Linus helped Romanian international student Radu feel at home in Aarhus. Today, they’re close friends.

When I meet Linus Holm Foged, he’s in the middle of fixing a bike in a basement in Trøjborg, a neighborhood close to the AU campus. But it’s not his bike. It belongs to an international student at Aarhus University. Why would a busy geoscience student spend his precious time doing that, you might ask?

Part of the answer is that Linus has a history as a volunteer Aarhus ambassador for international students. But that’s not the whole story. Linus is fixing someone else’s bike because at the end of the day, he just loves to help people:

“A lot of the international students aren’t as experienced with bikes as us Danes are. You see them biking around with screwed-up brakes and stuff. So helping them with their bikes became my thing,” Linus told me. Linus is 29 years old, born and raised in Denmark, and a first-year student on the BSc programme in geoscience at AU.

Radu Leonte knows what Linus is talking about from personal experience: he’s Romanian and is studying business intelligence at BSS. There’s no infrastructure for biking at all in Romania, he explained, so he only ever biked for fun as a child:

“You’re just asking to get hurt if you go for a bike ride in Romania,” he laughed.

Radu also has first-hand experience of Linus’ helpfulness: last semester, he was part of the Dare to Danish programme, and Linus was his Aarhus ambassador. This is how the two students got to know each other, and they’ve been good friends ever since.

Hard to get your foot in the door

The Dare to Danish programme was created to help international students build a network in Aarhus, so they have a secure base to rely on while studying at Aarhus University.  The one-semester programme is organised around a series of group activities hosted by Studenterhus Aarhus, who also matches the volunteer Aarhus ambassadors with the international students.

This is where Linus comes into the picture: as ambassador, he was given responsibility for helping a group of international students that included Radu. Linus practiced Danish with them, hosted cookouts and shared practical advice and insight about Danish culture. He got involved because he’d seen for himself that international students sometimes had a hard time getting settled in Denmark:

“I had a part-time job as a warehouse employee at SkatePro in Søften where I met a lot of international students. It was obvious to me that several of them had a challenging time adjusting when they came to Denmark. It can be a hard place to get your foot in the door in social circles, and it shouldn’t be that way, because it means that we here in Denmark lose a lot of well-educated people, because they return home after they finish their degree here. I wanted to be part of changing that,” Linus explained.

Linus’ description of the problems international students face when they come to Denmark resonates with Radu. For him, the language and the culture were particularly challenging, he said:

“It’s always hard to get settled in a new place because you have to build a network from scratch. And that’s a pretty big barrier, when you’re from Eastern Europe like me, and don’t know the language or the culture.”

For example, I’ve tried to teach some of them that you don’t tip in Denmark, and that you don’t normally haggle over the price in stores either. It’s little things like this that make it easier for them to function socially.

Both Linus and Radu agree that you need to be able to speak a little Danish if you want to hang out with Danes. But there can also be a lot of cultural differences that are difficult to decode:

“International students often have lots of different questions, and I do my best to answer them. For example, I’ve tried to teach some of them that you don’t tip in Denmark, and that you don’t normally haggle over the price in stores either. It’s little things like this that make it easier for them to function socially.”

From ambassador to friend

Radu had been studying in Aarhus for a few years before he signed up for the Dare to Danish programme. During the Covid lockdowns, he had become isolated and had lost a lot of his social network, so it seemed like it was a good opportunity to meet new people after the pandemic ended. But Radu’s goal wasn’t necessarily to make friends – it just happened, he said:

“At the group activities, you were really just put together in one room with a lot of people, but it’s up to you who you want to talk to. You’re not forced to become friends – not even with the people in your group. You’re free to talk to everyone, and there will be some people you click with and others you don’t click with.”

Linus and Radu clicked. Immediately. But it wasn’t entirely a coincidence.

As Radu explained: “When you sign up for Dare to Danish, you have to explain what you’re looking for in an ambassador. I do stand-up comedy at open mic nights at Alberts in downtown Aarhus, and I’m pretty funny, if I do say so myself. So I wanted an ambassador who was also funny. So they assigned me Linus, and he really is.”

Linus said that he was also told that Radu would be a good match for him – which has certainly turned out to be the case. Today, their relationship has evolved beyond the ambassador program. They are now friends, which is also a result of Linus’ approach to his volunteer work as an ambassador:

“The programme only lasts for one semester, and most of the ambassadors just participate in the scheduled activities. But I did my best to organise other events as well. It’s not expected of you, but it’s a good way to hygge,” he said.

You should definitely join, and you shouldn’t be nervous, because it’s genuinely a programme where people come to meet others, so you don’t bother anyone.

Although Linus is no longer officially an ambassador, he still organises cookouts and excursions for internationals. Radu feels that Dare to Danish never really ended for him, he said.

And with a new friendship that emerged out of the programme, it’s not surprising that both Linus and Radu strongly recommend the programme to other students – both Danes interested in becoming Aarhus ambassadors and international students.

“You should definitely join, and you shouldn’t be nervous, because it’s genuinely a programme where people come to meet others, so you don’t bother anyone,” Radu said.

Would you like to become an ambassador?

If you’re interested in becoming an Aarhus ambassador, you can sign up here. If you’re an international student and you think Dare to Danish might be a good fit for you, you can sign up here. The registration deadline is 8 September 2024 for both internationals and Aarhus ambassadors.