The three of us have been on a one week BIP (Blended Intensive Program) to Vilnius, Lithuania. The BIP was organized at Vilniaus kolegija, and the program was hosted by the Faculty of Informatics. Our goal was to develop a prototype for a system that analyzes vulnerabilities in websites.
We were informed about the potential chance of a BIP appearing from our professor during one of the classes, and later by an e-mail from the school. Due to the shorter time commitment compared to a full exchange, the three of us jumped on the opportunity as fast as we could. The application process was very straightforward; we let the school know that we were interested, and were swiftly given information about how to sort all the background logistics, which in general were pretty simple.
The academics:
We had our first day at the college on Monday. We started with an introduction to the school, and got some time to meet the other BIP students who were not sent by HiØ, roughly 5 people from the college itself and twenty people from two different colleges in Portugal.
On our first day we had two lectures, one in computer network security, and one in domain security posture analyzer. We were also given a tour of the faculty and got to see a lot of really cool labs that had different purposes.
The second day we were shown examples of good and bad security practices. During the lunch break we also got to try some traditional Lithuanian food. After lunch we had one more lecture in object oriented programming before we got split into groups and presented the project for the week.
The baseline of the project was to develop a system that could scan a web domain and return information of the backend, including potential weaknesses. Outside of the baseline, it was up to each individual group to personalize and present these findings.
The rest of the time at the college was spent on developing our tools and preparing our presentation for Friday. We were also given a tour of the Old Town of Vilnius during the afternoon on Wednesday.
The city:
We arrived Sunday morning, the day before the BIP started. Getting from the airport to the hotel was very simple, as Bolt is very common. The prices in Vilnius are also very affordable compared to Norway. A Bolt trip cost roughly 40kr, and the price for the flights and 6 days in a hotel was around 1800kr per person. A dish at a restaurant would range from 60-150kr, depending on how fancy we felt that day. In general it is a pretty affordable city.
As a city itself, Vilnius is absolutely beautiful. An average street is not too different from other European cities like Oslo, but what really sets Vilnius apart is the quality of a lot of the architecture. This is especially prevalent in all the churches the city has, which is a lot. Almost no matter where you were in the city, there was always a beautiful church to look at, either on the outside or the inside. There were also other types of buildings that really grab your attention, like the national library.
In terms of things to do in the city, we were honestly surprised about the amount of options we had. The city has several museums, a large botanical garden, and one of the largest old towns in Europe. Some of our favorite experiences were the technical museums where we got to blow up power plant simulations and get zapped by a tesla coil, and a cozy little cat cafe in the center, which we visited every day on our way home from class. The nightlife is also very vibrant, especially during the weekends where there are plenty of bars and nightclubs to visit, and people to meet. We had a very good experience with the Lithuanian people, and while the people are reserved like Norwegians, most of them were very happy to talk to people visiting the country. The week we were there was not enough to cross off our list of places we wanted to see and visit.
Lastly, one thing we all really appreciated is how walkable the city is. From our hotel we could walk to any destination we wanted in a span of 30 minutes, and the infrastructure is built to support pedestrians. Even with Bolt being extremely affordable, unless it was the middle of the night we ended up just walking everywhere. In the span of 6 days we walked around 120km, roughly the distance of Halden to Oslo.
We all recommend trying BIP if you are on the fence. It is a very good way to explore more of Europe without having to commit 6-12 months. Only visiting for a week is a very safe way, because in the worst case scenario that the trip is bad, you won’t be stuck for months on end.
