There are no costs on this page, no admission conditions and no institution names, and the omission is deliberate. What things cost and what any process involves changes over time and differs from one institution to the next, and U4S has checked the official websites it points to and nothing more. Every specific is left with the body that publishes it. What is offered instead is orientation: the questions you will meet, and the office that holds each answer.
Most of what a new student deals with falls into a pair of jobs. One is finding somewhere to live, which is administrative and answerable. The other is building a circle where nobody shares your history, which takes longer than people expect. They interact, since where you live shapes who you meet by accident and how much effort a spontaneous plan costs. This page gives both of them room.
Student life in Trondheim, and arriving where nobody knows you
Nobody there knew the version of you that existed before, which is disorienting at the start and useful later, because the circle you end up with is one you built rather than one you inherited. It does not assemble itself, though, and it deserves the seriousness you give to the room. Establish what the institution runs for new students, and what people already there do with the hours that are not teaching.
The money side still deserves a document. Keep a budget with a line for every category below and no amounts in it, then price each line later from official sources: the institution, whichever housing provider you deal with, and the transport network. General habits are covered under managing student money. Completeness is what matters now, because the category you forgot is the one that catches you out.
- Housing. Whatever you pay for the room, and whatever the room brings with it: an advance payment, bills for power and connection, laundry, service charges. Ask what the quoted figure leaves out.
- Everyday running costs. Eating, cleaning, keeping a phone working, and being dressed for whatever the weather does, which current students can describe for you.
- Getting about. Travel between where you live and where you study. Ask whether a student rate exists and who decides whether it applies to you.
- Study and admin. Reading, printing and materials, plus anything the institution names in its own registration pages, and insurance arrangements worth asking about.
- Joining things. Some societies and sports groups involve a payment and some do not. Ask what joining involves, and keep a line for it.
The academic environment and what only your department can tell you
Because no institution is named on this page, what follows is a set of questions to put to yours. Establish which language your teaching and assessment use, and separately which language your administration, agreements and appointments use, because those need not be the same. Ask as well whether your programme is taught on one site or across more than one, since that feeds directly into where it makes sense to live.
Then ask how the work is put together rather than what it contains: the proportion that is independent study, the way progress is assessed, how time with teaching staff is arranged, and how referencing and academic honesty are defined where you are going. Your faculty office or academic adviser holds an official answer to each. For the transition itself, see adapting to a new academic culture.
Housing, and what a room decides beyond the rent
Start with the mechanics rather than with browsing rooms. Who actually holds the rooms, the institution or a separate body? Is applying something you do yourself, and between which points is the process open? Does an offer of a place to study carry any housing with it? What do they advise anybody who does not get a room that way? Keep the reply, and assume nothing about how the housing timetable relates to the admission one.
Arranging something privately changes who answers, not what you ask. What does the rent cover, and what turns up as its own bill? Is a deposit or advance payment involved, who holds it while you are there, and under what conditions does it return? What period does the agreement cover, what notice applies to each side, and is any furniture included? Read the whole agreement before you sign it, and get a translation if it is not in a language you read easily.
Where you live also shapes how easily you meet anyone, which matters as much here as a floor plan does. Shared space puts people in your path without effort, while a place of your own asks you to do that work elsewhere. Neither is the right answer, but choosing without thinking is how people end up lonely in a perfectly good flat. The mechanics of arranging a room from a distance are in finding student housing abroad.
- Who runs the process. Find out who holds the rooms, whether a separate body is involved, and whether you have to apply for them yourself.
- The timetable. Get the opening and closing points in writing, along with what happens to anybody left without a room.
- What is included. Ask for an itemised answer on utilities, internet, laundry and furniture, so nothing appears later that you had not counted.
- Deposit and agreement. Ask about the deposit or advance payment, who holds it, what returns it, and the notice each side has to give.
- Who else is there. Ask whether the room sits in shared space, who else is in it, how the bills get split, and what a departure partway through would mean for the rest.
Getting around, and the week you would actually repeat
A room is also a commute, so judge the pair together. Find out what runs between that address and your teaching at the hours you would need it, what poor weather or a cancellation does to the journey, and how the walk at either end feels with shopping in your hands. Ask students already there what their own commute involves once it has become a daily habit rather than a plan on a map.
If the scale or rhythm of the place is not something you have lived with before, establish the practical consequences rather than picturing them. What is the pattern of opening hours, at weekends as well as midweek? How far would you travel for the things you use every week? How do services run in the evening, when a social life actually happens? Those answers come from students already there and from the institution.
Adapting as a newcomer, and what this page leaves to others
Adaptation runs on more than one track. There is the academic side, and there is the ordinary business of running a life through unfamiliar offices, forms and orders of doing things. Find out which language carries your teaching and your assessment, and which one your paperwork and appointments run in. Ask what language provision exists for students and whether any of it can fit into your week.
Expect ordinary tasks to take more effort at the beginning, and expect the settling to be uneven. A flat stretch once the novelty fades is common and is no verdict on the decision you made. Missing the people you left is not a failure of adjustment either; it is what caring about them looks like from a distance. Asking sooner than feels comfortable is most of what helps.
Wellbeing and knowing where to go before you need to
Find out while nothing is wrong how students here reach medical and mental health support, and take that from student services or the international student office rather than from a forum. Ask which parts the institution runs itself, which it points students towards, and which are left entirely to you. Keep the contacts where you could find them on a difficult day.
What holds the rest together is unglamorous: sleep you defend, food you actually eat, movement somewhere in the week, and one person who would notice if you went silent. Ask what daylight does across the academic year and set your routine by the answer, rather than being surprised by it partway through. Support is easier to use before anything is urgent.
Common questions
- How do I start building a social circle where I know nobody?
- Choose things that repeat. A single event rarely produces a friendship, whereas being in the same room as the same people each week usually does, because familiarity does work that conversation cannot do alone. Say yes during the early stretch while everyone is new and no group has closed around itself, use your own programme as the easiest starting point, and keep more than one circle going so that no single friendship carries all the weight. Then propose things yourself. Most people are relieved when somebody else suggests the coffee, and the person who does it becomes the one things happen around.
- What should I establish about housing before I accept a room?
- Establish who allocates housing, whether you apply yourself, when the process opens and closes, and what the office suggests for applicants who are not allocated a place. Ask what the rent includes and what is billed separately, what deposit or advance payment applies and how it is held, how long the agreement runs, what notice applies, and whether the room is furnished. Ask who else uses the shared space and how bills are divided. Then think about the room socially as well as practically, since sharing puts people in your path and living alone asks you to find them elsewhere.
- Is it normal to feel homesick once the novelty wears off?
- It is common, and it is not evidence that you made the wrong decision. Adaptation is uneven rather than steady, and a flat stretch tends to arrive after the arrival period has finished and everyone has returned to their own routines. Missing people is what caring about them looks like from a distance. What helps is keeping a standing contact with somebody who knew you before you moved, keeping the parts of your week that repeat, and telling somebody at the institution earlier than feels comfortable. Student services and the international student office deal with this constantly.
- Who do I ask when I am not sure which office handles something?
- Begin with student services, since working out whose question is whose is part of that office's job. The international student office handles what applies specifically to students who have moved from another country. Your academic adviser or faculty office handles progress, assessment and anything going wrong with your studies. The housing office or your provider handles rooms, agreements and deposits. Asking the wrong office costs very little, since they redirect you. Working it out alone from forums is the approach that reliably costs time.
Building a circle when you arrive knowing nobody
The part people underestimate is that friendship comes from repetition rather than from events. A single gathering rarely produces anyone you will still know later, while the same room at the same time each week usually does. Choose activities with a fixed slot, commit to going back before you have decided whether you like them, and let the thing become a habit.
Establish what the institution runs at the start of the academic period, and whether societies, sports groups, volunteering and course-based groups are open to students on your programme. Sign up for more than you expect to keep. The early stretch, while everybody is new and no group has closed around itself, does not come round again. Our guide to building community abroad takes the same approach.
Then be the one who proposes the next thing. An invitation is easier to accept than to issue, which is precisely why issuing them works, and the person who suggests the coffee becomes somebody things happen around. Keep more than one circle going, so a flat patch in one is not a flat patch in everything. What that looks like is described under community.