Erasmus at Radboud University Nijmegen - practical tips

(this note is in English, as hopefully it might be useful for others going to study here)

Accomodation

I've been told it's difficult to find a room for rent in a private house in Nijmegen. Haven't tried that myself though. If you want to find one it may be a good idea to contact some of the former Erasmus students who lived in rented room/apartment and get some contact informations from them. Polish students can find students' opinions and email addresses to some of them at Giełda informacji studentów Erasmusa.

sshn

Many (most?) Erasmus students gets a room from the sshn (Short Stay Housing Nijmegen) - organisation that has several student housing complexes in Nijmegen.
In theory the cheapest ones are Griftdijk (Lent) and Vossenveld, which (according to the sshn website) are about €280/month. It's bullshit for exchange students - Erasmus students all pay €330/month whether they live in Lent, Vossenveld or Hoogeveldt. The former two are located far form the University buildings and I'd personally strongly reccomend applying for a room in Hoogeveldt complex where I currently live.
Lent (actually Lent is the name of a village on the other bank of Waal river and the complex is called Griftdijk but commonly reffered to as Lent) is located in the middle of nowhere on the other side of the river and according to former students' opinions found online it has very thin walls, making everything you do audible to the others. On the other hand there are lots of foreign students and they party often.
Vossenveld is located in Nijmegen itself, but quite far from the University and from the city centre.
To the contrary Hoogeveldt is located literally five minutes walk from the University buildings. You live in your own room within a common corridor with fifteen other students, sharing a kitchen, three showers and three toilets (and everyone has a sink in one's room). Most of the students in both mine and Ewelina's corridor are exchange ones, so I assume sshn tries to give you a room with other non-Dutch students. However it's not a rule - I know a great Hungarian girl who lives in Vossenveld with only Dutch students.
If I were to tell the greatest downside of living in Hoogeveldt it would be the lack of private showers in the rooms, but it's not a big deal really.
In our rooms we had a bed, a desk, an office chair, an armchair, a small coffee-table, two lamps, a bookcase, a drawer unit and a bin (all from IKEA). There were also a wardrobe, a sink and a small mirror cabinet and a short internet cable.
You cannot really choose a student complex (not to mention specific room), but you can tell sshn about your preferences. From my (short) experience these are the three main complexes where Erasmus students are located. You can always try to get a room in some other complex (there are about twenty of them, mostly small ones), but it's not really likely to get a place in many of them (at least I wanted a room in Westerhelling, if not possible then in Proosdij and Hoogeveldt was my third choice, and I got a room in Hoogeveldt).
It's worth a note, that:

All exchange students from IRUN partners (Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, Universität Duisburg-Essen, University of Glasgow, University of Ljubljana, Università degli Studi di Siena, Jagiellonian University Krakow, Pazmany Peter Catholic University, and the Universitat de Barcelona) who come to Nijmegen will be guaranteed housing.

How to get there

These are definetely not all the routes you should consider! Just a handful of tips you might find useful.
You can fly to Amsterdam or Eindhoven and then take a train (about €18 from Amsterdam, €12 from Eindhoven). You can find a train connection on NS website or using a very nice public transport planner 9292. Also Google maps work nicely with Dutch railway and bus connections.
From Poland and Germany there's a night train. The ticked bought in advance can cost €29 (limited tickets, when they end next ones are for €39 and after them - €49). Be careful - you may have an impression that there are still the cheapest tickets available, but once you try to buy them you are told, that only more expensive ones are available - so you have to try to buy them for €29 to find out they are sold out. At least that's how Duetsche Bahn website works. With that train you go to Arnhem and from there you have a 15 minutes train ride to Nijmegen. The train has one big adventage over plane - you can take as much luggage as you want.

The first day in Nijmegen

On the first day you will need to go to the International Office (Comeniuslaan 4) - you can take a bus there from the railway station, which will cost you probably €2. It's possible to go there on foot, but I wouldn't recommend that if you have heavy luggage.
In the IO you will sign some papers, receive student's card, map of Nijmegen and some papers containing useful information.
If you have a room form sshn next thing you do is going to their office (Laan van Scheut 4). It's not very far, so you can walk there. In the office you are given room contract and other documents to sign. Once you sign them you are given the key to your room and are free to go see it :)
If your rent starts at Saturday (September 1st in 2012 was a Saturday) it should be possible to collect the key one day earlier (Friday), as the office is closed od weekends.
It is not possible to choose a room (but maybe you could ask them for some specific arrangements via email) and it is not possible to change it (or we didn't try hard enough).
In our (mine and Ewelina's) case we were lucky to get rooms in the same staircase, however on different floors.

Buying stuff

SSHN offers its tenants linen package for €50 and kitchen utensils set for €55. Students who want to buy this stuff themselves (probably a bit cheaper) should start at Dukenburg - a biggest shopping mall in Nijmegen, with a few shops that have very reasonable prices for home utensils.

If you want to buy a second-hand bike (and I'm pretty sure you do or will do) a good place to look for it is marktplaats.nl - a very popular Dutch website with lots of advertisements and offers. For us it was not a problem to find nice bikes in Nijmegen for €50-€60. You should also buy a lock, cheap ones can be found in Dukenburg (simplest for €1-€2, better ones for €5-€6).