Studying in Belgium

Hello everyone,

Would you recommend studying abroad in Belgium?

Every year, 4 million young people from all over the world choose to study abroad for one semester or a full academic year. Would you encourage them to come and study in Belgium?

In your opinion, what are the most prestigious colleges and universities in the country/area? Are these free of charge? If not, are tuition fees expensive? Are there many foreign students enrolled in these schools/colleges/universities? What is the main language of instruction at the university?

Thank you in advance for sharing!
Priscilla

Definitely!

The Ghent University is a great place to start in your search.
http://www.ugent.be/en

In this link you'll find the exchange programs with English as the language of instruction.
http://www.ugent.be/en/education/exchan … gestudents

Dig deeper and you'll find scholarship grants in the site.

Best of luck!

I won't recommend studying in Belgium. Study here if you want to put the value of your time and money into the sink-hole. This is my personal experience after studying here.

There are good universities like Gent and Leuven, they want to internationalise. However, they are unable to develop an international culture within their universities and provide ZERO support and career advice to non-Belgian folks. Usually, top professors are very biased towards international students and feel more 'comfortable' in hiring and working with their fellow Belgians. Several are quite racists as well in disguise - you will get an idea through various conversations with him/her.
My personal message is, don't bet on Belgium universities, even if they offer a scholarship. Think carefully in long-term. You can gain a hell lot by studying in Germany or France - Ideal is US, Canada, UK or Australia. you will have brilliant career progression and within 2-4 years you can have your return on investment of your time and money. With Belgium, it will sound good in 1 year and after that, it will be like a nightmare.

Typical message by Belgium is:
"Come here you strange looking folks. Here is a bit of money, roam around in the university to give an impression that we are a divserse university. We may also put your smiling face in our brochures or prospectus and when you are done, JUST LEAVE BELGIUM for *uck sake. We don't want you to get a job here.  We only tolerate uneducated doggy immigrants, worthy to work in tomato/fruit plucking jobs, port-loading, opening a night shop or perform jiggles in festivals - we simply cannot tolerate highly educated people in Belgium. If you want social benefits, we can provide that, no problem and no question asked. However, if you still want to work and stay, we will ruin your career, we don't care if you have completed 6 level of Dutch language, we will still ruin your career and won't give you any rise. We will rot you at the same level for decades till you give up hope. See we have international researchers working for 15-20 years and never ever be able to get a tenured position.  We have people like you working in companies at a same level for decades. We are really uncomfortable in including you in our conversation and friends circle. We don't want to learn your culture, neither want to interact with you for long. We like to isolate you and push you into your ghetto communities where you can do whatever you like - legal or illegal.  It is not that we like you to come to Belgium, we have to follow useless European conventions on openness and also we have to shed away the guilt of our beloved Belgian King who ordered genocide, slaughtering 30 million Africans in Congo. But we are really also thankful to people like Bart de Weaver and Vlaams Belang who protect us... he is like God to us, other political parties are following him in disguise".

Again this is my personal experience. Many people might have different views. No doubt, Belgium is a beautiful country, need better tolerant and non-discriminatory attitudes of people in positions towards educated foreigners.

Priscilla, really if comes to education, Belgium is one of the best countries in Western Europe to study. Belgium hasn't got only good schools but also moderate in terms of finance. The reason many Dutch students like to study in Belgium. Finally, if it's your wish to enroll in any of Belgium's educational institutions, I will highly recommend you to do so.

HI,
If you do not have language barrier issue then it i would recommend it. 
Regards
Shahid

I would recommend it highly.

Not only will you have good quality teaching but you are in the heart of Europe, which allows easily to visit Paris, London, Amsterdam, Berlin, Zurich, Geneva,....

Busses and trains allow you to go quicly and sometimes cheaply to those cities.
You can also fly very cheaply to number of destinations from Brussels Aiport or from Brussels South Charleroi Airport.

Food is good, people understand English quite well and are helpfull when you need assistance.
Life is not too expensive but it remains a European country, so it depends where you come from.

very very very bad idea...  run away fast .. run away far