Mobility specification

Country:Iceland

Institution:University of Akureyri

City:Akureyri

Program:Erasmus+ for study

Activity type:Study

Academic year:2024/2025

MU faculty/department:Faculty of Social Studies / Department of Psychology

Study level abroad:Bachelor

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

Can you enroll in a course where you can learn the local language?yes

Does the university offer enough courses in English?neutral

Are your credits converted?no

Was there anything in the teaching methods that surprised you?In many courses, teaching is both face-to-face and distance learning, so students can attend lectures via zoom or just listen to a recording of the lecture afterwards and attend only a few special classes, that require attendance, and exams. I didn't know this information before I arrived, so I was surprised at how few students were attending the lectures (there were often less than 10 of us) and how empty the school building was as a result.

Does the university offer international students' programs and activities outside of lectures and seminars to help them integrate more quickly?Something yes, at the beginning we had an orientation day and during the semester the school organized about 3 or 4 events for exchange students.

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

💸Did you have to rob the bank?

Try to take a guess at what your monthly expenditures were:35000 CZK/month

Did you stay in dorms?no

Do you have any tips on how to find private accommodation?Our accommodation was arranged by the school, so even though I wasn't living in the dorms, I was in a student accommodation arranged by the university. When the accommodation was allocated we were not given a choice, the university sent us an offer that they had a place for us in such and such accommodation and our options were to either accept this offer or arrange our own accommodation.

What about unexpected expenses? Did anything surprise you?Food prices. I expected Iceland to be expensive, but the real prices surprised me anyway. Food prices in restaurants were also higher than I expected, causing me to go to a restaurant exactly once in my entire Erasmus. Also, the fact that the school asked us to pay fees to sign up for two applications that they said we needed to function at the local university.

Do you have any tips on how to save money?A basket with discounted products in the Kronan store, but it does not help significantly.

🗺 Learn the ropes in a new city

How well did you manage to communicate in English?perfectly

How does public transport work in the city?neutral

And what about transport outside the city?terrible

Where to find connections? How to buy a ticket?Public transport in Iceland isn't used a lot, and buses between cities run only some days of the week and usually only once a day. They are also really expensive, for example the bus from Akureyri, where I studied, to Reykjavík costs about 2300 Czech crowns (or 92€). If you want to travel to some interesting places, the option of public transport is completely out of the question and there is the option to either pay for a tour through a travel company or rent a car and drive there yourseld (I had a good experience with this with Europcar). Without a driver's license, or if you don't want to rent a car, there is the option to hitchhike, which I and many other exchange students have used at least once. However, if one really wants to take public transport, bus timetables can be looked up on straeto.is, but tickets can only be bought on the bus and cannot be booked in advance. Domestic flights are also taken as a public transport option here, as every major city has an airport (and major in Iceland actually means 1000 inhabitants).

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?The city itself is not that interesting, the botanical garden could be nice, but more after the summer than now in spring when nothing has bloomed yet. There's a nice cafe there, though. There is also a Forest Lagoon in Akureyri, but I didn't visit it myself.

What are the must-visit trip destinations?The surrounding area is definitely worth a visit, such as the Godafoss waterfall and Lake Mývatn, or the Reykjafoss waterfall and hot spring, located about an hour from Akureyri. Then there's also the waterfall on the road on the way to Egilsstadir, in the south of Iceland a place belonging to the Golden Circle, then Reynisfjara beach near Víku, or Seljalandsfoss and Gljúfrabúí waterfalls, also a short drive from Víku.

Share your best experience:Probably the first trip to the southern part of Iceland, for which we had beautiful weather (which was quite a surprise in March) and I visited a lot of waterfalls and other interesting places for the first time on this trip. Or the time we went to a cliff known for puffins in May, and got really close to them.

💅A nugget of wisdom to make the life easier

Did you need to handle a visa?no

How did you get to the place?Plane

Is there anything to watch out for before the trip?I had originally planned to fly to Reykjavik and take a bus from there, but it didn't run on that day, so I had to change airports and fly to Akureyri. I would also recommend packing in one suitcase if possible, because lugging two in January in a high layer of snow to the airport, where I had to walk some distance from the bus, was not my favourite experience and I was cursing myself the whole time for not packing, for example, a backpack instead of one suitcase.

Can you pay by card?everywhere

🥳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?Iceland is a really interesting country and definitely worth exploring. You often feel like you're on another planet.