Université de Haute Alsace (UHA)

Some other Erasmus students and I used to take a late train on a Saturday nite to Basel, Switzerland which was a 30 minute train ride away. We would go to the cool pubs and clubs there and take the first train back on Sunday morning. As for Mulhouse, there was a couple of nice cafes and bars but the atmosphere was just no good. One good point - the restauants are quite nice in Mulhouse.

Having spent two years on campus in Ireland I was very disappointed with what I found were my living arrangements on the Mulhouse campus. The dorms were open for anyone to walk in off the street and I felt very unsafe as a result. There was no security and no facilites. On my floor 40 people-guys and girls had to share 3 toilets and 3 showers. There was one washing machine and one TV for a building of 160 people. The building was up on a badly-lit hill isolated from any shops or even a bus route.

If you buy a bus ticket, you can use it as many times as you want within the hour! Clothes are cheap and the shops are very nice.

On my first night there I was sprayed with MACE, I was flashed by perverts too many times to count and on a regular basis I had strange guys knocking on my bedroom door during the night so me and the other Erasmus girls had to keep our mobile phones on all the time just to feel safe. 3 girls left during the year as a result of this unsafe environment.

With regards to written language I improved quite alot due to course work however the lack of social interaction with the French students and the locals meant that my spoken language did no become fluent like I had expected it would.