By David Langran
dl@adm.au.dk
Summer is on its way, exams are imminent, and many of us are having to face the possibility of actually having to return home and get on with life. But what if you’re just not ready to say goodbye to Aarhus yet? Or if you wake up in a cold sweat at the prospect of no more Friday nights at Social Club? What if the thought of never being able to cycle home drunk after yet another party at Skjoldhøj fills you with dread? Never fear, it is possible to stay if you so wish, and UNIvers took the time to investigate exactly how the whole procedure works.
What to do
Firstly, you need to get approval from both your coordinator back home and your coordinator here in Aarhus to extend your stay. Once both agree, then you get in contact with Helle Seiersen at the International Secretariat and ask her to approve an extension for another semester. Now comes the tricky part: finding accommodation for another six months. Housing in Aarhus is at a premium, but you can check with your College Office (Kollegiekontoret) to see if you can extend your lease for your current accommodation. Otherwise you can apply for housing via http://ungdomsboligaarhus.dk/ - beware though, waiting lists run well into the hundreds, so get yourself signed up fast!
All you need is love
Natalia Escobedo, 23, from Spain, decided last semester that she wasn’t ready to go home in January, and so prolonged her stay for another six months. She explains her experiences:
“Last autumn I met someone here, and I decided I wanted to stay with him. There also seemed to be a lot more possibilities here for me than in Spain – the quality of my education is higher, and I feel that the university system as a whole is much better. I also thought that I’d always have the rest of my life to go back to Spain, so why not spend another six months here? I spoke to my coordinator here to get approval for an extension of my stay in Denmark, and then got a letter from the university that granted me permission to stay. I sent both the approval and the letter from the university to Erasmus and prayed they’d extend my grant! Although I’ve got to go back to Spain again over the summer, I hope to come back in September, but this time I’ll be looking for a job and trying to stay here more permanently!” she says.
The lengths people go to for Aarhus
Pamela Meropiali, from Turin University was due to return to Italy late in February, but didn’t want to go home. She tells us about her experiences:
“I booked a flight home for the end of February, but a few hours before leaving I decided I didn’t want to go! During my six months in Erasmus I met dozens of students from all over the world and made some really strong friendships that I really didn’t want to give up. I also really grew as a person, and am now much stronger and more sociable. I couldn’t face losing it all! I ended up ‘missing’ my flight and spent another ten days in Aarhus before I had to go home. However I was only in Italy a few weeks. I’m a theatre student, and Denmark has one of the world’s leading theatre companies, called Odin Teatret in Holstebro – my professor has close links to them, and it was him who first recommended Denmark to me because of them. In the middle of February there was an opportunity to win a three-month internship with Odin, and as I’m writing my degree thesis about them, I applied. Luckily I won the placement, and was soon back in Denmark and reunited with my friends! Now I live and work in Holstebro and come back to Aarhus for the parties and socialising at the weekends.
So, whilst UNIvers would not recommend missing your flight as a means of prolonging your stay here, there are other options that will enable you to extend your studies, should Denmark’s allure prove too strong...
