I was beyond excited to start preparing for my semester abroad but navigating this through the pandemic proved to be quite challenging. One of the biggest challenges was getting my residency
permit. To live in Denmark for more than 90 days, you have to submit an application for a residency permit (student visa) along with biometrics. This means your application is required to be submitted in person. Unfortunately, Hawaii does not have any visa centers to do this and due to COVID-19 the closest available appoints were in Houston. With a visa appointment booked, required documents were gathered quickly and a short but sweet trip to Houston was planned.
It should be noted that as a US citizen, you can wait till you are in Denmark to complete this application, but that can be very risky as if they deny your application you could be forced to leave the country or bearing situations with the pandemic you might also be forced to leave the country. As study abroad had been a dream and goal of mine for so long, it was not worth this risk especially in the pandemic.
To get to Houston and back in the most affordable and fastest way possible, the most whirl wind traveling plans were made. My friend, Mark (also going to Copenhagen), and I ended up spending 31 hours in the airport and 34 hours in Houston itself. It was a pretty draining and crazy weekend to say the least but it was fun to see parts of Houston and we were in awe at the beauty of the visa center building.However my favorite part by far was getting to eat Chick-Fil-A at the Houston airport. If you never had Chick-Fil-A this is your sign to try some next time you are on the mainland:)
After a large expense getting to Houston and paying for the Visa, the rest of my pre-departure planning was spent saving money, buying necessities and spending time with friends and family. Clothing is very expensive in Europe so my advice would be to buy solid winter clothes and shoes in Hawaii. Also make sure you buy a voltage convertor and outlet adaptor. We live in a world where we love all of our devices and having the proper connection will also save you money.
Class registration and housing is also done before you go to Denmark. Class registration is pretty easy just try to plan which classes you would like ahead of time so you can submit your requests as soon as it opens. Housing is very hard to come by in Copenhagen so it is important that you register as soon as the link is sent to you and also have your preferences ready (for me, this was at 1 am HST, so prepare for a late night and waiting in a queue). But overall the abroad advisors at Copenhagen Business School are very responsive and helpful with any questions you might have.
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