Getting there
According to EXISTINGCOUNTRIES, the University of Essex is located in Colchester, Essex. The easiest way to get there from Germany is to London to fly and take the bus or train to Colchester from London. I myself flew from Cologne / Bonn Airport to London Heathrow. There, the University of Essex organized buses that took students straight to campus. For this crossing, organized by the university, you had to register on the university’s homepage, the cost was around 30 pounds. It is cheaper to fly to London Stansted and from there take the National Express (approx. 10 pounds) to Colchester, where the bus stops in the city center. However, this has the disadvantage that you do not have the opportunity to get to know the other students immediately and to make contacts as soon as you arrive. In addition, the organized crossing is certainly easier.
Accommodation
As an applicant for MicroEDU, you are sure to have a place in the housing options on campus, even if you have to apply for a place like everyone else. I lived in the Bertrand Russell Tower myself. There are a total of four towers on campus, two in the north and two in the south. The Bertrand Russel Tower is in the south. In the tower there are 16 rooms per floor, a large communal kitchen, four toilets and four showers. Even if it seems at first glance that 15 roommates is too many, in my experience I didn’t have to wait for the showers or the toilets. There is always something going on in the large communal kitchen due to the numerous roommates and it never gets boring.The towers are perfect for “socializing”, socializing, cooking together and just enjoying the free time with the other roommates. For me it was the case that I was out with my roommates most of the time and had less to do with the people from my courses.
Courses
I took a marketing course, a management course, and a statistics course at university. Each course awarded 20 Essex Points, which corresponds to 10 ECTS each. This means that at the University of Essex you have the opportunity to complete an entire German semester in just three months (30 ECTS). The courses were very demanding and very interactive.In addition, the content was up to date and not only took into account mere, sometimes outdated theories, but also included current trends and new developments in marketing and management. Two term papers per course had to be submitted and passed in order to pass the course. While one of the papers was more theoretical and very reading-intensive, the other had a more creative focus, which made for a lot of variety. Only the statistics course was very mathematical / stochastic and taught the use of the statistics software Stata.
There is a general rumor that courses abroad are much easier to pass at your home university. Although I think that I had more difficult modules at the University of Cologne, the effort should not be underestimated. Without diligence you will not pass a course there and if you take too long to tackle things, the accumulated material will be so extensive that you will no longer be able to catch up in such a short time.
Leisure
The University of Essex is just outside Colchester. However, there are several bus stops right next to the campus, for example a two-minute walk from my tower. The city center can be reached in about 10 minutes by bus. Colchester is a beautiful smaller town that is believed to be the oldest city in England. There are many beautiful gardens and a surprising number of shopping opportunities. The inner city of this comparatively small city can easily be compared with that of Cologne. Colchester is approximately 30 to 40 minutes from London by train. During my stay I was there numerous times, as this metropolis can only be compared with a few cities in the world. London is definitely a must!
You can take the bus directly from campus to many smaller places that are beautiful and typically English. For example, it takes around 20 minutes to get to Clacton-on-Sea. As the name suggests, you are right by the sea and can go for a walk on the beach or eat something on the promenade with a fantastic view.
Most of the time, however, I spent on campus, where several shops, restaurants, bars, a cinema, a club and many other locations were to be found. In the SU Bar, run by the student organization, you can, for example, watch football with a cool drink or go out to eat with fellow students in one of the restaurants. For those who like to party, the club is open almost every day except Mondays and Sundays.
