½ûÂþÌìÌÃ

@SAMMIE ODEB

Congrats on being accepted for your Master's degree. As you know, "Learning is a treasure that will follow its owner everywhere". :-)

For general advice, just plan ahead, make sure you have your D visa (and residence permit) sorted, and you have a place to live. Varna is a very nice city on the Black Sea, so I'd expect you to enjoy your time there.

If it's a Bulgarian degree, then it's taught in Bulgarian (or perhaps English), and you need to make sure your language skills are up to standard, or you arrange some kind of intensive language course before your degree starts. Students with an inadequate language level can often struggle badly.

For specifics on the process, your university probably has some kind of foreign student office/advisor to give you guidance on these issues. And perhaps they'll know if your fellow students there (or your new classmates only) might have an FB or Whatsapp group.

My personal experience as an international student, however, is that any hand-holding is minimal, and you have to be proactive and sort it all out yourself. And trying to track down other students in advance is usually a bit of a waste of time: it's far easier when all your classmates hit town and you can talk face-to-face.

Students in Varna is too narrow a target demographic for this forum, but if you want to ask more general questions about Bulgaria I would expect you to have more luck.

@gwynj

Thanks for the response and information. All noted.

Unfortunately there aren't many students here, many of us are older and retired or semi-retired to Bulgaria. You may find more student oriented Bulgarian groups on Facebook or other social sites.

Varna is a lovely city with some good universities and excellent low-cost bus services making it easy to get around.

Accommodation can be expensive there, so if the university provides any student support services, get whatever assistance you can from them to find accommodation.  If the uni doesn't provide accommodation on site or have a housing officer to help, there's an excellent digital nomad live/work place in Varna, Campus 90. It's not cheap, so probably not a long-term living solution unless you have plenty of money. But they'll negotiate lower rates and might be a good base for a week or two till you find lower cost permanent accommodation.

@janemulberry

Thanks Jane for the info

Be careful of university-provided student lodging!  Those in Sofia are very old, poorly maintained ,and riddled with cockroaches; some are 20 stories high, with lifts that regularly break down - at least you won't need to spend anything on Fitness Studios!  The upside is that they're pretty cheap to rent, unlike most property in BG, but that can make it difficult to find one available...