My life in Europe——WISE2010硕士王昊

When I started writing this essay I already spent three months in Europe and only two months remain for my exchange. Good time is always short. Believe me, you should choose this exchange program during your study in WISE as long as you can get some financial support either from your family or by your own. This program offers you not only a good opportunity to study in an excellent university, Bocconi University, but also give you a good opportunity to travel either in Italy or in the whole Europe as you wish.

Bocconi University is a private university in Italy, which is famous for its education in Economics, Finance and MBA. Every student in Bocconi can choose his own study plan every semester according to the requirement of the program, consisted of both compulsory courses and selective courses. And also, he can choose selective courses not only in his own major but also in other related majors. This offers valuable chances for a student to get some general idea in other majors, to easily develop inter-disciplinary knowledge, and also enables a student to switch his/her major in further education if he/she would like to do so.

There are many excellent professors in every major of Bocconi University. I choose two courses this semester, Monetary Policy and International Finance. I think both professors are excellent in teaching. As long as I know, ROBERTO PEROTTI, the professor who is teaching Monetary Policy, is not only good at teaching but also has excellent publications. He published many articles in well known international journals, such as American Economic Review, Quarterly Journal of Economics, and Journal of Economic Perspectives and so on. He is famous in Macroeconomic research. I think for those who wish to apply for a PHD program either in Europe or America in economics or finance after the study in WISE should choose this exchange program because you have the chance to communicate with excellent professors. Further more, if any of them can write a recommendation letter for you, this will make you very competent among applicants.

After talking so much on study, then I’d turn to the topic of traveling. In fact, I already visited many cities in Europe up to now. I really miss the beautiful beach both in Nice and Barcelona. The classical European architecture and sculpture in Rome. Florence and Vienna are amazing too. Another thing that I want to mention is that you can make friends at Bocconi, both Chinese and Foreigners as you like. You can travel with these friends together since travel alone will make you feel lonely and tired sometimes. In all my journeys I travel with Chinese exchange students from other universities in mainland China and Hong Kong since I think it is easy to communicate with them and we also have the same life style. We solve problems together during the journeys and it makes everybody learn a lot in the trips.

Now let me share with you some tips in traveling in Europe.

1.       You can always find very cheap flights from economic carriers like Ryanair and Easyjet. And some other airlines also offer particular routes in Europe. You can use a website called “tianxun” to search for all cheap flights. This website works like a search engine for flights allover the world no matter which company offers the specific flight you need.

2.       You can also find cheap hostel on a website called “hostelworld”, as students do not have much money to stay in hotel when traveling. The solution is that we can find a bed in a dorm in almost all European cities with the help of this kind of website. These hostels will give you tour advice and city maps when you arrive there and this greatly saves your energy and time.

3.       There is an application called APP both for iPhone and Android systems. You can find free travel tips with this application for every city before your visit. It gives you tips on good local restaurants with reasonable prices. We really enjoyed delicious local food in every city we visited.

4.       In some European cities you can rent a bicycle to get around. Traveling with bicycle not only saves you money but also gives you a good opportunity to visit the city in a very relaxed way.