you are also provided with Wi-Fi in the whole building!
Costs
It’s generally cheaper to live here in Ireland than in Norway, except from the rent.
For the whole semester the rent was €3500, which is about 30.000 NOK. But out of
these 3500 euros we get back 350 of them, because we paid that as a deposit. Taxis
are also cheaper, when it comes to the bus I would recommend you to buy a student
leap card (bus card for students). If you don’t have a bus card, you have to pay €2,60
every time, and you have to have the correct amount, since the bus drivers don’t have
change.
The prices of textbooks can be compared to as the same in Norway; in average a book
costs 450 NOK.
Culture and language
The Irish accent may be hard to understand, but most of the people in Dublin do not
have that weird accent so it’s usually not a problem. Some of the lecturers may be
hard to understand in the beginning, but after a couple of weeks you won’t even
notice it. But on the other hand it was sometimes hard to communicate with people
from countries like Spain and France, because their English isn’t as good compared to
the people coming from the Scandinavian countries. This caused some trouble for me
during some of the group projects.
To experience the culture in Ireland, I joined the Erasmus student network society
(ESN), which plans trips around in Ireland every weekend. This is a great way to
explore the country and also get to know other exchange students.
II. ABOUT THE SCHOOL
University College of Dublin is a huge school with over 30.000 students where 6000
of these are international students. It is Ireland´s largest and most diversity university,
drawn from approximately 125 countries. And it is ranked within top 1% of higher
education institutions worldwide. The campus is located about 3 kilometres from city
centre. It takes about 20 minutes from the main campus (Belfield) by bus to the city
centre.
The structures in class are quite similar to what I am used to from BI, with power
points and some discussions. But the system with midterms and assignment are not
something that I am used to from BI, where we only have final exams that counts for
100% of the grade. So in UCD you have to work with the course throughout the
whole semester.
On campus there are many fields to play sports, and you can also use the gym for
free! There is free WI-FI over the entire campus, not just inside the buildings.
Course Registration
I received a mail from UCD in August, telling me when I could apply for the
modules. I recommend you to read through all the course outlines before you choose
any modules, but it is no problem the change modules either. You can change
modules until 20th of September.
Academic Calendar
I arrived in Dublin Tuesday 2nd of September in the beginning of introduction week
and then the semester started Monday 8th of September. Our exams are from 8th of
December until 19th of December. We have 12 weeks with lectures, so we have one
week called “reading week” before all the exams starts. You are not provided with the
exam dates in the beginning of the semester as we are used to from BI, but we receive
the dates in the end of October. Since the exams only last for two hours, you can end
up having two exams in one day.
In the fall semester there is a Bank Holiday, which is a public holiday where you get a
day off. So if you are planning to travel, the weekend next to bank holiday is a good
weekend!
Arrival
I was a bit disappointed by the introduction week. I felt that it was harder to get to
know people here, compared to the introduction week on BI (maybe because the
introduction week here were non-alcohol events), but after a couple of days you got to
know all the people living in the same building as you. As mentioned earlier most
people living in Glenomena Residence are other exchange students who also want to
get to know other people, so this is where I mostly met all of my friends.
But there were a lot of activities like campus tours, tour to IKEA, pub-crawls and tour
in the city centre. We were also divided into buddy groups, but this was very badly
arranged, and I only met my group for 30 minutes during my stay in Dublin.
Promoting BI and Norway
I weren’t involved in any activities to especially promote BI or Norway, but I shoved
my roommates some pictures of Norway, and two of them actually went there! But I
had a lot of interesting conversations comparing the school system in Norway with
people from other nations.
The International Office
The International Office is placed in the global lounge, and the people working there
are very helpful, with both signing the Erasmus paper and help you find all the
buildings.
Social activities
UCD provides a huge number of different sports clubs and societies. I joined the
economic society, film society, Erasmus student society, International Student Society
and the lacrosse team. I think it is important to join societies because it is easier to get
to know people outside of the classroom.
In the beginning of the semester there is a ”fresher’s week” where you can see which
clubs and societies UCD offers, there are over 80 societies and 40 different clubs – so
there is something for everyone!
I wasn’t that involved with all the societies; the film society is basically getting free
tickets to the cinema, popcorn and coke. While the economic society had weekly
meetings, guest speakers and different events like bar stock exchange.
The club I participated in the most was the lacrosse team. I play lacrosse back home,
so it was natural for me to join the team here at UCD. We had two practices during a
week, which suited me good because I didn’t wanted it to be too time consuming.
With the team we travelled to Galway and Belfast to play matches against the teams
there, this was a fun way to see the cities and nice to travel with a large group of
people who knows the country!
III. ACADEMICS
Course materials
In most of my modules we had a textbook providing us with the course material,
while in the other modules; exam was based on the slides, lecture notes and articles.
But I recommend you to look for cheaper versions of the textbooks on Amazon,
because the books were overpriced in the bookshop at campus.
My modules:
Since one module in Ireland are only worth 5 credits, and we need to take 30 credits
to get the semester approved I had to choose six modules. I assumed that the modules
were smaller with less workload since they gave less credit than back home, but I
couldn’t have been more wrong. But I feel that it is easier to get good grades on the
presentations and projects than it is on BI. So it kind of equally sums up.
Strategic Market Management, MKT 30060
This was the only course that I had to take to get my semester approved from BI. The
remaining 5 courses I could choose from among the election list. In this course you
have one presentation and one project. These in total are 40% of the grade, so the
final exam is 60%. The project in this course reminds me of the project that we did
first semester on BI in the marketing course. In this course you could choose your
own groups.
Leadership and change management, BMGT 30100
Here we had to hand in a project and a proposal, which counted 30% of the total
grade. The teacher put you in groups so there are mixes between Irish and exchange
students. And an additional 10% of the final grade was from attendance. She uses a
lot of slides, which are very chaotic. In fact in this course we didn’t needed a
textbook, but because of the chaotic slides I felt that I had to read the curriculum in a
more systematic way, so I bought the textbook as an addition to the slides.
Developing Future Leaders,
This was an interesting course, and quite different from all the others. Our class was
small class with 30 students, and it was expected to speak and participate during class.
We got articles that we had to read before every class, and then we discussed them. In
this course we didn’t have any projects or presentations, but 20% of the grade came
from attendance and participation. The teacher didn’t post her slides on blackboard
(same as its learning) so we had to show up in class.
Financial Accounting 2, ACC20010
The lecturer seemed scary in the beginning, but she is very talented! First we had an
Annual Report examination worth 10 %, where you chose a company and looked at
their annual report, and is examined in general questions from an annual report. I
learned a lot from this assignment! And later we had a midterm with only questions
related to double entry bookkeeping, which was worth 20%.
Cost management, ACC 30030
This course was very well structured compared to the other ones, and the teacher was
very good and helpful. But I can’t imagine that I will have use for many of the costs
systems that we learned in this course. The course was outlined with two assignments
during the semester. First we had a multiple question midterm and on the end of the
semester we had a case study, these in total was worth 30%.
Advanced Corporate Finance, FIN30170
In this course we had a financial report, which counted for 30 % of the final grade.
This was a group project with 5 or 6 students and you could choose the groups by
yourself but if you didn’t know anyone in class, the teacher would provide a group for
you.
To sum up my exchange experience, I am really happy that I actually went on
exchange. I have been thinking about going for exchange since high school, and I’m
glad I finally got to do it, and especially in Dublin. Looking on it from an academic
point of view it was a lot more workload than I imagined before coming here. In the
beginning I was also struggling with having the entire curriculum being in English,
which cost me a lot of time. But I can honestly say that I have learned more here then
what I do in a semester back home.
I think you get more independent and extrovert after a semester with exchange, and
that these qualities are good to bring with you in your working life. And also the
improved English can help you later on. You also learn a lot from working with
people from different cultures and countries.
During an exchange semester you get friends all over the world who provide you with
a network of people that would have been hard to gain back home.