A semester in New Zealand — an impossible dream?!

If you chose New Zealand studies, you might be as interested as me to go there for a semester to study and experience that special country. However, if you start looking for some information to make that dream come true you will notice immediately that it is not to easy. Of course the common Erasmus program will not help you and as the Johannes-Gutenberg-Universität is not twinned with any university in New Zealand this does not work either. However, this does not mean that it is impossible to get there, although you will have to do a little more work on your own. To get first information you can talk to the “Abteilung Internationales”, which has its office in the Forum and will give you a lot of very helpful brochures and answer all your questions if you go to their office hours. After deciding which university you would like to attend the easiest way to find out details about your application (which documents you will need and do on) is to make contact to an organization like INAC or IEC. You do not have to pay have to pay extra for their service and they can give you lots of information and help with crucial points like planning and financing your adventure. For example it is possible that you can apply for the so called “Auslands-Bafög” even though you do not receive Bafög in Germany. Scholarships (the biggest ones are probably PROMOS and DAAD but there are way more) are also a way to diminish the costs for the flight and the tuition fee. All in all I think if you really want to go to New Zealand you can manage it, even if your parents are not millionaires and you have no clue about how to do so yet. The only important thig is that you begin planning your trip very early and embrace all the help you can get.