University of St.Gallen
The semester here at Pacifico was the best half year in my studies and probably in my life. The mixture of education, parties and travelling in an incredibly diverse country are perfect for a semester abroad. I can recommend Lima with all my heart an hopefully also you make this choice, you won’t regret it.
I took me some time to get used to the school life here. From Switzerland I was used to big classrooms and a break every 45 minutes. Here in Pacifico I had to adjust to classes no bigger than 30 students and only 10 minutes break in a 3 hour class (depends on the teacher of course). Two of my five courses are in Spanish and they were my favourite courses too. Don’t worry if youre Spanish is not on a C2 level, the teachers I had were very nice to Exchange students and often you can also answer in English for exams. My favourite course was „relaciones internacionales de Peru y EEUU“, if you like history and want to learn something about Peru this course is highly recommended. My other three courses in English were okay, but their quality dropped a lot after the Midterm exams. My experience was that the academic level is high for Latin America, but most European students, including me, will find it (much) easier than their home university.
For accomodation, I lived with three other students in an appartment in Miraflores. Even though Miraflores is not representative for the rest of Peru and also Lima, I enjoyed it a lot living there. It is very safe, even my female housemates said they walked home from nightouts. Our appartment had oceanview and was very well connected. 15 minutes walking we were at Kennedy park, and the direct bus to Uni took around 20-40 minutes. A lot of my friends here in Lima lived also in Miraflores, but San Isidro, Pueblo Libre and Jesus Maria are also very good districts to live in.
Enrollment
After the confirmation for an exchange semester in Lima from my home university, the administrative process started. The Visa-procedure went really smooth and the communication with the International Relations Office was always on point and helpful. Before coming to Peru I was travelliing through Ecuador for two weeks and for the Enrollment Day I arrived in Lima. If possible I would recommend doing the enrollment at Pacifico itself to make sure you get all the courses you want. I got all five courses I wanted, with a perfect schedule of classes only on Monday afternoon and Wednesday. The University itself is pretty modern and the campus isn’t too big, I only had classes in two different buildings right next to each other.
