Student’s Name: Aoife McEntee
UL Course: Applied Languages
Academic Year: 2016 / 2017
Semester: Autumn
Host University: Marie-Haps, Université Saint-Louis
Host University Code: B BRUXEL02
Student experience
I attended Marie-Haps, a sub-university of Université Saint-Louis in Brussels, Belgium from the
period of September 2016 to the end of January 2017. I had a great experience abroad as I met
many new people and visited many new and interesting places. I would recommend going on
Erasmus to anyone who has the opportunity. During my time on Erasmus, I lived in Brussels and
attended the university daily. At the beginning of my semester abroad, we were given an orientation
day with our fellow other Erasmus students and given the necessary details for using the computers
and the modules that we could undertake while away. In an attempt to help us meet the teachers
and the coordinators for the Erasmus Project, the staff arranged a night out for all Erasmus students.
However, there were few attempts or opportunities to properly talk to and meet the local students. I
believe if there had been more events organised in order to meet the local students it would have
made integrating with them a lot easier.
If students have problems, they should go to the Erasmus office and staff at the Host University as
they are the ones in charge of the programme there. Though at times, or it may have been a
communication error, they were unhelpful. The university was very different to UL, as many aspects
of student life were changed or missing, for example, there were no societies or clubs to join and
there was no Student Union. Also the marking methods were harder and the passing grade was 50%,
this was hard to get used to. I chose to go to Belgium as I wanted to improve my French skills. This at
the beginning was hard, and following in classes was hard but as the semester progressed I found I
was understanding classes and spoken French outside the classroom more. I would recommend
going on this Erasmus placement if you have a high level of French and wish to improve it. Though, I
would like to say that Belgium is very expensive in general and finance is something to consider
before taking this placement.
Institutional practices, support
Marie Haps is located on Rue d’Arlon, near the Royal Palace. Marie-Haps supported new students to
an extent but were not overall helpful with some things. I emailed the staff several times with
questions and found them to not be very helpful with their replies. They were also helpful in helping
me find accommodation for the semester as many houses would not take someone for a single
semester. The original orientation took place at the Marie-Haps buildings, which were easy to reach
from all forms of transport, I used the metro as it was most convenient from where I lived in
Molenbeek, and it was 15 minutes by metro. There was an orientation programme, where all the
Erasmus students met with the head of the Erasmus office and were given all the relevant
information about available modules and resources. We were given 3 weeks to finalise our modules
and change the learning agreement, if it was needed. The university was very small in comparison to
UL as it consisted of 3 buildings along a city street and there were not grounds or campus.
Before going on Erasmus, the host university sent us a list of available accommodation, though I
found finding accommodation to be very difficult as many of the houses did not take students for a
single semester. I had to stay in a hostel for a week at the start of the semester as I had not been
able to secure accommodation before leaving Ireland, though this motivated me to find
accommodation faster. I found it with the help of the head of the Erasmus office at Marie-Haps, it
was a room in a house which was also a Dentist’s office. The room was furnished, which was unusual
according to accommodation websites and a reasonable price at 260E for rent and 60E for bills a
month, coming to 320E a month. This was a very good price as the room was a 20-minute walk from
the city center and a 15-minute metro ride from the university. It was also located near a large Aldi
where I bought my weekly shopping for a reasonable price.
It was easy to register modules as a student, though there were two online websites for registering
online and receiving results from the university. Modules had to be registered online by week 3 of
the semester. Registering your modules and being able to access your course content were done
through the ESaintLouis website and the website was offered in English as well. The other website,
the Intranet, was accessed using the same passwords at ESaintLouis. Registering for exams had to be
done by filling out a sheet and handing it into the Erasmus office. The exams had to be registered
separately, which was very inconvenient as in UL the exams are automatically registered for you and
you do not have the excess stress of registering modules.
There were a wide range of modules you could register to do, all of the modules I wished to do were
available to me, and we were given a list of modules and the timetable for each modules, this meant
we had to organize our own timetable and were given access to the credits and modules information
during the semester. We were given 3 weeks to decide on our modules and have them registered. A
transcript of results was to be mailed to the University and I asked for them to be emailed to me as
well from the Erasmus Office in Marie-Haps.
The university was very different from UL in many ways. The class sizes were about the same, and
the staff were often quite nice though many of them spoke little to no English. The main difference
was the actual campus and exams. The campus was extremely different to UL and had no societies
or clubs to join. The exams were much harder and marked out of 20, with a pass grade being
anything over a 10 or in other words a 50%. The university also marked exams much harder than at
UL, which is extremely hard considering UL also marks exams very hard. Though one thing I found
annoying was that the Erasmus Office had different hours every day and often when I had classes,
which meant I had to do most of my correspondence through email. The library was much smaller
than the one here in UL and in order to print things, you need a Belgian bank card to top up the print
card, which was hard for foreign students.
Cultural differences
I went to Belgium in order to improve my French as I am studying French as part of my degree. I had
studied it for my Leaving Cert and am currently studying it in UL. A language course was offered
before going to the university offered, by Marie-Haps but I could not attend as I was on Coop at the
time it was organized. At the beginning it was hard to adjust to the new accent of the French spoken
in Belgium, which was different to the ones spoken by the teachers at UL. Though after some time I
became used to the speed and accent of the French spoken there. I could follow the lectures and
classes spoken in French, though at the beginning it was slightly difficult to become used to. In the
city, there was a metro system, bus network and trams which operated until about half 12 at night.
The quickest around the city in my opinion would be the metro network as it was usually on time
and had regular timetables. Also it was easy to understand the different lines and read maps. The
entire city could be accessed using the metro network. There were many historical places to see and
the architecture of the city was very old and very beautiful. As part of my Belgian culture lectures we
took a class trip around the city, looking at the Art Nouveau architectural style around the city. The
Grande Place was also beautiful, especially during winter with the Christmas Markets. There are also
many beautiful towns to visit, such as Gent and Bruges and Antwerp. All these cities are known for
their architecture, heritage and history, and are well worth visiting if you want to see Belgian culture
outside of the EU capital, Belgium.
The cost of living was higher than in Ireland and unless you shop in a shop like Aldi or Lidl then the
cost of buying food for the week can be very expensive. I had to budget and shop a nearby Lidl to
keep my expenses to a reasonable amount. I had to use my savings during my stay in Brussels and
the grant was helpful though not enough for the full semester. Belgium is famous for its waffles and
they definitely live up to the name. They can be found on basically every street corner and are
delicious. The Belgian chips are also delicious and also a favourite among tourists and locals alike. I
would also recommend Speculoos, a butter biscuit, which is a traditional food in Belgium and is
given out with coffees and teas.
Hints & Tips
In conclusion, I would like to highlight some tips and hints that might help future students who are
thinking of attending this university make their decision and hopefully prepare them for their
Erasmus abroad. I would highly like to recommend visiting towns outside the city as Brussels isn’t
the best example of Belgian culture, it’s more localised and shows the Belgian culture more clearly
as Brussels is very Globalised. Cities like Gent and Bruges are great examples of Belgian culture and
should definitely be visited. I would also recommend the Christmas markets during the winter as you
can find anything in the markets and the atmosphere is of the markets are very European and
amazing to experience.
I would also like to say that, accommodation is hard to find around Brussels and someone thinking of
going should start looking for accommodation as soon as possible. I had to live in a hostel for a week
before finding a place to live and I was very lucky with the place I found as it was not too far away
from the university and was reasonably priced compared to some of the other places to rent around
Brussels. Also, be careful to know whether the room is furnished or unfurnished as many of the
rooms were unfurnished but cheaper because of it, and as a student coming from abroad, bringing
furniture and bedding is often hard and expensive.
And finally, I would like to say that you should study very hard while on Erasmus as the exams are
much harder than here and, in most universities, the exams are marked harder than in UL. You
should study hard but also try to experience the culture as much as possible and see as much of
Europe as you can as transportation can be much cheaper on mainland Europe than here in Ireland.
Don’t become too stressed out about exams, study hard but don’t miss an opportunity to visit
another city or have a cultural experience because of the stress of exams.