The following blog entries are a digital summary from the physical journal I kept and wrote in during my stay in Copenhagen, Denmark. They contain the thoughts and moods I wanted to remember during each day of my experience. I hope that my writings will inspire you to explore the world and get out of your comfort zone, as I have, during my study abroad semester at Copenhagen Business School (CBS) in the Fall/Winter of 2022.
--- Nothing can ever prepare you for the sinking feeling you get after leaving home for the first time. I arrived in Copenhagen International Airport on a sunny afternoon, accompanied by no one, surrounded by people who look nothing like me, in a place I did not know at all. Although I had "lived alone" before, in a dorm, this was completely different. There were an endless amount of bikes whizzing by on the flat streets, and despite Copenhagen itself being relatively small compared to other European cities, I didn't even feel like an ant in an ants nest. No, I felt like a single *molecule* of H2O in an ocean of people. I remember arriving at my student apartment for the first time, stressed out from having to unpack everything and at the same time feeling too exhausted to do so. I am pretty sure I spent at least half an hour simply staring at the ceiling, taking in the unreality of it all. It was technically summer still, and so the sun set later than I was used to. Because my room did not have curtains, at 9:00pm I watched the shadows move from one end to my room to another as I lay in bed, attempting to get some shut-eye to no avail. The first week of my stay was essentially all logistics; getting my Rejsekort (metro/bus/train pass), registering my CPR number, and learning where I could get my basic necessities met (groceries, laundry, etc.). Each day felt like a struggle because unlike my first time in a dorm at UH, this felt like I was *truly* independent. During the first week, CBS also set up on-boarding and social events for the international students, which I forced myself to go to. It was nerve wracking--and optional. Worst of all, the main activity there would be a brief introduction of traditional Danish dancing. I *hated* dancing, especially in public. But, I steeled myself and attended anyways, remembering the advice of my upperclassmen who had given GAWS on their respective study abroad countries. Safe to say, it turned out to be the best thing decision I would make during my trip. In Denmark, there is a word named: "hygge," (hoo-guh) which loosely translates to a feeling of "contentment" or "coziness." The key part of this definition is that hygge is associated with spending time with friends and/or family. In a place unknown to me, with all my familiar friends out of close contact, I think the greatest thing I ever did for my experience was simply that first resolve to make new friends. In a word, I had inadvertently forced myself to experience and create my own "hygge." What do Danes, Swedes, Wisconsinites, Brazilians, Hong Kongers, Chinese, and Singaporeans have in common? These next few entries might get me closer to an answer.
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The first time I stepped into Copenhagen Business School's (CBS) campus during my first week of orientation, I would be wrong to say that I didn't feel at least a bit of hesitation. Unlike UH Manoa's campus, the lecture rooms and main halls of CBS were much less crammed--more cold, more... professional. My second observation was that it was hard to tell who was a lecturer and who was a student. I had come over thousands of miles, and being greeted by a gray environment that seemed more like an office than the familiar, warm lecture rooms of Hawaii, was not reassuring. This feeling of alienation was multiplied by the long distances between the three campuses around Frederiksberg: 1) Dalgas Have, the location nearest to my student apartment, 2) Porcelænshaven, where most of my study abroad friends dormed at, and 3) Frederiksberg, the main campus. Each location was about a 5 to 10 minute bike ride, but on foot, it could take up to 20 to 30 minutes.
During my stay, I had four classes, three of which were related to my majors of Marketing and International Business and one being an elective. Their titles were the following: 1) International Business Environment, 2) Doing Business in China & Asia Pacific, 3) Retail Marketing, and 4) Fashion Entrepreneurship and Business Development. Like most subjects, the blurbs written on them on the school's website weren't exactly riveting material, and instead of 1 hour lectures, CBS's classes were often two to three hours in length with a small ten minute break in the middle. However, when I actually met the lecturers and experienced the class environment myself, I found myself becoming increasingly more endeared with how the subject matter was being taught. Yes, we had PowerPoints, but one distinct difference was that all of my professors encouraged class discussion above all. To sum it up, it seemed the lecturers were more concerned about self-development and learning rather than preparing the class to pass the test at the end of the quarter. Instead of a 'professor-student' dynamic, each lecture was structured more like a discussion, with both the students and the lecturers trading information and expounding on each others ideas based on the personal anecdote or the reading material assigned as homework. And speaking of homework, we were not graded on whether we read the recommended reading. In fact, rarely would we ever ever get graded on anything except for the rare midterm group project and the final exams. After a few weeks of this, I realized the main difference: Learning in Denmark, and perhaps all the Nordic countries, was encouraged not only because it was easier to get a better paying job with good benefits after you graduated, but because learning itself was prioritized by the government and by many working people as a core value; during conversations with Danish students, I discovered that they were actually being *paid* to go to school. Hearing that made me do a double take on my priorities and core values. They weren't there simply because they or their parents paid or took loans out for some arbitrary chance that in the future, they might get a better job. Rather, for a lot of the students at CBS, it's because they found the subjects they were studying interesting and wanted to learn more about them on a deeper level. Instead of a culture driven by extrinsic motivations, I found a culture driven by intrinsic ones, values based on a desire to learn, improve oneself by collaborating with others. It was a totally different point of view, one that I did not expect to discover. While I know that the mindset would not totally work here in the U.S. just because of sheer number of differences (not including the cost of healthcare, cost of education, cost of...everything really), it made me do some serious self-reflection upon my return to Hawaii. |
Matthew Calulot
Aloha! I am a fourth-year Marketing and International Business student currently studying at Copenhagen Business School in Denmark. I have never been to Europe before, which is exactly why I wanted to study abroad as a student from Hawai'i. Archives
January 2023
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