Studying in Leuven

LEUVEN: ANCIENT AND ALIVE
Leuven is an attractive university city in the center of Belgium, only 25 km from Brussels, the capital of Europe. It is located on the great divide between Germanic and Latin Europe. Belgium ’s central position and a dense network of roads and railroads provide easy access to cities like Amsterdam, Paris, London, Cologne, etc.

Leuven is above all a university city with a splendid academic history of over 500 years. If you study here, you follow in the footsteps of Erasmus, Mercator, Vesalius... Up to 35,000 young people are studying in Leuven, many of them of foreign origin. Group T's student organization makes sure that you do not miss out on any of the inter-faculty student activities Leuven has to offer.

On top of that, Leuven is a breeding ground for upcoming hightech enterprises—often K.U.Leuven spin-offs—and research centers such as IMEC, a world-leading independent research center in nanoelectronics and nanotechnology. At the same time, many international companies such as Inbev, Telindus, ICOS Vision Systems, etc. are represented in the Leuven area.

• More on Industria, Group T's student organization.

LANGUAGE
Local radio stations play songs in English most of the time. Cinemas feature movies in the original language. Several radio stations broadcast in English. On TV there is a wide variety of English-language channels: CNN, BBC, MTV, and so on. There is an abundance of cultural activities in English.

While Dutch is the native language in Leuven , Flemish students have a good knowledge of English, French and German. Many graduate and postgraduate courses and programs are taught in English.

Group T’s Center of Anticipative Continuing Education (ACE) offers excellent opportunities to learn or improve your language skills: eight languages are taught at different levels (Chinese, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Thai.)

• Check out ACE Language Courses

LIVING CONDITIONS
Leuven is a mid-sized university town, so living there is more comfortable and economical compared to living in the traditional academic centers in the US and the UK.

A single person will need about 250 to 300 euro per month for living expenses, excluding accommodation. Adequate student accommodation is easily found either in private homes or in student housing. The monthly cost (including electricity and gas) for a student room ranges from 220 to 250 euro.

Personal computers can be rented cheaply and access to the Internet is widely available in student housing. Of course, you can always make use of the computer lab at Group T.

K.U. LEUVEN ASSOCIATION
GROUP T is a member of the K.U.Leuven Association. This Association is based on a close co-operation between the University of Leuven and 12 university colleges in Flanders. Its members have a total of 70,000 students in campuses in 23 towns and cities across Flanders, i.e. 44 percent of the total number of Flemish students in higher education.

The primary aims of the K.U.Leuven Association are:
• to offer a wide range of study and training:
• to improve the quality of education;
• to improve the quality of research by concentration and an intensive co-operation.

Thus, GROUP T closely collaborates with the University of Leuven (K.U.Leuven), the largest university in Belgium and the oldest in the Benelux countries with a rich history of nearly 600 years.
Its 14 different faculties provide undergraduate and graduate education in a full range of academic studies.

Top-level research is conducted and judged according to the highest international standards and implies interaction, co-operation and exchange, both of researchers and results. As such, K.U.Leuven is a charter member of the League of European Research-intensive Universities (the LERU network), together with the universities of Oxford, Cambridge, Leiden, Edinburgh, Geneva, Heidelberg, Strasbourg, etc. The university ranks among the top ten of European scientific institutions.
 

• Find us on a map