Studera utomlands

These are 5 things I wish I knew when I first came to the Netherlands:

Tip 1: Register at your townhall ASAP

As soon as you have an address in the Netherlands, book a time at the town hall to register for a BSN (it’s basically the Dutch version of a Swedish personal number). You’ll need to bring your passport, rental contract (for your address in the Netherlands) and birth certificate, so make sure you have those printed beforehand.

Tip 2: Bike – to get or to not get?

I chose not to get a bike because it’s faster for me to get to uni by train. For context, my dorms are a 3 minutes walk to the De Vink train station (one stop away from Leiden C) and LUMC is like a 5 minute walk from there. Also the sunny weather doesn’t last long and I didn’t fancy biking in rain and wind. If you’d like to get a bike, I recommend renting one for the first 1-2 months and then opting for public transport once the autumn weather hits.

Tip 3: Public Transportation

Unlike Sweden, public transport in the Netherlands can all be paid for via the same app/card. How if works is that you just tap in/out of the bus or train station when you get on/off. These are the ways you can do it:

• OV-chipkaart → Probably the most cost-effective and it’s also what everyone here uses. See Tip 4 for more details.
• Bank card → You can also just use your bank card to tap in/out.
• 9292 → This is an app you can use to buy single tickets. I used this when I was waiting for my OV-chipkaart to arrive.

Tip 4: OV-chipkaart

I highly reccommend getting an OV-chipkaart, it’s really convenient and also the cheapest way you can use public transport. You order the card online and once it arrives, select your preferred subscription (this gives you a percentage discount on your travels). If you have a Dutch bank, you can set it up online, if not, you’ll need to do this as the NS service at Leiden central station. Basically when you tap in/out, the distance and cost are automatically calculated, then you receive a monthly bill with how much and on which date the sum will be drawn from your bank account. You can also download the NS app to keep track of your travels and tap in/out if you forget to do so.

Tip 5: Getting your LU and LUMC card

Your Leiden University (LU) card is your normal student card. You need it to access eg. the uni library, certain faculty buildings and for student discounts. You will get an email from LU to set this up and you can collect your card during orientation week at Plexus Student Centre. If you don’t have a suitable photo, there’s a photo booth at Plexus. Your LUMC card is specifically for access and identification in the hospital. You get to set it up during Faculty Morning (during orientation week) and once it’s ready, you collect it at LUMC as a class.

Hope this was helpful and if you have any questions please let me know!

See you in my next entry!

/ Rebekah