Mobility specification

Country:Vietnam

Institution:Hanoi University of Science and Technology

City:Hanoi

Program:Erasmus+ ICM

Activity type:Study

Academic year:2021/2022

MU faculty/department:Faculty of Informatics

Study level abroad:Master

🎓Hit the books! How do you rate the university experience?

Can you enroll in a course where you can learn the local language?no

Does the university offer enough courses in English?it's alright

Are your credits converted?yes

Can you give an example?I was on a trip 3 years ago but I think the courses in Vietnam had the ECTS system.

Was there anything in the teaching methods that surprised you?Writing off on final tests.

Does the university offer international students' programs and activities outside of lectures and seminars to help them integrate more quickly?I guess it was orientation week, but I had a passport problem so I arrived 2 weeks later than I was originally supposed to.

In which areas does the university offer support for students with special needs and strive to be inclusive?I haven’t noticed

💸Did you have to rob the bank?

Try to take a guess at what your monthly expenditures were:12500 CZK/month

Did you stay in dorms?no

Do you have any tips on how to find private accommodation?We spent the first month at AirB&B. Thanks to the rich connections of people between Czechoslovakia and Vietnam, we met a Vietnamese man with ties to Prague on the Facebook profile "To Vietnam without a travel agent - diskuze", who introduced us to a Czech man who had an empty house in Hanoi. We got a narrow house for ourselves for 5,000 crowns per person. The house had a ground floor in which we had a kitchen, a living room and we parked our motorbikes on the ground floor. It had 3 narrow floors with a roof terrace on which we could dry our clothes. In total we had 3 full size rooms + a kk to ourselves for living.

What about unexpected expenses? Did anything surprise you?I expected Vietnam cheap and it was cheap. I went back to Vietnam 2 years after Erasmus ended and it was still cheap.

Do you have any tips on how to save money?Negotiate, always! Only in the supermarket where the prices are written, so not there. They work like ours.

🗺 Learn the ropes in a new city

How well did you manage to communicate in English?with gestures

Where to find connections? How to buy a ticket?The first accommodation was a 20 min walk from the school. Later we bought motorbikes. There is some public transport. But I never took it.
Intercity transport works on the basis of private carriers with minibuses. We went that way only once and they can be found by the companies in some complicated way on the internet. You'd better search in Vietnamese to get a better price. Luckily I never dealt with this. I didn't feel like it and delegated it to my friends. And if you would go directly to the bus station and search for connections to your destination there, always negotiate. The locals know what platform to walk from to what destinations. By the way, it works the same way in the Philippines and I believe in other developing countries as well. Even in Vietnam, it can happen that a given bus doesn't go to a given destination but the bus driver promises to take you there. Then what happens is that you get passed on to another bus driver at the crossroads. It hasn't happened to me, but I have heard of it.

Did you deal with any health issues during your stay?no

🤠Help create the perfect bucket list

What is a must-see in the city?Lotte Center HàNội observation deck. Nice view of the whole city from the bar.

What are the must-visit trip destinations?The stone walls of the city don't inspire awe in me, and Vietnamese municipalities are very deficient in this area compared to Europe. In Hanoi it is worth seeing the Bát Tràng Ceramic Village which is next to the capital. I tried my hand at working with ceramics in the village. For only 400 crowns I bought a whole tea set after negotiating with the sales lady. Next to Hanoi is another village where they make traditional Vietnamese hats from which I have rich memories of bargaining and very close to the hat village is a scented candle making village.

Share your best experience:Motorcycle trips up north, playing hockey with Americans, Canadians, Czechs and Vietnamese (who lived in the Czech Republic for a while). Eating on the street and learning Vietnamese from an unforgettable friend.

💅A nugget of wisdom to make the life easier

Did you need to handle a visa?yes

Where can it be arranged?The school handled my visa. There was a period of covid to tight covid in Vietnam (2022).

What is needed?Probably nothing special. Photo and basic personal data.

How long does it take approximately?It took the school about a week.

How did you get to the place?Plane

Is there anything to watch out for before the trip?Vaccination.

Can you pay by card?sometimes

What not to forget when packing?Medicines, but you can buy them there too, you just don't have to deal with czech equivalents and then maybe some small souvenirs for people you meet at the destination. Even plain socks with Czech/Russian motifs will do.

🥳Summary

Whew, what a ride! 😮‍💨 Thanks so much for taking the time to complete our survey and for sharing your unique experience. Just one last thing. 🙏 How would you summarize your trip in one or two sentences?I learned the value of money, its pricing, and realized how much the planet is all of us.