Welcome to Monterrey: The city of the mountains. Its located in the north-east of Mexico and has a population of 1,3 Millions. It is one of Mexicos wealthiest cities and also one of the most developed cities.
Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (TEC) is one of the largest multi-campus universities in Latin America with 31 campuses all over Mexico. The Campus in Monterrey is the main campus.
The education system is different to the one in Germany: Instead of one exam in the end of the semester, students have to do Homework, Tests, Assignments and Presentations almost every week.
Life on campus is different here: While most of the campuses of the MHMK in Germany are part of an other building, Tec de Monterrey is almost like a little city itself: It has its own shops, cafeterias, an apple store, Starbucks and even its own pets like ducks, gooses, peacocks and deer crossing the campus.
This year the University celebrated their 70th Birthday with different activities like a big Event with traditional dances, fireworks and presentations of the different campuses. This event took place in the Unis own stadium. For the celebration Tec also organized a fair and different cultural shows, like concerts, plays, musicals and folk dancing shows.
The Mexicans made it really easy for us to feel welcome here. They are warmhearted, hospitable and helpful.
A big difference between the mexican students and the international students is that they often still live with their parents and have a intense relations with them. The parents have strict rules for their children and even receive the grade of their sons and daughters.
If Europeans think of Mexicans they picture people with moustaches, wearing a poncho, eating tacos, drinking tequila and celebrating. Well, reality is actually not that far away form those stereotypes: Mexicans really like to party and love their tequila and tacos.
An interesting cultural experience we had was the independence day. If there is something to celebrate mexicans always love to start the party not only on that day, but also on other days: So we started to celebrate the independence the day before. The celebrations included eating, drinking, Mariachi-Bands and of course many “Viva Mexico”s.
Not only in Monterrey but in whole Mexico are a lot of nice places to visit in your free time. Because security is a big problem and a lot of people don’t want to travel on their own there are different groups that organize trips for weekends, one days trips and parties.
TEC also has got a big offer of different sports classes, containing boxing, football, dancing, fitness, swimming and a lot more. But even though you don’t want to do sports, there are a lot of offers for freetime from University: for example cards tricks, cocking or even Quidditch.
There are different opportunities for living in Monterrey. You can either live in the residential homes of the University. There are located right next to Tec and are controlled by security.
Another possibility is to live in a housing area called Villas Tec and, where only students live. Most of the apartments are for three people, that share a living room and a kitchen, while everyone has got their own bedroom and bathroom. The Buildings are security guarded and about 15 minutes walking away from Tec. Those buildings have a pool, a little cafeteria and on the weekends a lot of Parties. Torres Tec, is a similar housing area located right next to Villas Tec.
If you want to get closer to the culture you can also live with a host family.
As a last option you can also look for your own apartment in the TEC area. There are some that are good for international students.
