Norway ? Exchange Semester #1: Reflection

For anyone interested in my experience, any fellow student considering Oslo for an exchange semester, and to future me, so that I never forget to make the most out of all the opportunities I get.

         The past semester has been quite different: I moved to Oslo, Norway in August as an exchange student at BI Norwegian Business School. 

         Norway challenges you in its own way – the cold weather, sunsets at 3 pm, and keeping a low budget in such an expensive country (thanks Erasmus+ grant!). Still, I wouldn’t have changed a single detail. I made wonderful friends from 7 other countries, with whom I shared Norway and the experiences it offers - together, we hiked 28km for 12 hours, discovered Norway’s fjords, saw the Northern Lights, went fishing in the Arctic and went to a true Norwegian sauna at 80oC, only to jump in the 0oC fjord water seconds after.

         Academically, BI Norwegian Business School has a quite different teaching culture compared to my home university - which meant one-third of total class time, no practical classes, and no continuous evaluation. On one hand, it’s tougher to keep track of your progress as a student since there’s only one exam or term paper to deliver at the end, for most courses. My first grades of the semester came long after I left Norway – a foreign concept to me prior to studying at BI. On the other hand, BI’s method makes students more accountable, responsible and organized, since there still are assignments throughout the weeks, and you must plan in well in advance to learn properly and succeed in the final evaluation. BI puts students’ discipline to the test.

         During the semester, in ‘Tactical Marketing’, I had the chance to create a bike brand in a simulation. Every week, our team would meet up to adjust pricing, product design, open stores, segmenting, targeting and more. In ‘Product and Pricing Strategy’, we created an eco-shower for the Norwegian market. I took ‘Art and Design Industries’, a course chosen due to my passion for making swimwear and my desire to learn more about design organizations in a marketing and organizational perspective in a classroom setting. For this course, I got to make a portfolio of marketing analysis of several organizations I admire. Finally, in ‘Norwegian Culture and History’, I learned the history of the country that hosted me and took a deep-dive into its culture, including the Norwegian business culture. Although this course falls a bit outside the scope of my business degree, I felt it was worth the opportunity cost since it helped me make sense of what I saw every day living there – from why do Norwegian people stand 2 meters apart from each other when waiting for the bus, to understanding the historical foundations of why Norwegians are protective of their culture and identity and how businesses in Norway differ from those of other countries.

         BI Norwegian Business School and the peaceful city of Oslo cannot be recommended enough – the university facilities and staff were all a student could ever dream of. By the end of the semester, not only did I survive the cold and the daily 6 hours of sun, I even began to enjoy it and the chance to see snow falling and beautiful Oslo covered in white. 

         I boarded the plane back home slightly different than when I arrived: slightly more aware of and capable to deal with differences in culture and personality; slightly more centered and happier; slightly more eager to take on other challenges; slightly more confident in myself; communicating slightly better. In the end, it will have made all the difference.

         Thank you, BI Norwegian Business School and Oslo, for taking me in and thank you CATóLICA-LISBON, for the opportunity. Now, onto the next stage of my degree – a final semester at McGill University in Canada.