Every year, we ask our scholarship holders to evaluate our services and to give us feedback. Most recently, 400 of our academic year 2017/18 scholars participated in our online survey. We were very happy to learn that they deemed our services excellent.

Our scholarship holders come from all over the world and from different levels of education. For some, it is the first step abroad rendered possible by the potential of their Bachelor studies, while others enjoy an academic senior position and have travelled to foreign countries many times before. Some passed through several countries to get to Austria while others are able to visit their home over the weekend. Hence, some of their experiences and feedback differ vastly. Still, there is some common ground in these experiences and we want to share some of the feedback with you to put your own experiences into perspective. Perhaps we are able to provide some helpful insights for our current and future scholarship holders along the way.

When asked about the challenges of their scholarship stay, one catchword gets mentioned a lot: bureaucracy. The time before our scholars’ arrival and the first month in Austria are often marked by overcoming bureaucratic obstacles. Among other things and depending on their stay and country of origin, our scholars need to get a visa and/or a residence permit, apply for housing and insurance, get an Austrian bank account, and register at the registration office and the university. While we do our best to assist you in all of these tasks, it might still be overwhelming to deal with these technicalities when you want to focus on your research. There is hope after all: according to our scholars it gets so much easier after you have settled in and it is actually worth the effort.

How to settle in? Well, some prefer to delve into their research exclusively while others also need social interaction. If you seek companionship in a foreign country, you might wonder were to start. Quite a number of our scholars reported that they first found it difficult to make friends and that it helped a lot to participate in excursions and events to socialize. So we encourage you to follow their lead and to be adventurous if you ever feel lonely.

Being in a foreign country might be an adventure in itself and any culture shock can be a chance to learn about yourself and another culture. Many scholars noted that being in a foreign place has helped them to leave their comfort zone and, by doing so, to gain more confidence. One scholar referred to it as ‘practicing independence’. The experience of new teaching and research methods, meeting new people from different cultural and educational backgrounds, and the mastering of everyday life in an alien place seem to strongly foster self-development. Apropos cultural differences: some of our scholars had to get accustomed to the idea of limited opening hours and extended holidays. So in the spirit of Christmas, we want to wish you happy holidays and point to possible closing hours of universities, OeAD Regional Offices and supermarkets as well!

We covered administrative and social aspects because these experiences seem to overlap most. When it comes to research, there is a bigger differentiation of experiences based on the diversity of our scholars. We cherish this diversity and want to present it by visualizing your research and background. To do so, we kindly invite you to share the details of your scholarship stay and to join us on our soon-to-be launched oead map.