In 2022, I spent my semester abroad studying industrial engineering at Universidad de Chile in Santiago. Moving to a new country at the other end of the world, where you don’t know everyone is for sure challenging, so I put together all the relevant knowledge about doing a Semester abroad in Chile to spare you some time, frustration and errors for yours.
Visa
Depending on your university, you will be allowed to study there with just a tourism visa. If that’s not the case, you’ll need a student visa.
Tourism Visa
If you’re from a European country or the US, the odds are big that you’ll just get a 90 day visa on arrival. That also means that after 90 days, you’ll have to leave the country and get back in to get a 90 days visa again. Otherwise, there is a procedure where you pay a certain amount and you get 100 extra days.
Student Visa
If your university requires you to get a student visa, you better start the procedure for it early enough, because it can take a lot of time! The problem is: once you started the process in a consulate or an embassy, you won’t be able to change the place you’re applying from anymore. That means that if you’re Visa hasn’t been processed yet, you can enter chile with a tourism Visum but then you would have to fly back to go get your student Visum.
Appartment
Finding a furnished apartment in Santiago that subleases for just one semester was a nightmare. That is because most of the students come from Santiago, and in Chile, people usually only move out of their parents place when they move in together with their partner at the end of their 6 years of studies. So the only other chilean people which live in shared flats are people that don‘t come from Santiago. But they usually live in flats that are not furnished, so that won’t suit you.
My tipps for finding an apartment would be the following:
- If possible, arrive one or two weeks before start of classes
- Most international students spend their first few weeks at Hostal Providencia. You‘ll meet a lot of fellow international students there👍
- Review your expectations: I don’t have one friend which I would say had a really nice apartment. There was always something wrong. Isolation, heating, not that safe of a neighborhood, cold shower, windows that don’t really close, house owner that lives with you in the house, etc…
Once in Chile
- You can buy a prepaid SIM card in a shop. The company with best reception everywhere in Chile is Entel.
- Register the IMEI of your phone in your first 30 days in Chile on this website (…). That’s free. If you don’t, your phone will get blocked and you’ll have to go to a phone shop and pay them to deblock it.
Money
Ask your bank with which conditions you can pay or withdraw money abroad and if they even cover Chile. If they don’t, or if they charge you fees, I would strongly recommend you to change your bank!
In Chile you can pay by card almost everywhere which is pretty unique for Latinamerica. Still, I recommend you ALWAYS have at least a bit of cash on you.
Security
- Download Uber and Cabify and inDrive.
- Ask your fellow chilean classmates which parts of the city are safe to go, and which aren’t!
Spanisch
Maybe you’re studying at a University in Chile which allows you to study in Englisch. Still, you must know that Chilean people very rarely speak Englisch. So just to survive in your daily life, I would strongly recommend you learn some Spanish!
The other thing you need to know is that (essentially young) Chileans use A LOT of slang! To help you out, you can find attached a chilean slang dictionary translated to normal Spanish that I created when I was there.
Integration
In general, in a semester abroad, it’s very easy to only socialize with fellow exchange students. To a certain extend that’s normal, and you shouldn’t completely go against it, because you‘ll all want to see whole Chile within just a few months, and no local person will feel the need to travel that intensely!
But making local friends will give you the real cultural insights, will make you learn Spanish so fast and will make your experience just so much more Life changing!
If you wanna feel less lost, I would strongly recommend you to listen to the top 100 Chile Spotify playlist. Once you’ll know these songs, you will feel way less lost at parties, and fellow Chilean students will be very impressed by you knowing their current favorite reggaeton songs, which will make socializing also outside of the international bubble easier.
- Miercoles po
Everyday life
Supermarkets in Chile are super super expensive(more then in Europe)! On the other hand, weekly markets are really cheap. So it’s definitely worth it that you ask around when and where the market of your neighborhood is. The odds are big that it will be on weekends though. So if you’re gone the weekend because you’re traveling Chile, I can recommend you to go to the Vega central which is a huge market with constantly low prices where you’ll find everything you’re looking for!(even curry paste for example). Still, the neighborhood of the market is not nice, so don’t go after 5pm(really DON’T!).