Budapest, Hungary: CSEP W25 Noah Perez
A tip I would give to students applying for exchange is…
A couple tips:
First make sure to get your grades up the semester before hand so that you have options and you can get the school you want.
I said it before, save up money so you can travel a bunch and don’t feel limited, again this is a once in a lifetime opportunity where you want get the chance to travel the world with this type of time on your hands and also live there at the same time.
Keep an open mind and don’t limit yourself to what you think you are and aren’t gonna do while you’re there because you might surprise yourself.
You should also budget how much your travels are going to cost as well as day to day purchases.
(Also very Madrid specific tip but I only figured this out cuz my roommate told me, if you get your picture taken and get a monthly metro card, it’s 8€ per month for unlimited passes which is really good instead of paying 6€ for ten passes)
The coolest place I visited while on exchange was...
There was a lot of really really cool places I went to, I’m not sure I could say one, but some of the top ones thinking back, I went to a spa hotel maybe and hour or two out of Stockholm in Sweden and that was a surreal experience. I had gone to see a symphony in one of the most beautiful churches in Vienna, I had went into a Jewish ghetto from the Holocaust in Budapest. There was a lot of things that looking back almost felt like a dream and you think to yourself, I really did that, I made that happen. And I think that’s something everyone should be able to experience
I felt like I made a great decision to go on exchange when…
I found myself sitting at a table with 15 other individuals from more than seven different countries, all of us sharing stories about our cultures and experiences.
I recommend going on exchange because...
For a million reasons which I can’t list them all. But the main ones are, push yourself outside your comfort zone, you will learn so much about yourself living abroad. You will meet so many new people, you will make new friends, learn new cultures. And ultimately have a bit of a different perspective on life when you come back to Montreal.
