Norway’s Vesterdal University of Applied Sciences Becomes Porter’s 15th Exchange Partner

UW–Porter Falls has signed a five-year student exchange agreement with Vesterdal University of Applied Sciences, a polytechnic of about 6,800 students on a fjord in western Norway. The agreement makes Vesterdal the university’s 15th exchange partner and brings the roster to ten countries.

Up to six Porter students a year can spend a spring semester at Vesterdal paying Porter tuition, with financial aid applying as it would at home, and up to six Vesterdal students will come to Porter each fall. The first Porter cohort goes in January 2027; applications through the Global Education Office in Founders Union are due October 1, 2026.

Why Vesterdal

The two schools found each other the polytechnic way: through a shared industry contact. A Porter County packaging equipment maker has a sister plant near Vesterdal, and an engineer who has worked at both introduced faculty in 2024. A two-week faculty visit last spring confirmed what the course catalogs suggested — Vesterdal’s third-year automation and energy courses line up closely with Porter’s manufacturing engineering, electrical engineering and sustainability programs, so credit can be pre-approved course by course before students leave.

• Courses in English: about 40 per semester, including industrial robotics, offshore wind systems, maritime logistics and product design
• Housing: student apartments a ten-minute walk from campus, roughly the cost of a Porter double
• Calendar: spring term runs early January to mid-June, so students miss Porter’s summer session but not fall

“Our students kept asking for somewhere they could study manufacturing and energy at the same level they do here, not take a semester of electives. Vesterdal is that. The fact that it rains about as often as it snows in Porter Falls is, I am told, a selling point.”

— Mikel Stenberg, director of International Education & Study Abroad

Students in any major may apply, though the course list favors engineering, technology and sustainability. Information sessions are scheduled at the fall study abroad fair, and study abroad scholarships can cover airfare. The full partner list is on the partner universities page.

Contact: Office of University Communications, news@uwporterfalls.edu