Study Ireland – Stories & Guides from International Students

From navigating the whims of Irish weather to discovering the warmth of its people, join Anastasiya Rebkavets as she shares a Study Abroad experience full of surprises involving trampolines, archery, and more!

Arriving to study in Ireland, I had a lot of expectations about what it would be like. After spending almost three months in Limerick, I’ve come up with a few things that still surprised me during my experience.

Weather

Everyone talks about the famous changing weather in Ireland. I’d heard about it before coming here, but seeing it myself was another thing. I saw the weather go from sunny to rain to hail, then back to sunny again, all in about 20 minutes! Actually, my flight from Warsaw to Dublin was diverted to Manchester due to a severe storm when I was first coming here. The thing I learned is acceptance. I stopped trying to make plans around the weather (you can’t really trust the forecast here) and just accepted the fact that it can rain anytime, so I better bring my umbrella. And if it’s not rainy – it wouldn’t be as green and beautiful!

The people are lovely!

People at the University of Limerick and in Ireland overall are very welcoming and polite. They will hold a door for you and ask, “Are you okay?” if you look lost. I’ll never get over the ladies at the library cafeteria on campus calling me “love” or “sweetheart” every time I get coffee. You can see how UL cares for international students as well. During the first week, we had sessions explaining every detail about UL, classes, life in Limerick, making sure to answer all of our questions. During orientation week, you have an opportunity to meet many other international students too! Some of the people I met during orientation week are the ones I kept in touch with throughout the whole semester. Unfortunately, I did not make many Irish friends. But if you want to experience life in Ireland firsthand, I think the best way to meet people is by joining clubs and societies.

The variety of student societies and clubs is huge!

I went to the clubs and societies fair, which is organized at the beginning of each semester. It’s a good opportunity to find out more about them and ask what they actually do. I ended up joining the trampoline and archery clubs. I’ve never done either of those things before, but it was lots of fun! By the end of the semester, I learned how to shoot from the bow and how to do a flip on the trampoline, which is pretty exciting! The entry fee for most of those is 5-10 euros per year, though I’d recommend checking the details on the website.

Travelling can be tiring

The first thing on my to-do list during Erasmus was obviously traveling a lot. For the first few weeks, student life was organizing day trips every weekend, which was a huge help in achieving my goal (one of the first trips was to the Cliffs of Moher – the views are magnificent, don’t miss out on this one!). I tried to keep up with the tempo of going somewhere every week, but it turns out traveling can be pretty tiring for me, which I did not expect to happen. Especially as the end of the semester approached and I had essays to write or projects to complete, I had to slow down a bit and find more time to rest. And I think it’s perfectly fine – everyone has a different capacity, and if you need to focus on other things for a while, you should do it and enjoy the trips later.