Hi! I’m Ryan, a Philosophy and Classics student from the University of Utah. This summer I’m getting the incredible experience of studying The Philosophy of Happiness right here in Copenhagen! Denmark is consistently ranked among the happiest places on earth, (sorry Disneyland) so what better place to study what makes it tick?
I’m doing Session 3, which means that my class, The Good Life: Philosophy of Happiness, is four weeks long, one of which is spent on a Study Tour. With my class, I get to go to Nice, France, in order to explore the stomping grounds of several influential philosophers in the philosophy of happiness.
I’ve had my sights on traveling to Denmark for quite some time now, truth be told. One of my best friends from high school is a dual citizen, so after meeting his parents and learning bits about the culture I was excited to try and find a study abroad program to come here. I didn’t have to search long though, as DIS could not have been a better match for me!
I was lucky and had the incredible opportunity of doing a week-long homestay with my friend and his grandmother in Hundige, an idyllic and peaceful small suburb area to the North-West of Copenhagen. From there we embarked on day trips to (among others)
The Roskilde Cathedral and Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde,
and to Copenhagen, to begin familiarizing myself with the city.
Last but most certainly not least, we spent a day at the Roskilde Music Festival, which is Scandinavia’s largest music festival with over 130,000 attendees each year. It was a ton of fun hearing the Danish band Farveblind open the festival, and then seeing some big American bands play throughout the night. My personal favorite was Tears for Fears, but also in attendance were Bob Dylan, Cardi B, and Christine and the Queens.
The next day it was off to meet DIS at the airport! DIS staff members were waiting and smiling as I checked in, and then I immediately made friends with other students from my dorm, Gammeltoftsgade (it’s even harder to pronounce than to spell, much to our amusement) before we even got there!
We’ve made fast friends, and on one of our first nights here a group of about eight of us pooled our resources and all made pasta together! Since we got here it has been a total whirlwind of activities, exploration, and classes (sometimes all three at once), but more on that next time.
Hej fra Danmark!