ULB

They say never judge a book by its cover, but most people cannot help but to base their attitude towards something by their first impression. My first impression of the university campus was not of high regard, to put it softly. Coming here, I was expecting to find an old European university that looks something like University Oxford or University of Bolognia, or at very least like old universities in Canada, such as University of Toronto.

Before coming to the university, I looked up some photos of ULB on internet to get an idea of what the ULB is like. Pictures I saw on internet were those of the building A, and of the Library. So obviously, coming here, I had high expectations of the University. When I finally arrived here, I entered the university not from the avenue Franklin Roosevelt side, but instead from the Avenue Adolphe Buyl side. It was right away obvious to me that I did not enter through the parade entrance.

First buildings that I saw were building P and U. These buildings rather reminded me of Junior-High Schools from Soviet Union. Because the asphalt was broken and the buildings looked worn out, these buildings did not even look like a good soviet school (or even average). It looked like a school somewhere in a small Ukrainian village that cannot afford to pay for the upkeep.

Ukrainian Public School

ULB: Building P

Next, I, and some other people, went to the ‘Logement’ office in order to look at advertisements for an accommodation. Advertisements were location in the residence building, which to me looked like a building from the poor part of Ukraine. My Brazilian friend called it a favela, referring to how it reminded him of slums in Brazil. The public space in front of the residence was in the same state as the courtyard in front of my building in Ukraine in 1990s. During those times, Ukraine for the first time attained its independence, and because of this fact, the country was facing many financial problems and could not maintain public property. When I went back in 2005, all things were fixed and everything was clean (except the roads, they are as bad as always). In other words, to me, ULB now looks like Ukraine when it was on the brink of bankruptcy (except with better roads).

Next thing that affected my impression of the school was the actual experience dealing with the university. I found that there is little support for exchange students, to find out information on the special events, clubs, and other advantages that you get attending this university. This has diminished my overall experience during the first semester. In addition, I found that the bureaucracy here is a total mess. Teachers occasionally do not come to class. It is hard to figure out where the course takes place as they can sometime move the class with little or no notice. There are many different tools to find out information and two or more of them can give you conflicting information. For example, to get information about a class there are: My-SBS, MonULB, teacher’s website, and the class rep (who I never met, as I am just an exchange student). To get my exam schedule I was told to use three tools, AuroraWeb, Portail MonULB, and Gehol. However, even then, I did not found out my entire exam schedule so I had to email my classmate, who sent an email to class rep, and then I received an email with the schedule for one of my classes. It seems the school is suffering from disorganization and the problem of communication between the administration and students. The whole system is not streamlined and is very complex compared to my university back in Canada.

The new building, where most of my classes take place, also does not look good in my opinion. First, it seems so different from the overall architecture of the university you are not sure if it is a part of the same institution. Second, the light bluish walls already look old. The material that they chose to use for the wall is also very bad looking. It reminds me of the maritime houses, which look cute but feeble. To me it does not convey the message of elite business school but instead a junior-high school with no child left behind policy somewhere in suburbs.

Canadian Maritime House

The new Solvay Building

Overall, I think there are many things that this university should do to better market itself. Based on all experiences I had with the school, I would choose is as a university to do my masters at, even though I do want to do my masters outside of North America.