Campus Village and Accomodation

There a few different accommodation options if you're going to attend DTU. The main ones include Kampsax Kollegiet, the largest dorm on campus. As an international student, the top choice is Campus Village.

Typically, Danish students will live in Kampsax. However, there are several international students there as well. Everyone is organized by what "kitchen" they're in. There are about 14 students to each group, and they all share a kitchen. I believe it comes with all necessary equipment, but you have to clean and manage it as a group. Probably the best part about Kampsax is that each bedroom has its own bathroom attached. Obviously, it will be a bit small as compared to "group" bathrooms, but if bathroom privacy is high on your priority list, then Kampsax is the place to live. For laundry, you have to go to a certain part of Kampsax that has multiple machines, and use your student card to make payments, which are added to next month's rent. Finally, it's right next to DøgnNetto, which is an express version of Netto, the largest Danish grocery chain.

Campus Village from the outside. Underneath each container's sign, you can see a mailbox.

The best choice for international students is, without a doubt, Campus Village. It feels different than most dorms, because it definitely is. It's not a traditional dorm, because it's not a building! It's comprised of 20 "containers" since they look like 3 shipping containers put together. I'm not really sure if they are actual shipping containers, but they look cool. Inside, 8 or 9 students live together and share a kitchen, which comes fully equipped (except microwaves). There are two full bathrooms inside, but they are split so there are two toilet+sink rooms, and two shower rooms. There is a washing machine and dryer inside each container. Luckily, someone comes around and cleans the bathrooms, kitchen, and takes out the main trash.

The hallway inside a Campus Village container

When I chose Campus Village, I was a little skeptical on what was included in the container. After arriving, I found out that they really have given everything needed: plates, bowls, utensils, even dish washing supplies like soap and sponges (which they replace every few days). They really have got you covered for everything but the food itself.

Bed and (messy) desk in Campus Village	Cabinet for clothes

Note the lack of microwave.; you can buy one as a group to reduce the cost per person. There is also a 2nd fridge next to the one seen here	The (extendable) table with freezer next to it

The washer/dryer. On top are all the detergents and cleaners and stuff

The convenient instructions on how to use the washer and dryer

The toilet+sink room. There are 2 of these per container

The shower room. Also 2 of these per container

Both options include heating (which is done on a per-room basis), electricity, water, and internet. Information on the other residence halls can be found here. The following is a table summing up Kampsax and Campus Village:

	Kampsax	Campus Village
People per Group/Kitchen	14	8-9
Bathrooms	1 per person (bedroom)	2 per container
Kitchen	Fully equipped (Not sure)	Fully equipped
Laundry	Separate Building, must pay, detergent included	In container, free, buy your own detergent
Perks	Right next to DøgnNetto	All international students
Cleaning	Must clean kitchen yourself	Besides dishes, everything is cleaned almost daily by a custodian. This includes toilets, showers, and the kitchen, and the trash is taken out.
Price	Approx 3000 DKK	2500 DKK

If you're like me and you have all your classes in the 3rd quadrant (explanation of what this means) since I'm taking mostly CS and EE classes, Campus Village is amazingly convenient since it's in the 3rd quadrant as well. All of my classes are within 7 minutes walking distance.

Other than these Kampsax and Campus Village, you can look at the link above to find more residence halls. The non-DTU affiliated options include living with a family, or living in Copenhagen. As you can imagine, living in Copenhagen itself would be really expensive, and utilities might not be included in the rent. Furthermore, you will have to take public transportation to campus everyday, or ride a bike for 45 minutes.

Arriving in Copenhagen

This part could have been a bit smoother. At the same time, it could have been a heck of a lot worse.

Evan, Matt, Algis, and I touched down at Copenhagen Kastrup airport (CPH) at 13:30 local time (yeah that's right, "military" time, another thing I love about Europe) on Saturday January 24, 2014. Before and after the flight, we were trying to figure out how to actually reach DTU. There were a lot of different directions given to us for public transportation, luckily.

As an aside, I wanted to get a taxi. They're super expensive in Copenhagen (like $100 to get from the airport to DTU), but the convenience would have been so nice, as compared to public transportation, as you'll soon hear.

We had a limited understanding of how public transportation worked here, since it's rather extensive and confusing. Plus, it's expensive. The entire area is split up into zones, and you can take the Metro, like a subway for central Copenhagen, the S-train, which takes you out to the suburbs (for example, Lyngby, where DTU is), and then buses. More on this in a different post I'm making for public transportation.

Anyway, lucky for us, Evan's girlfriend is also studying abroad here in Copenhagen, so she came and picked us up from the airport. Since she was already there for a week or so, she could lead us to the right metro/train/bus. In our case, we were covering a fair amount of distance, so we had to first take a Metro from the airport, then switch to an S-train, and finally get on a bus that would take us right to campus.

Mind you, this is with all our baggage; I was rolling a big suitcase, a small suitcase, and had a backpack on. And they were all overweight (based on the airline standard at least). Fun times...

Matt and I on the first leg of the trip, the Metro. Photo courtesy of Algis.

The first two legs of the trip went smoothly. Then we got on the bus. Or at least, what we thought was the right bus...turns out we took the 300S the wrong way. I guess we were used to the letter after the number indicating a direction of the current route. Turns out the "300S" stays as is, and the destination is what changes. Luckily, we figured it out a few stops later, crossed the street, and took the right one.

We got off at the DTU stop, walked to the accommodation office (even though it was a weekend, they kept special hours because they knew people would be coming in), signed some papers, and got ANOTHER bag. This one was full of bedding stuff like a full duvet/comforter and bed sheets.

Somehow, even after the past 1.5 hours of switching trains and buses and such, walking to Campus Village was the worst part for me. I fully attribute that to the high use of cobblestone on campus. Rolling bags on cobblestone was...well let's just say it sucked. 

If you're coming in as a group of three people, I'd personally recommend getting a taxi. The ones I saw around here are mostly wagon types, so I have a feeling they could fit all the bags (3 big, 3 small). It will be expensive, yes, but public transportation was rather expensive too. Not as much, but you have weigh the difference in price against the effort you have to put in. 

Like I said, it could have been a lot worse. If we didn't have Evan's girlfriend to guide us, we would have been (at least slightly) screwed. I think it was actually a productive experience, though, because we got to learn the public transportation system as we went along.

Stay tuned for more.

Residence Permit and CPR

Now to the residence permit and CPR number that I mentioned above. If you want to stay more than 90 days in Denmark - the length of the regular entry visa given at the airport - you have to apply for a residence permit. Small side story about that: once I got my bags at the airport, at the final exit, the agent stamping passports asked me where I was going (completely valid question, but the others didn't get questioned about this for some reason) and I just said DTU, and he stamped it.

When you get your acceptance letter from DTU, they will include an "ST1" form, which is used to apply for a student residence permit, which you will will need if you're staying a semester or longer. The form has two parts: one that the student fills out, and one that the university fills out. DTU filled out their part and sent me the form.

With the ST1, you have to include the acceptance letter, and proof that you have a bank account with at least $5000, so you can show you can provide for yourself. The caveat, is that the account must be in your name only; no joint accounts. We included a letter from our bank manager for confirmation, but this will not always be necessary. 

In the US, the only entities involved with the permit application are the Danish Consulate in New York, and a company called BLS. BLS is required because they take your fingerprints, your ST1, COLOR copies of EVERY page of your passport, etc and hand it off to the consulate. The consulate is the one that actually processes the application. You also have to go online to some Danish government agency website and create a "Case Order ID" and pay a fee of about $300 to a Danish Labor agency before the BLS process. Once the processing is complete, you get an email, and you can pick up the permit once you're in Denmark. 

Here are three links that will give a lot more information than I could in one post:

• Denmark-USA
• New to Denmark
• BLS

The 2nd aspect is the CPR number. This is the equivalent of the Social Security number in the US, and you have to have a residence permit before getting the CPR. The CPR number gives you access to nationwide free health care/insurance, and they even assign you a primary care physician in case you need one during your stay. It also allows you to open a bank account, get a Rejsekort (public transportation card), and a lot more. Part of the DTU International Intro Week is set aside to get your CPR number, assuming of course, you have a residence permit already, or your an EU resident who can get a residence permit on the spot. 

Alright, time for a little rant. I filled out all my paperwork. I went to a BLS office in Chicago during Thanksgiving Break to do the fingerprints and submit all my paperwork. I'm not going to name names here, but the BLS agent that "specializes" in Denmark is incompetent, and disgustingly rude. Furthermore, it's been 2.5 months, and I have yet to receive the email from the New York consulate saying my residence permit has been approved and here's the relevant information. 

Now, normally, I wouldn't be too concerned or upset about this. But I am, and there are two reasons. First, I need my CPR number. For the reasons said above, it's obvious that you can't do a lot without the CPR number. Also, my new friends from Australia got their residence permit within a few weeks of applying. It appears the New York consulate is taking their time with our (not just me, all the students from the US are in the same boat as I am) applications. Technically, I can stay in the country until the end of April, so again, it's not a huge concern, but a big inconvenience.

If you're going to the Chicago BLS office, be aware of what I said above. Hopefully, there's a different agent when you apply. Also, I'm fairly certain that applying earlier than Thanksgiving won't help too much, because I met someone here that applied a few weeks before I did, and she hasn't gotten anything yet. 

Phew, that was a lot. Sorry there aren't any pictures in this one, just a lot of information. Hopefully this clears up some things for you guys, because there were some points in the process where I was very confused.

Preparation

Now it starts getting a bit more interesting. At this point, I've heard back from IPENG (UIUC Engineering Study Abroad) and I've been accepted into the exchange program (technically this didn't mean I was accepted at DTU yet, just IPENG accepted me). So now the hard parts.

I had to apply to DTU, get a residence permit (which is sort of in between a visa and greencard for Denmark, more on this in a separate post), figure out which classes I should take, and oh so much more.

The DTU application was straightforward enough. If you're reading this, you probably know how lame college applications are. DTU's was much better. I heard back a few weeks later from the International Office, saying that I was accepted.

Let's talk about classes next. I needed engineering classes (not a problem since the T in DTU is for technical) taught in English. This was sort of tricky. All of their masters level courses are taught in English, because a lot of students come from other countries to do a full time masters. Unfortunately, about 2/3 of the bachelors level classes are taught in Danish.

A few of the course options. There were tons more below.

This is the DTU Course Base. Based on my requirements, I filtered on English and Spring semester only. This gave me a bunch of options for classes. There's other If you're in ECE (Electrical and Computer Engineering) or CS (Computer Science, you will find tons of course options, most of which I'm sure will transfer back to your home university. Environmental engineering students will also find quite a few options, but I believe there's more in Danish. Almost all engineers will have at least a few options.

Personally, I decided to take the following, being a computer engineering major:

• Wireless Communications - MSc/BSc
• Nano-1: Introduction to Nanotechnology - BSc
• Introduction to Statistics - BSc
• Data Compression - MSc
• Cryptology 1 - MSc

I'll be talking more about courses at DTU in a later post, once I actually complete a few weeks. Side note, for my fellow UIUC ECE students, Intro to Stats will get you out of ECE 313!

I'm making a separate post for the information regarding the residence permit and CPR number, because there is so much to say. 

I'm on a roll here with posting, so keep checking back in the next few days.

Starting Out

I guess a little bit of backstory is required here. My sister actually studied abroad twice during her four years (still trying to figure out how she managed to do that after changing majors...) at Iowa State University. She first went to New Zealand in her sophomore year then Turkey in her junior year. So, I was mildly inspired by that.

[Oh, and for any foreign readers here at DTU, "study(ing) abroad" basically means doing an exchange program. I'll put any notes to foreign readers in square brackets.]

And, you know, being the logical person that I am, I realized I should go study abroad now because once I start working, I'll get 14 days in a year for myself, which gives me no time to travel Europe like I want to.

Anyway, after being inspired and all that, there was a convenient study abroad fair every semester, so I went to one during my freshman year [Freshman year = 1st year, Sophomore = 2nd, Junior = 3rd, Senior = 4th]. I only really looked around, didn't really dive into things.

Summer rolled around, I was boring during my internship. So I went on the main UIUC study abroad website, and did a search for programs. Filtered on Europe and some other factors, and after some more research, I was down to DTU and a university in Stockholm, Sweden.

I literally wanted to apply to both equally, not even one preference higher than the other; they were that equal to me at the time. Both offered tons of classes that would come in for credit, both required and technical. Engineering students get to take them as pass fail when they transfer back to UIUC, which is awesome. Eventually I just came down to DTU because lots of Danish people speak English, and Exchange students are 1/8 of the DTU population, so they've set up lots of resources to help us out.

After that, came the prep.

Intro

First some background for anyone who cares. I'm a 2nd year student at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, studying Computer Engineering with a Business Minor. As most of you know, I'm studying abroad near Copenhagen, Denmark this semester. That's basically the main reason I went through in creating this blog, but I might end up using it later on for random musings.

More specifically, I'm studying at Denmark Technical University in Lyngby, Copenhagen, which is 15 km (thank you based metric units) north of central Copenhagen. I'm hoping this will be helpful for future people who are interested in study abroad here at DTU.

I'm going to try and do some back-posting to make up for lost thoughts. If there's something you think I should add, let me know!

The DTU logo, in the university colors gray and red.