Students' Exchange Handpost

This post is for future Exchange students to ESB(Reutlingen) from SPJIMR. The basic idea is to keep essential information documented on a single platter.

Visa Processing:
It's the first stepping stone for the exchange program. While working in a company all processing headache will be taken care by travel-desk, but as a student we have to do everything on our own. Find visa application details at Mumbai Consulate - Schengen Visa. Applying for Schengen visa as a student one need not furnish all documents as in case of business visa.

The must-have documents are:

• Passport: [It's obvious :)]
  
• Filled VISA form
  
• Covering letter from SPJIMR: signed by program co-ordinator.
  
• Invitation letter from ESB.
  
• Demand Draft for Visa Fee: The amount given in embassy's website will be in EUR, so confirm the exact amount in INR by calling up Embassy.
  
• Photographs: Make sure to submit with exact requirement, slight deviation here and there will result in rejection of the application.
  
• Medical Insurance Certificate.
  
• Flight tickets.
  

Documents which are good to have. Usually furnished with a business visa application

• Bank statements: last 6 months, just to provide some sort of proof that you can bear expenses on your own.
  
• Form 16 and IT return.

Air tickets:

• Of all options we chose Emirates for cost, convenience and experience. We got return tickets at 33K INR per head, whereas the price for other major airlines was more than 60K.
• The most important plus point is that Emirates allows 30 kg of check-in luggage by default for Economy class! A huge cushion especially if you are planning to carry food items from India. Cheaper options like Gulf-Air and Kuwait-Air allow only 20-23 kgs depending on the flight occupancy.

Accommodation:

• We stayed at Kolpinghaus, a private dorm in downtown of Reutlingen. It was booked in advance by our university coordinator Heike Trost.
• The rates are very affordable price especially as per European standards. It was 200 EUR per month for triple sharing and 250 EUR per month for double sharing.
• However, due to some miscommunication we ended up paying extra amount 2.4 EUR per day for breakfast. Since we were used to having complimentary breakfast while staying aboard, so we assumed that breakfast at Kolpinghaus is also complementary.
• Better option is to have fresh bread, corn flakes and milk bought from grocery stores and it will definitely work out cheaper.
• Other point is to keep in mind for people who have already stayed abroad is that the stay won't be as convenient as your biz-trip accommodations, as the facilities such as toilets, kitchens will be shared like any other general dormitory.

Going to university:

• The best and the only means to travel to University is city-bus. Going for the first time from Kolpinghauz is quite challenging for a person who is new to the city. Luckily for us, Jonathan (one of the staff of Kolpinghaus) accompanied us for the first day.
• From Kolpinghauz one has to walk upto Bismarkstr stop in front of Unal bakery. From there take either Bus #8 or #11 to Stadtmitte(central bus stand) and from Stadtmitte to the university by bus to the destination 'Houbuch'. There’s no number for this bus, it's code is ‘H’, not sure what exactly ‘H’ stand for.

Naldo Pass:

• It's a student transport pass for entire semester which can be bought at a convenience store in Stadtmitte for 53.7 EUR.
• Definitely a must have pass to avoid paying for tickets everyday. If you make frequent visits to university the break-even can be easily attained. The same pass can also be used to travel by trains (RB or RE) to nearby cities Metzingen or Tübingen.

Grocery stores:

• The places where we bought grocery items were Asian Stores at Stadmitte, Penny Markt near University, Unal near Bismarkstr and Aldi Süd. Unal was convenient w.r.t distance but was expensive.
• The major commodity which we used to buy was rice ( Basmati rice to be pricise). It was 2.49 EUR/kg at Unal, 2.2 EUR/kg Asian stores and at Penny Markt it was 1.79/kg. Though the brands were different but saving a few cents per kg mean a lot.
• The route to Aldi stores was bit complicated. We visited there once before leaving just to buy chocolates. Artem(friend from Ukraine) helped us in finding the route.

Mobile connection:

• A must-have utility for comfortable stay especially while traveling. Life without it is virtually being like a handicap.
• We opted for T-mobile connection, 15 EUR for new a connection with 10 EUR free-talktime. Call rates were 0.05 EUR/min within T-mobile network. So make sure that everyone in your group opt for the same connection.

These are just a few important things, for any other queries do post comments.

A few important locations, including retail stores are pin-pointed in the embedded google map.


View Reutlingen in a larger map

Students' Exchange experience

Last week we made a presentation to the faculties at our institute for sharing about students' exchange experience at European School of Business(ESB), Reutlingen. In order to make presentation for interactive we chose majority of experience thru video.

The first video covers the experience from academic point of view, highlighting the diverse environment.



In the second video we presented the fun part of the exchange program, highlighting trip-n-tours we had in 6 weeks.



Regarding detailed account on trips-n-tours, I have published about Lake Konstanz so far, pending posts are about City Tour of Reutlingen and Tübingen, Strasbourg, Switzerland, Munich and Heidelberg.

Learning German Language at ESB

The very first course of the exchange program i.e. German Language course at ESB has been an amusing experience and very different regular MBA courses. Unfortunately, the course came to an end today, wish it was there for a longer time ! Anyways, the memories of the course, will be cherished by us for lifelong.

Initially, we were a bit apprehensive to take up the course and then our ESB co-ordinators made it mandatory to attend it. The course started with a surprise test on german language skills, which was used to partition candidates among expertise. The bouncer on the first day further dampened our low-enthusiasm to learn the language.

But, the equations changed when the actual classes started. The main factor was nice innovative pedagogies used by our faculty Toni Stoiber. She started from basics of what's your name, where are you from etc ... and then changed gears and taught us a German song, the emphasis was given on learning by feeling. The fun part of the sessions were Thomas and Juta sequences. Have a look at the video in which my bactchmate Sachin(as Thomas) is delivering german dialogues to Yunyu(as Juta)!


Today, the last class of the course, was concluded with a "Oktober fest" song Alles Gute.

In order to develop vocabulary of the language, Toni conducted many interesting games which were essentially like musical chair. For example one, two, three in German got embedded in our brain in a giffy.

The other distinct feature of the course was the diversity.

• Myself, Sachin & Sameer from India.
• Ling, Yunyu & Xi from China
• Luke and Tom from U.K.
• Ilya, Natasha and Egor from Russia.
• Yosuke from Japan
• Chelsea from Korea.

It was not only language course there were several other activities.

• Bodonsee(Lake Constance) Excursion.
• Black Forest Excursion.
• Reutlingen Treasure Hunt.
• Reutlingen City Tour
• Tübingen City Tour and Boat Ride.
• Liechestien Castle Trip
• Intercultural Training.

Due to some other priorities I could take part in some acitivities, but blog post on the rest next time !

At ESB Reutlingen !

Update after a long time ... at present I am at ESB Reutlingen(Germany) for students exchange program and also for an academic project with the team 5S - Sandeep, Sameer, Sachin, Sivaram and Sankar.

Getting to Reutlingen:
Traveling aboard as a student is a different experience altogether, especially for people who have traveled abroad by business trips. Everything has to be done on your own, right from visa application & air-tickets bookings to insurance and forex. Thankfully we got a good deal in Emirates which has kept our expenses under control so far ! The air travel was good, but getting to Reutlingen from Frankfurt was sort of a pain, even though we covered major part of journey through ICE. We had carry to carry our big baggages in the train which are meant for Regional travel.

German Language and Culture Course:
It's the very first course of the exchange program. After the initial bouncer of surprise test the german language skills, the course has been amusing so far. Our faculty is using nice pedagogy to teach. She has already taught us a German song and some sessions she is asking us to enact a situation in a pair. A very good way for internalizing a language.

Reutlingen Treasure Hunt.
One of the activity in German language course was Reutlingen treasure hunt. 120 students were divided into teams, ensuring that each team has members of varying level of german language expertise. The teams were given a treasure hunt questionnaire( in German) and which was supposed to be filled by exploring landmarks of Reutligen downtown. Being a beginner in the language, I could not really contribute to the group initially. Amazing part of the activity was the team-diversity in the team an Indian, an Russian, an American, Mexicans, a Irish !

There have been several activities in the course. Last Saturday(5th-Sep) we had one-day excursion to Lake Constance and on Monday(7-Sep) there was guided Reutlingen City Tour.

Celebrating Birthday Overseas.
Last but not the least, I celebrated my first birthday being outside India. First of all there was a confusion whether celebrate at 12 midnight IST or 12 midnight German time. And the signature moment was getting wishes in German in the language course class. Our faculty taught the class german happy birthday song.

Zum Gebunstag viel Gluck.
Zum Gebunstag viel Gluck.
Zum Gebunstag alles Gute.
Zum Gebunstag viel Gluck.

Sameer and Sachin demonstrated the wild way of wishing birthday in India. She also showed us the decent way of wishing birthday in Germany.

That's all as of now, more to come in next posts.