Half a year, one semester, a quarter of grad school, however you want to look at it, I’m about to surpass any other (consecutive) amount of time I’ve spent in another country. I’ve just rounded out 6 (okay closer to 7 once I got around to publishing this) months of Luxembourg residency, with no plans to relocate anytime soon.
If you missed my other musings, check out my first impressions of the country here or my more recent rumination on the reality of life abroad.
Today though, I’m reflecting on my 7 month (thus far) Luxembourg residency as a whole. Buckle up, as this will be A LOT, although that’s not really new on this blog, is it?
Obtaining Luxembourg Residency
Again, if you’ve been around at all, you’ll know obtaining Luxembourg residency was a feat for me, as it is for most non-Europeans. I elaborated on the frustrations in my reality of life abroad post, mainly with banking.
To be fair, most of Europe is similar in this sense, and neighboring Belgium, France, and Germany are all known for slow bureaucracy. Honestly, it’s not even the speed (or lack thereof) that got me down. From what I’ve heard, Luxembourg is actually pretty quick when compared to a lot of other European countries.
It’s the fact that SO MUCH here is straight up word-of-mouth and you don’t know what you don’t know. You really end up relying on your network but when you’re a new arrival, you don’t have one (yet.) Thus, the learning curve is steep and you never really feel like you totally know what’s going on.
Studying in Luxembourg
My first semester of grad school was, to put it lightly, rough (is that chill enough? lol.) Completing a Masters is a tough feat no matter where in the world — or in what language(s) you’re studying. Throw in relocation — which many need to do for education, whether it be a domestic or international move, and you’ve got a recipe for stress soup!
On top of all the bureaucracy and logistics mentioned above for obtaining Luxembourg residency, I had 11 courses to attend. This is common in some European countries from what I’ve heard (although my Italian friends said their Bachelors were similar to North America with just 5 or 6 courses a semester.) The really odd thing for me though, was not having each course every week.
Even after an entire semester and now about 6 weeks into my second, I’m finding it really difficult to deal with an ever-changing weekly schedule.
In previous times in my life, this would’ve been cool, particularly when I traveled for months. However, when trying to balance courses, a part-time job, freelancing, and adjustment to a new country, it’s a recipe for feeling frazzled. All. The. Time.
Additionally, my specific program concentrated courses on Thursday/Friday afternoon and evenings and some Saturday mornings. This is intended to allow for part-time work or family commitments and it’s nice in the sense that it allowed me to travel a bit, mostly to France as you’ve seen on my Instagram.
However, it really seemed to favor breadth instead of depth. Which means we covered a lot and the courses mostly overlapped, but didn’t really go deep into some topics. This is a shame, as a lot of courses I would’ve loved to have done so! Also, this MA is trilingual; English, French, and German, but in reality, it’s a lot more English-heavy than I anticipated.
On one hand this is nice, as I don’t have to struggle so much in another language in an academic setting. However, a big reason I came to Luxembourg was to practice French and learn German. In reality, both have required me to be quite the self-starter. I try to use French exclusively off-campus, am taking 2 advanced French courses this semester and am working with a private online tutor once a week. For German, that was one of the dud classes and I’m trying out Lingoda and the Fluent Forever app to get me started, let’s see how it goes.
All in all, I enjoyed most courses, although you’re always gonna have a few not-so-great ones, especially with as many as 11. I don’t always love how the topics are taught, but for the most part the content, and company more than make up for the negatives.
Working in Luxembourg
One benefit of having Luxembourg residency as a student, is you’re allowed to work part-time on the visa, up to 15 hours a week. And honestly, particularly in your first term, with all the immigration and admin stress, you probably don’t want to work more than that on top of studies.
I was lucky enough to get a part-time job in the Bureau des Relations Internationales (International Relations Office), working with the Global Exchange Team for 10 hours a week. It’s the perfect student job for me and while working at the University also means a lot of slow admin and IT issues, in general I’m enjoying my time.
Friends and Community – essential throughout any Luxembourg residency
Friends truly become family when you move somewhere you know no one. Just the other day I enjoyed some sunshine with friends at a park and we all remarked how much better we felt compared to autumn and winter. Sure, the change in weather certainly helped, but more than that, now that we’re all more than mere acquaintances, we finally have a community to fall back on for support.
I think I’ve written before, but I’ll repeat anyway. I really don’t think I would have made it thus far in my Master’s without the wonderful community that is my cohort. I’ve truly met the best people. And I know, no matter where we all end up after graduation, we’ll be friends for life.
This has been recently confirmed by some post-docs and professors in our program. In class one of the post-docs (recent Phd grad) teaching remarked on what a good vibe it was in class and how she really appreciated our openness and conversations. She said, “Not every group is like this you know,” and it just highlighted what we all suspected, we are an awesome group.
It’s difficult to explain, but basically all 30 or so of us are friends. Not just “oh we see each other in class everyday so we get along” friends, but legit like to talk about life and our struggles, give advice and vent on a daily basis, with each other type of friends.
Of course I’m closer to some more than others and have who I consider my “best” friends, but in general I don’t feel like it matters who I sit next to in class or lunch. I’m more than happy to converse with anyone. That doesn’t just happen in all groups, a sense of “family” that I know is such a cliche in every sitcom about friends far away from home, but it is SO the case with us.
Initially I believed that it just made sense given that the topic of our Master’s is Learning and Communication in Multilingual and Multicultural Contexts. But apparently no, we are unique in our love for each other.
Traveling around Europe
Let’s be real, this has been one of the major positives in my life. Especially when I was really stressed and not loving Luxembourg. Despite Covid, since moving I’ve managed to visit;
- France (Metz, Nancy, Strasbourg, Colmar, and Paris — twice!)
- Belgium (Brussels & Bruges)
- Germany (Trier on a day trip)
- Luxembourg, outside of my southern/capital bubble — (Vianden, LaRochette & Bourscheid)
- *Big Bonus: Canada (Montreal & the Eastern townships over the holidays)
And I have some very exciting trips planned coming up soon within Europe and others further afield come summertime!
Luxembourg Residency & Life in General
I’m content, happy classes have started again, and so glad I have found my community. A wise friend told me I would eventually “find my people” and that it would just take time. And while I don’t think I’ll ever love Luxembourg and envision a life here like other places, for the next year or so, it’s an okay place to call home.
Main lessons
- Friends are family
- Everything takes time
- A little bit of sun goes a long way
- Nothing lasts forever
Let’s see what the next 6 months bring!