Wednesday 25 January VIA Campus Horsens said farewell to 200 exchange students. The students had studied one or two semesters on one of the English taught programmes and as documentation for their hard work and finished exams, they received a certificate at an informal ceremony.

A great effort

Head of programmes, Jan Uwe Wolff, was the festive speaker of the day. He was delighted that the students had done a great effort while they were at VIA Campus Horsens. He also praised the students for adding international inputs to the study environment, and was pleased that the students were great ambassadors for VIA University College. 

Students from 20 countries

The students represented 20 different countries, so there have been many cultural differences to get used to. Jasmin Muldar from Perth in Australia chose to travel half-way around the world to study Global Business Engineering for one semester:” It has been a huge experience for me to study in Denmark and experience the Danish culture. Almost everything is different from home – food, clothes, cars, shops. Also the teaching is different from what I am used to. Here I got more freedom. It has been our own responsibility to search for, and find information and we have had more teamwork than in Australia.  It is an experience that I would recommend others to try”.

Rhianen Rebius chose to study Mechanical Engineering for one semester, even though it meant that she had to leave her bellowed New Zealand for almost six months: “I wanted to experience a completely different country than my own and I have had great opportunities to do that. Denmark is a ‘hyggeligt’ (cosy) country, and it has been experiencing to get to know Danes and other exchange students. The level of teaching at VIA has been higher than what I am used to, so I learned a lot which I am extremely happy about. But what I will remember best is the experience of being in another country”.  

Sweets and Champagne

After the festive speech and the presentation of the certificates, the students were treated with champagne, sweets and fruit – which gave the already happy atmosphere another boost. Many of the students chose to go back home the day after they received their certificate, while others had postponed the trip a couple of days in order to experience more of Denmark or to spend it with their newly discovered friends.

After one or two semesters at VIA Campus Horsens the exchange students are returning to their respective home countries.