You
You
My name is Dennis, I'm 21 years old and I'm from the Netherlands and
In Latvia I study graphic design and media content design
I'm Severin, I'm 22 years old from Germany, and I'm an interior architecture student
Well for me long has a really renowned
Metalsmithing program and actually my professors back home
Made connections with the professors here and they're pretty they're like penthouse essentially so coming to
Latvia was a really natural decision, and it's been a long time relationship between my university and
university
as far as
Locations, I'd be happy to go and travel just about anywhere
But then again, this was my first and only opportunity, but I'm happy over here
When I don't know the first few weeks and it was like pretty clear a
Lot of people went out to the docks in Mucla and watch the Sun go down
I think a lot of people like kind of bonded over that and that was like a really
Okay, this is gonna be
I'm ready to like come and study like meet new people and like meet new friends
You know start my time here. Someone was waiting for me at the train station and they showed me my home
I used to live and I think that's the second day we got a party
I
I don't know exactly who was there because I met a lot of people
That was pretty nice it was
I think the first party the first days are in my opinion were really important to meet a lot of new people and after a couple of weeks
You just have your own friends, and then then you're not together with your group anymore
I spent my first day to buy something for the flats because there were nothing
And it was like a big surprise for us that the flats was totally empty
So yeah, the first day I tried to discover the city and to buy what I will need
It's easy in a way that you know that you won't
That
That you're gonna learn something in a really different way, and it's like you get accepted with your work and
You get like positive feedback all the time
So that's why it's easy to come to school. So you don't have to be scared of criticism or anything. That's really cool
I think the old teacher are really nice with their students because they always try to find them
They're going in your work, not bad. They just say yeah, this is really cool. They never want to say yes, this is bad
Something like this. So they're really
Really cool. It's like yeah, we have a lot of space. Yeah, that's really good. Yeah, the working places are so big
Yeah, the school is so friendly
You can't work everywhere
I think it's quite they're really free here and you can do almost everything like you have all those different
design
study fields in one building so you can
You also have nice corporations that you can try everything and you're really free to do whatever you want
But also you have to work like a lot on your own. It's not like I'm used to it from Germany
But like you have to work. Yeah a lot on your own. Yeah
Yeah, it's kind of strange to change that
You're had like I was a bit disappointed that
You're like left alone kind of
But like the teacher very friendly and it's like a friend of you, but not a teacher
So they're really friendly, but it feels like
Sometimes you just have to search for your work
Yeah, I think the biggest difference from the Netherlands is in Latte. It's like really
Practical for example one course. We were just
painting and drawing stuff and
It's not that it's much easier or something it's just much more different
But I kind of like it because we don't have a lot of practical courses in the Netherlands
I
Don't have any bad moments here. I'm just enjoying the city and my exchange
And best moment I think I had a lot because
How we travel make body and it's so cool. So I meet new people
I mean mostly exchange students not I'm just
They said don't really meet
Finnish students. Yeah, they are so
They are on their own
They are so scared
Okay, do it wrong why they don't talk to me and I don't know why
so with some
Finnish students are only for my group and after my group they're only three or two
I
Don't know why
The nicest moments. I think we had where when we are
Traveling or when we're going to the forest to the woods and that was so nice
I've never seen we once were traveling or hiking through the woods and I've never seen such a beautiful forest
This is the most
The greatest moment ever it was so nice and everything was perfect and also that there's a lot of water here
And you can I just love being
by water and
Sunsets and everything the nature is just really great. It's really cool because everywhere you can just
In ten minutes being the forest. Yeah, you're on your flat. Oh, I want to go to the forest
You just work five minutes and you are in the forest like okay. Yeah, really cool
And also the water is really
It's good
And it's also I start to really
Enjoy the nature around like I really start going out for a walk also by myself
but also with friends for example, but
Just going for a walk behind our student housing
There's this beautiful forest and I just go there for two hours or something listen to music and produce that
You're walking everywhere. I don't even take my bike anymore. It's just walking
so you
Kind of have something to do in that time and it's so beautiful
It's really nice. You really get relaxed here
um
I think
I we got really excited when we saw
uh the northern lights. I don't know we were just
uh
three of us most of the people were asleep and we just saw them and was crazy
Yeah, it was that was very good
That's I found that like no matter where you go
people are going to be people no matter what country they're from
and
like you still have like the same
roommate troubles
that
You could have anywhere else. So if you think you're gonna like escape any
um
Trouble from your home. It's just gonna call you back
so
Don't come on exchange expecting to run away from your problems because it's not gonna
It's not gonna work well
So they really need to
To be friendly with everybody and try to meet you
I also
It's really cool because you need a lot of
All the exchange students and from everywhere
so
The good experience. Yeah, just be open-minded for the new culture and
Take everything with you and I think we're we're staying here for such a short time and there's no time for
Anything bad at that time. So just try to we just try. Yeah, do everything really just enjoy
Yeah, enjoy your life. Enjoy your exchange
Don't be scared about stranger. Yeah
No, yeah, don't get depressed. Yeah by the weather and the darkness
Just get used to it as fast as possible and also
be
Communicated and friendly to the other exchange students because they turn out to be your family here and
and
like the more open you are and
The more you do with them the better gets your time here and it's like
really
close friends now and
Yeah, it's a lot of fun. But if you're acting kind of like
Hard to get or something then maybe you're gonna be left out kind of
This could be a bad
I think might have just
Just enjoy it and have a lot of fun and I think the best tip is
Prepare yourself that you've got enough money to do all the fun things. Oh vitamin D
Vitamin D
Yeah, but yeah, also
So, yeah, just be yourself
