Hej Hej!
When I received a place at Linköping University (LiU) in 2019, I was not sure if I will move to Sweden for my studies. But here I am – continuing my 4th year of education in the land of ABBA, Zlatan Ibrahimović, IKEA and Northern Lights. It feels like living a dream although unexpectedly.
But let’s start from the beginning… My name is Aleksandra and I am originally from Poland which is not that far from Sweden. In fact, we are neighbours across the sea. I have been living in Sweden for a bit over 3 years now. I finished my bachelor’s in Experimental and Industrial Biomedicine, here at LiU, in June this year. Currently, I am doing my master’s in Experimental and Medical Biosciences. Don’t worry – the blog will not be exclusive to the biomedical field 😉
In Poland, I am from a lovely and picturesque mountain region called the Tatra Mountains which I highly recommend you visit. Therefore, moving to Linköping was not a massive shock to me with regard to the weather. However, when it comes to some other things Sweden was definitely surprising. It included work/study culture or peoples’ clothing. I am still reluctant to say that the level of English in the general population was a good surprise. Imagine a frightened 18-year-old at the Linköping Central Station that just arrived in a new country a.k.a me. The first person I approached (a bus driver) did not speak English. At that time I really wanted to go back home because I thought “How will I survive here without Swedish?!”. But now, firstly, I know most of the Swedes speak English and secondly, Swedish is not that hard to learn. However, I still remember the panic and fear I had felt during this encounter so it puts some shade over my general feelings about using English in Sweden. Anyway, sometimes situations like mine can happen – rarely though. But regardless of the language barrier, the bus driver was extremely helpful (you can always count on that!) so it ended well 😀
But that would be enough about me. In my blog series, I will post two blogs per month where one will be focused on university-related topics such as the structure of my past and current programme (this will be my next post so stay tuned!), searching for a project or student associations. The other blog will be about Sweden in general, my experience here after some years, some tips – anything and everything. You are welcome to join my journey in Sweden whether you are a current or a prospective student and I hope you may find this useful. For future students hopefully, it will help you to make the decision to come to this wonderful country and write your own story about it. Let’s start the journey, shall we?
/Alexandra, Experimental and Medical Biosciences
________________________________________________________________________________________________
Why don’t continue the conversation with us?
Start with checking out:
Our programmes, the application process, webinars, and our Instagram and Facebook account.
Still left wanting more?Book an appointment with our recruitment coordinator at infocenter@liu.se.
