Housing in Gent
Student Housing
Students staying for a full year will generally be put in Home Boudewijn located at Harelbekestraat 70, 9000 Gent. This is fairly far out of the city center, as well as most of your courses. However the building is filled with other Erasmus students and Belgian students particularly those majoring in medicine as the building is right next to the hospital. So the social aspect of the building is a major plus. The bathroom and showers are communal, and the internet has transfer limitations that can easily be reached by heavy downloaders or uploaders.
Students in their second year who are only staying for half a year, or students who are very late to apply for housing are likely to be put in the housing at Elfjulistraat. These have their own showers and bathrooms and no limitations to the internet. They also cost about 100 Euro more.
If you want to use any of the student housing options, register as soon as you can (this should become available on Oasis [uGent's student administration site] as early as March), and make sure you (are able to) select that you are arriving in the first week of September (if this is not possible email them). Otherwise you will be functionally homeless for the first week and a half of class!
Internet
After registering as a student and creating a university user name and password, you can access the available internet. Information and installation procedures can be found at the Ugent Helpdesk. Note: you can access the Ugent help desk website without a vpn (see below). So you can access the site when you first move into your dorm.
If you are in a campus building you should have wifi access to Eduroam. The user name is yourusername@ugent.be (the @ugent.be is important) and the password is your university password.
If you are in a campus dormitory, you only have access to the internet via Ethernet cable (so bring one with you when you move in!) Most dorms do not have any wifi access although Boudewijn does have wifi on the ground floor. To access the internet you must set up a vpn connection by installing a vpn client. By having a vpn connection the university can monitor all of your internet usage. As a result, they limit your internet usage to 25GB of download and 5GB of upload. You can monitor your usage with the vpn meter If you are a normal human, you will have no problem exceeding this. If you exceed this, your internet will be slowed down and you will be unable to log into the Eduroam wifi. This is extremely annoying so be mindful of your usage. If you do go over your usage (and all of you will at some point), there is hope. Without logging into your vpn, you can access the internet by logging into Athena (see the 'Courses at Ugent' section).
Living in Boudewijn
You will most likely be placed in Boudewijn. It is located almost equidistant between the train station, the main campus buildings, and the technology park.
There is a cheap student bar on the ground floor which open on Tuesdays and is run by the 'Home Boudewijn' Student club. Every week has a theme or game to keep life interesting. Also, about once of twice a semester, the student club organizes a big party or dance on in the bar. These are generally very lively. Additionally during second semester, the bar will have regional beers week. It will be open all week and contain all of the speciality beers of Belgium including Westvletern which is considered by many to be the best beer in the world. Don't publicize this too much as they are technically selling it on the black market.
Most students living in Boudewijn get there groceries from Aldi (right next door) or at Proxy (a short bike ride away). Aldi, by far, has the cheapest groceries while Proxy has better quality and selection.
Next to the laundry mat, there is a general office supply store called Strobbe. Being a student gets you a 10% discount on anything in the store. Furthermore, they have the lowest printing rates in the city. The two women who work there are very friendly and helpful.
Private Market
Depending on the effort you are willing to put in, you can either stay in private housing meant for students, or rent a real studio and set up your own internet and buy your own furniture. This might be worth it for a second year student staying there for a year. Depending on location and quality of the housing, prices range between € 280 - 700.
(Sadly since Juli 2014, "Home sharing" in which several students group together to live in a house instead of getting separate student rooms is no longer allowed in order to give more chance to young families to live in Ghent. This rule strictly implies that atleast one of the residents must have his domicile ( official address of living ie. address used on all official documents ) at this location thus house sharing might still be possible in some cases since non-European students are supposed to take domicile on their address in Europe in order to get your residency card. More investigation into this possibility will be necessary though.)
Some websites to help you with your search:
Kapaza - Also is useful for finding things like bikes, monitors, or other knick knacks you want to buy.
Furnishing the place
If you indeed decide to take a place of the private market, or just looking for some piece of furniture to fancy up your place, there are several possibilities:
1. Buy new stuff online on: Bol , Ebay.
2. Get second hand stuff either online on Kapaza or in several secondhand stores in Ghent: Kringloopwinkel, 2ehandsshop, depot09, ecoshop.
3. Go to ikea IKEAgent.
