Host University: Uppsala University, Uppsala Sweden

Title: The Scandinavian Way Contact: p.j.l.ouwens@student.rug.nl Semester abroad: 12/01/2018 – 04/06/2018

Host University: Uppsala University, Uppsala Sweden

Study Program: Development Studies, Department of Government

For my semester abroad I chose to study at Uppsala University in Sweden. The reason I chose Sweden was because of its good and highly recommended education and the courses it offered. I was looking to broaden my field of study in History by adding courses in development and environment studies. As I am highly interested in the issue of development, environment and climate change, Sweden was a logical choice since Sweden is remarkably progressive in its development and climate politics in many ways. I reckoned it would be interesting to study in such a country and to follow courses in development studies. I chose to study three separate courses of 7.5ECTs each. These were: “Development, Governance and Democracy”, “International Environment and Sustainable Development” and “Development and Armed Conflict”. The content of these courses were all highly interesting and stimulating and have similar difficulty as first- or second year material from the University of Groningen.

The way these courses were taught different however. Each course would run for only 5 weeks and you would only have one course at the time. In this way, I first started of with

“Development, Governance and Democracy” and in the 5

week you would take your exam and complete the course. This was a really relaxing way of studying, as you would only have to focus on one course at the time, in contrast to studying in Groningen. The exams were far more easy to pass compared to the exams from the University of Groningen. For example, originally Uppsala University does not provide grades, but only grades you with either a (fail), (pass), or (pass with distinction). A pass requested you to pass the exam for only 50%.

In this way it was easy to pass the exams and the study-load was way lower than I was used to back home. However, it must be noted that the content of the courses was of the same level as back home, but just the examination was easier. Moreover, the course requested you to read a lot during the courses (about 800 pages a week), but in my experience you were not really needed to do so in order to pass the exam. The books were quite expensive to buy, so I only used the lectures (you had about 6-10 lectures a week) in order to study for my exams.

If you do choose to study at Uppsala University, you have to take in mind that you plan your courses well as not all courses run for 5 weeks, but some run the whole semester and you can’t overlap. Also, I was only accepted for 3 courses (22.5ECTs) which was okay because I only needed 20ECTs to finish my bachelor, but because of this I did have a break of 5 weeks in between my studies. I used this to travel to the Balkans, but it was also a bit weird and demotivating to not have anything to do for 5 weeks (which is why I chose to go away for a while).

The host university does a really good job in receiving new international students.

They pick you up at the airport and they first drop you off to get your keys for your room and later at your housing. Moreover, in the first week there is a huge introduction week with activities from both the university and the student nations. Uppsala has about 13 student nations, which resemble to the student associations in Groningen, but they are far more inclusive. Each nation differs, but many have their own pub, club, library and mini-restaurant or garden. You are well taken care of the first week and you will easily meet fellow international students in this way. You could easily contact your host university if you had any questions and they were happy to help you with anything.

Housing was easily taken care of through the housing office of the university. You can

choose from several options, but most choose Flogsta as most students live here and there are

a lot of parties. However, it is old and can feel quite alone as most people tend to just live in their room and you barely see them in the corridor.

As Sweden is an expensive country to live in, you should keep in mind that you will need extra money to be able to live there. The Erasmus grant only covers a small part of your costs as it is only 270 euro’s a month, while your housing will cost you around 450-600 euros a month and especially groceries are expensive. For living costs, apart from housing (!), I needed about 450 euros.

In general, Uppsala University is a really nice university, which offers good teachings and interesting courses. However, I must mention that living in a Scandinavian country like Sweden is not easy and can be really rough especially in the winter months. I arrived in January, one of the coldest and darkest months there. It was completely dark at 3pm and the sun would not rise before 9am. I thought that the winter would just take about 1.5 month, but actually, the winter would last till mid April! For me this was really hard as I was really looking forward to the green trees etc. but I only turned out to see just snow till the mid of April. Also, it was quite hard to go away from Uppsala as everything is so expensive in Sweden. This made me feel quite locked up. Moreover, because of this rough winter, most students, and Swedish people in general, tend to just stay in their room as much as possible. It was therefore hard to see people a lot and I winded up to be alone in my room a lot. I have actually felt quite lonely my whole exchange and this was a big reason for that. I recommend that you take in mind how much you value climatological circumstances, since Scandinavia is just not for everyone (especially in the winter). Also, what I noticed is that a lot of Canadians and Australians come to Sweden as an international student and that native speakers tend to stick together without really integrating Europeans in their groups. Feeling completely integrated in the international group was therefore also hard. Furthermore, it is really hard to meet Swedish people as they just don’t really seem interested in the international students that come and go through the year. Swedish people are very kind, but also very reserved and not keen on small conversation. This is a huge cultural difference between Swedish and Dutch people, where Dutch people tend to be more open, expressive and outgoing.

In conclusion, I would recommend everyone to go on exchange as it is really challenging. You will learn a lot about yourself and you will have the possibility to develop yourself more, like being more assertive. However, do take in mind what you are looking for in particular in the country that you are about to choose. For me, I thought that education would be the most important thing, but in my experience your study is really the last priority you have while on exchange. It is the overall experience that matters the most. Because my study didn’t seem that important, and it was also really easy to pass so it barely took me any time, I had a lot of second thoughts about my choice of country. I just didn’t take in account the rough winter and that it would last that long and that the Scandinavian culture would be so different from what I was used to. In retrospect I should have chosen a country that attracted me more just because of what that country in specific had to offer, and not just the courses or the education. I think I would have ended up in a very different place in this way. However, in the end it’s the people that make or break your experience abroad, no matter where you are, and in that case you just have to be a bit lucky.

Good luck!