Tips on university & Budapest life

Tips on university & Budapest life


In this section, we collected all the useful information that could help you in order to avoid hardships when you start your life at our university and in Budapest. Hopefully, you will find the following collection useful.

Public transport

Budapest has an efficient network of public transport including buses, trolleybuses, trams, metro services plus suburban railway lines called HÉV lines and boat services.
You can download Menetrend app to see all the public transport timetables of Budapest.

You can buy your ticket from: 

  • Ticket vending machines: Tickets and passes with cash or bank card.
  • BKK Customer Service Centres: Maps and brochures are also available. Cash and bank cards are accepted. 
  • On board: Only single ticket can be bought for a higher price. Please have the exact amount ready as the driver does not have change.

The single ticket is valid only for one trip on a single line without interruption, on the full length of the route. Transfers between the metro lines are possible with the ticket. With the transfer ticket, you can change to another service once. Validate ticket number 1 for the first vehicle and ticket number 2 after you transfer. Passes are available for various lengths of time (e.g. monthly) and are valid for each form of transport. You must validate your ticket as soon as you board. On the metro network, stamp your ticket with the validating machine before you enter the station. As for the monthly pass, you must enter your student card number, or else your monthly pass is not valid, and you can be fined. To use the old-style, manual validator, insert your ticket into the opening on top and punch it by pulling the frame of the slot towards you. Keep your ticket until the end of your trip. Inspectors will issue a penalty fare to you if you travel without a validated ticket. You can pay in cash on the spot or you can also pay with a bank card at designated customer service centres.

This video shows you in detail the correct way for validating your ticket on each form of public transport: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ax7MvPDKot8

IMPORTANT! Ticket controllers sometimes would like to refuse to accept paper-based student cards. Despite this your paper-based student card is valid, you can be 100% confident about it when they ask it for checking.


Money management

University students sometimes have a problem with managing their finances when they arrive in a new country, and they have to take care of money issues on their own. This is why we have some advice on money management below.

The best way to organize your expenses is to use a budget. There are many budget templates on the internet, there are even many applications that you can use to track your money. Since budgeting allows you to create a spending plan for your money, it ensures that you will always have enough money for the things you need and the things that are important to you. Following a budget or spending plan will also keep you out of debt. 

One example of budgets, is the 50-20-30 formula. The idea is to spend 50% of your total income on your needs, 20% on saving, and 30% on wants. Your needs consist of things like your rent, utilities, food, clothing, transportation, healthcare etc. Basically, these are things you couldn’t live without. Your savings are necessary because in a foreign country anything can happen that requires money. Your wants consist of Netflix, dining out, clothing beyond what would be considered basic (you do not need that new dress that just came out), vacations, that shiny new iPad, and junk food would all be included in this category. You should spend on your wants, only if you covered your needs and savings for the months.
You can find great budgeting templates here.


Time management for studies

Having a study schedule helps students discover ways that they can engage with their studies and ways to study effectively.

Steps of creating a schedule:

  1. First of all find your learning style.
  2. Establish short-term and long-term goals for studying. It will be easier to create and manage your schedule if you know what you want to achieve at the end. This will also help you identify areas that you need to focus on
  3. List all the subjects you need to study. Perhaps the first step in creating your study schedule is to list all of the subjects and courses you need to study for. Putting your obligations on paper will help you get a better idea of what you really have to do.
  4. Figure out what you need to do for each subject or exam. Now that you’ve written down all of the different subjects you need to study for, you need to figure out what you need to do for each course. While your time commitment and other obligations for a specific class might vary per week, chances are you’ll find out that over the long-haul, you’ll need a certain amount of time per subject.
  5. Divide your available time during the week into study blocks. Before you go on, you need to divide up your available time during the week into study blocks. After you do this, you can go and assign your blocks to a subject.

2020.09.01.