ESN Gent

About 60 km from the ESN headquarter in Brussels is another beautiful Belgian ESN city; Ghent. ESN Gent is our Section in the Spotlight in May.

The team of ESN Gent consists of many different kind of people. There are local students, ERASMUS students, volunteers and former exchange students, who just did not want to leave Belgium anymore. Everyone has different tasks, whether it is being a buddy for the exchange students, organizing an activity or helping out during ESN events doesn’t matter, as there are many people who are helping the ERASMUS students and each other. ESN Gent does not need to have teambuilding activities or internal weekends as they became a big group of friends which spends most of their time together anyway. They have dinners or parties, as the ESN work welded them together. However in the near future there will be an internal weekend to secure the knowledge transfer for the new board and the new members.

ESN Gent is organizing lots of activities for their exchange students and is well known for their parties. But they are also working on changing the image of ESN, because we do not only organize parties, but do so much more. They organize trips to cities in Belgium as well as Paris, Amsterdam and Cologne. They recently increased the sports events in Ghent, as they go swimming, climbing, ice skating or play squash or ping pong together. Of course you can also visit typical ESN events, as pub crawls, international dinners, treasure hunts or several themed parties throughout the whole semester. There is a Club night every week or an ESN party, which can even take place on a boat. For the social calendar ESN Gent tries to connect the students via speed dating nights or go for bowling. Fun is guaranteed throughout a karaoke night or you can try your poker face during a poker night. As you can see, there is lots of stuff to do while in Gent on exchange.

However, ESN Gent is really busy on the local level, they are also very interested in the things that are going on in Europe. Thanks to a former National Representative, who made them interested in all kind of international projects and events, ESN Gent provides 4 out of the 7 members of the newly elected National Board of ESN Belgium.

The most outstanding event, however, is the weekend in the Ardennes. It is a whole weekend in a house in the south of Belgium with about 70 people. They can go sightseeing, play games, relax and of course go out in the evenings. Every student who joined is so enthusiastic about the weekend, that they tell the future exchange students at home. When they come to Ghent, many ERASMUS, already know about the weekend and are really eager to go. Last year people even came to the office 8 hours (!) before the registration opened and camped outside with food, laptops and much more in order to wait there the whole day and make sure they get a spot for the trip. 

Composed by Katja Krohn (NR of Germany, Network & Events Committee member)