University: Riga Stradins University
City: Riga
Country: Latvia
Continent: Europe
Field of study: medicine
Study type: Other courses
Hello dear readers!
I assume you are interested in studying Medicine or Dentistry at Riga Stradins University. I will try to give you a little insight into my time in the first semester. Check liuxers.com to see vocational training in Australia.
On January 25th it was time for me, my flight from Düsseldorf to Riga was scheduled. Me and some other freshman students from Riga, whom we met beforehand through MicroEdu, sat on the plane with excitement! After a two-hour flight, our plane descended under the cloud cover, it was 5: 30 p.m. and it was dark. The city lay lit up before us! After we had landed and taken the first step out of the terminal, the icy cold of the north hit us, because when it was still a pleasant 10° in Düsseldorf, it is ten degrees in Riga but with a minus before that! So we quickly got into a taxi, which took us to the rented accommodation.
A few days later the introductory week at Riga Stradins University began, which was packed with various activities carried out by the future study groups. My study group was number 170 which consisted of Germans, Swedes and Finns, a nice group in which we men are the minority. Whilst there are some activities in and around the campus there was also a bus trip to a palace a good two hour drive away and a city tour which is largely obsolete as you have explored a lot beforehand. So much for the first week, which I don’t want to tell you too much about either, as you should just let it come to you if you decide to come here.
But now to the school and other processes during the semester. After the very relaxed introductory week, in which a lot of alcohol flowed and many friendships were formed through it, the expected medical studies finally begin. Full of ambition, we went to every lecture and wrote everything down until some became disillusioned and fewer and fewer people sat in the lecture halls, but this is by no means due to the topics or the professors, it is much more a phenomenon that occurs in all courses, namely the pure student existence, which does not let you get out of bed at 8 a.m. tomorrow.
The classes, which are only attended by the respective study groups, are similar to school classes and have generally been attended by everyone. You have subjects that you would also imagine studying medicine, such as anatomy, molecular biology or chemistry, but there are also a few subjects that are short but still have a high priority, as they lead to repeating the semester if you don’t visit and pass. These subjects included Latvian, philosophy and an introductory course on the library, where the first and last are usually very easy to pass, some people find philosophy quite difficult.
Regarding the exams, I can say that the subjects are quite different, but in molecular biology and anatomy you sometimes write difficult colloquia, which you have to pass in order to pass the semester. At the end of the first semester there are four exams, all of which can be done, although I am still about to take my last exam (anatomy) and this is also the reason why I am writing this report, as I have no motivation to learn anything at the moment !
In summary, I can say that Riga is a very beautiful city, people are sometimes a bit difficult! Almost everyone speaks good English here and there are usually no communication problems. The course is very interesting and the focus is a bit different than in Germany, so in the first semester you can even work directly on corpses, which helps a lot to imagine a lot when learning. The application via MicroEdu is going very well and the contact you make with people before you travel to Riga makes settling into a new country a lot easier!
I wish you the best of luck with your application and I can only recommend this university to everyone, because it is one of the cheapest schools abroad and the connection home is even very cheap via Ryanair.
Kind regards Luke! Maybe see you here again!
