Camp SDC - the nomadic students
What do you do when you are ready to jump on a plane to live and study in China and a pandemic throws a spanner into the works? A group of SDC students established Camp SDC when they found out they could not go to Beijing due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Michelle Luo Hansen studies Public Management and Social Development, and she is the initiator of Camp SDC.
‘It started as a joke. When we were told that we could not go to China, we soon joked about moving to Bali and attend the online teaching from there. But for me it was not a joke, and I suggested that we actually did it. We were all ready to live abroad so I could not think of a reason not to do it,’ she says.
The original idea of living a couple of months on Bali soon turned out to be complicated due to the COVID-19 restrictions. Instead, the students agreed to start in Europe and they now decide their destinations month by month.
The students, who did not know each other beforehand, planned everything online, rented their first housing in Budapest and Camp SDC was a reality. So far, the group of nomadic students have settled down in Hungary, Portugal and very soon South Africa.
An international move
One of the first students to seize the idea was Borel Guthmann from Germany, who studies Innovation Management.
‘I do not care where we live. For me, it is all about being together with other students and getting an international experience. We are all different, and we even study different programmes, but we have one thing in common: we were ready to do an international move. When we cannot go to China we now make the best of the situation,’ says Borel Guthmann.
Michelle and Borel have been a part of the Camp SDC since the beginning, and over time, more students have joined the camp for a longer or shorter period. So far, the group has varied from two to more than twenty students.
Where to go next?
When the students decide where to go next, they look for places that are relatively cheap, offer an interesting cultural life and preferably is a place where none of them has lived before. They find housing via Airbnb and rent a house or apartment on a monthly basis.
‘The social aspect and our urge to travel are definitely the main reasons for the doing this. What we have in common is that we like to experience new things together with other people’, says Michelle Luo Hansen.
You get the chance to join Camp SDC next week, when Michelle will take over SDC’s Instagram profile.
The initiator of Camp SDC Michelle Luo Hansen and Borel Guthmann who where the first to join in Budapest.