Hej everyone! Today you got your Notification of selection results and hopefully you have been admitted to the program of your first choice. Congrats either way!! I got my notification of selection results a year ago and I remember that I was really relieved and happy because I was accepted into my first choice! It is a very long wait between the admission rounds and the selection results, so finally getting them is usually rewarding. I wanted to talk about my personal experiences of living in Sweden for almost a year and a bit about my Master’s program Applied Ethology and Animal Biology and what to expect once you’ve been admitted!

First of all, it’s going to be an amazing time for you, and you will meet lots of great people from the program, your corridor and activities with ESN/ISA (the international student associations) – in my Master’s program for example we are all very connected by the fact that we all love animals. I was a bit nervous before coming to Sweden, one concern was meeting new people and making new friends. Let me reassure you, it will be okey! Almost everyone will be in the same situation as you – moving to a new country without knowing anyone, and this really helps to build connections. I have been studying in Linköping for one year now and I met amazing new friends here.

I feel really at home here in Sweden, it’s a very relaxed culture and the people are really nice. Linköping is a great city, it is small but therefore there is a great student culture. I love that seeing your friends is never a hassle, most of the time it’s only a 10 minute walk to each other’s place! Also, if you want to go to a bigger city, you can just go to Stockholm since it’s not that far away with the train. The University is great as well, my classes are on campus Valla and I like it – it’s one very long street with all the buildings, which I prefer over scattered buildings everywhere in the city. Work-life balance is really important in Sweden and you start to appreciate it once you get used to it. If you don’t want to work on the weekends and in the evenings, it’s completely fine and doable since teachers do take this into account. Working days are from 8:00 till 17:00 and outside of these hours it’s time for relaxing time, fun activities or some sleep ;).

The Master’s program I’m studying is really doable, I’m doing the Swedish language courses next to it and a job and I still have a lot of free time. This doesn’t mean that the program is boring or not challenging, it evolves a lot around group work and I learned to get much better at it which is a great skill for the work field. The courses and teachers vary a lot, but most courses consist of lectures, seminars and group work. My least favorite course was the Neurobiology course since I don’t really like the topic and it was focused a bit more on humans, but on the other hand the Zoo Biology course was amazing. It’s still a bit weird that we spend a lot of time in the zoo and just see it as “normal” part of our program, but it’s really cool spending so much time with these amazing animals (and the people at Kolmården). For my personal feeling, I would have liked the courses a bit more challenging, but I also love the fact that I have a lot of free time and can have a job next to it. After the first year, and time flies, everyone will start with their one-year thesis project. There are so many amazing opportunities and people from my class are going to Mexico, South Africa, Costa Rica, etc.! Of course there is also the possibility to stay in Sweden :).

Congrats again for those who are admitted, hopefully you realize how exciting I am about living in Sweden and I hope you all will have an amazing time here as well! Don’t worry too much before coming here, just be excited because this is going to be a great adventure. Are you excited to come to Sweden and start a new life here? Let me know!!

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