First days in Leuven

I could manage to get almost all the stuff I wanted from India courtesy Jet Airways.Coming to Leuven was pretty comfortable from Brussels Airport through the Metro.When I reached Leuven it was raining and the weather was chilly, I thought welcome to Belgium in its best form ;)

On the first day,started with pre-registering at KU Registration and taking a cell phone connection.Visited the school and met few batchmates. Started with studio hunting on the second day.Rajesh(another batchmate from India) and me had decided to stay together and we could finalize a studio by third day.Pre-MBA reading is pending on my side, have to push for those courses now.BTW Leuven is a nice small city with nice people, I think I am going to love it here :))

An immigrant goes to become immigrant in another continent

I was recently at my parents' place in Jamshedpur,one moment, I am calling it 'parents place' and not home,I asked the same question to myself. I realised I felt like an immigrant at what used to be home for me.I have lived outside home for so long and at many different places that there is no one place that I could call home.

I am shifting to Europe in couple of days. Having lived in and around Bangalore for almost eight years that too in my most formative years I definitely have a very heavy heart in leaving Bangalore. I am sure I would come back to Bangalore soon.

Eventually it is the color of my passport that says where I belong to, but at my heart I think I would always be an immigrant or may be a world citizen :))

Impact of social networking on pre-classes phase

The impact of social networking websites on the pre-classes phase has been no less than phemomenal.Facebook and LinkedIn has been two social n/w sites where the class got together months before we would actually meet. There was exchange of info starting from loan processing(Prodigy),details of visa application, flight, insurance and what not. It eased life for everybody.Folks are so hooked to Facebook group that the official discussion forum provided by Vlerick didn't really click.

Almost everyone in the class already knows each other and folks who are already in Leuven are having a good time together courtesy FB.

Looking to meet the class soon.

Visa Process

The visa process for Belgium(Schengen Visa) is an elaborate one. I started my visa process one and half months in advance to the date by when I intended to submit the application. The required documents were:-

- Police verification certificate
- Medical certificate
- Financial support document
- Letter of registration from the institute

Out of these docs the ones I expected to be most painful were Police Verification and Financial support document. I obtained the medical certificate from the designated doctor of St John's Hospital,Bangalore. It took a good 3 days time.The classical confusion was in obtaining the Police Verification Cerficate, I am even tempted to write a separate post about it. After my research I applied for the PVC in the Regional Passport Office,Bangalore,since my passport was issued from Bangalore so it took me just two days to get the PVC. Then I went to the Branch Secretariat MEA,Govt of India,in Chennai for Apostille of PVC.Meanwhile I was arranging my final fin docs and once my loan papers were in place I was ready to submit my visa application.I could manage to submit my application as planned.I was told by few alumni that visa could take a good 2-2.5 months and that prompted me to finish the process asap.

My only advice is to research well and apply for visa in advance(2 months should be good enough).My to be batchmates on Facebook were pretty helpful in this process.I got my visa in 2 weeks time. I arrive in Leuven on 25th of Aug.