Hi everyone! My name is Aaryana Sharma, and I’m a rising senior majoring in psychology. I’m taking the course “Developmental Disorders” in Copenhagen, Denmark through the DIS affiliate program. Today, I’m going to walk you all through a day in my life as a part-time Dane!
Class times change pretty much every day based on field studies and guest lectures, but today, my class starts at 11 a.m. so I wake up around 9:30 a.m. to get ready. Once I roll out of bed in my double-occupancy room (trying really hard not to disturb my roommate, who’s still asleep), take a shower, and get dressed, I head to the bus stop to catch my bus to class.
Unlike UT, where there’s distinct “campus housing” and directly adjacent “off-campus housing,” most university students in Copenhagen stay in apartments with others or “kollegeiums” (student living apartments), which are scattered around the city. My apartment is a 25-minute bus ride so I take the bus to the city center, where I get off and walk to my class.
After I get off the bus, I walk around ten minutes down a gorgeous street full of restaurants, clothing stores, and bookstores to get to the building where my class is. Near my building, I find an adorable coffee store (one of many just on that street!) where I order a chocolate muffin.
On the way back toward my building, I pass massive churches, rows of small stores and streetside eateries, and an iconic row of once-bronze busts of famous Danes, including Niels Bohr, who made significant contributions to atomic theory and quantum physics.
During class, my professor invited a colleague to present a guest lecture on supporting adults with intellectual developmental disabilities and what a summer camp for those adults would look like. The presentation combined both theoretical aspects of care and personal experiences from running such a camp for thirteen years.
Unlike my experience with psychology classes at UT, guest lectures are quite common in DIS programs, where professors try to present a diverse range of perspectives in a relatively short amount of time bringing in speakers from various countries and areas of expertise to discuss their work with students.
After the engaging guest lecture and a slew of questions from my tight-knit twenty-person class, one of my friends and I step out for food during our informal thirty-minute lunch break. Because classes are three hours long every day, professors give various breaks to leave the class, take walks, grab a coffee, and get lunch. After lunch at a nearby Thai restaurant, we head back to class, where we listen to a lecture on anxiety in childhood and adolescence.
Following the lecture portion of the class, a few of my classmates and I facilitated a group discussion on treating anxiety disorders based on a case study we had discussed in the lecture. During the discussion, we brought up questions that piqued our interest, allowing our classmates to share their insights and explanations, which promoted a more collaborative and engaging environment.
Similar to UT, classes in the DIS system are structured based on the professors’ interests and goals, so no two classes look the same. My class has a group discussion, a group presentation, and a final paper over the course of three weeks, while my flatmates’ classes include quizzes, midterms, papers, and other projects, such as designing flyers.
After the discussion, I took the bus back to my apartment to drop off my things before heading back out to grab a snack. Similar to UT, most places are accessible by walking and nearly everyone walks to get their groceries and food. I stopped by a local grocery store to pick up bananas before heading back to my apartment.
Back at my apartment, I set up camp in the common room — a shared living area used by the third- and fourth-floor residents of my building to watch movies, do homework, and hang out. Conveniently, the third-floor kitchen is right across from the common room, allowing many local and temporary residents to cook food for themselves and others regularly.
Since I cook back at UT, throughout my stay, I decided to try my hand at making some meals for myself and others. On the first weekend in Copenhagen, my flatmates and I cooked garlic bread, parmesan pasta with chicken, and stir fry noodles (made by yours truly) and shared the dishes with everyone.
Throughout these first couple weeks, I have loved the shared experiences that I don’t always have back home. Meeting in the common room, exchanging stories about our day, cooking meals and sharing them with each other, and planning out our evenings quickly became an integral part of our study abroad experiences despite our different home universities, courses, and backgrounds.
Getting to meet so many locals and U.S. students studying abroad taught me a lot about various reasons for studying in different places, their interests, goals and paths, which might seem like a really individualized experience in a school as large as UT.
As I sit in the common room I watch TV, communicate with my group presentation team about when to meet, and work on tasks for my research assistant position at Yale. As I recently began the role, my current tasks include getting completely trained and reviewing educational modules on emotional training for caregivers. This work is particularly interesting to me as I can connect it to my DIS coursework on developmental disorders and my professional goal of being a clinical psychologist.
After doing my work, I decided to take a short nap, watch a movie with my flatmates, grab pizza for dinner, and then get ready to go out with some of my flatmates to a local hang-out spot near our campus.
The place was packed with students from DIS and local universities. We found a spot to sit outside, try new things, and exchange stories about our home universities and things we wanted to explore back home. The four of us decided to head home around midnight, and I hung out with some of my flatmates back in the common room before heading out to bed.
I hope you enjoyed hearing about a day in the life in Copenhagen through the DIS program. Until next time!
This post was contributed by Aaryana Sharma, a Global Ambassador for Summer 2025. Aaryana is a senior studying abroad in Copenhagen, Denmark.
