Sweden is a great country, you will fall in love with it or may be I should say you will become the victim of Stockholm syndrome, depends upon the university you are going to attend. Sweden is the home of some of the best of the best universities of the world for example Karolinska Institute (Judges for the Nobel prize in medicine), Lund University (Among top 100 universities in the world), Chalmers University, KTH University, Uppsala University to name but a few. Academic environment is very live, enthralling and intellectually very rich. Yes, international courses and degrees are taught in English. Yes, you will study, beyond your wildest dream, cutting edge science and technology. If you are a hard working, determined, and meticulous student then rest assured education in Sweden is going to open doors of golden opportunities for you all around the world.
Anyway, if you are aspiring to study in Sweden, you have have arrived at the right place. StudentOne is a nonprofit organization aimed at Non-EU students to provide them a vital support system, all the information over here is free, no advertisements, no spam, no sponsorship, no nothing.
Keeping in view of my limited budget for maintaining this web site, I have created Education_in_Sweden yahoo group.
This group is all about the issues and problems of current and prospective students in Sweden. Some of the topics recently discussed are
1) How to save money on groceries? Do you know about OoB, LIDL, IKEA etc?
2) How to get free internet access in Sweden? Do you know you can get free internet access legally in Sweden at public libraries.
3) Part Time Jobs: How difficult is it to find part time job?
4) General visa guidance: Do you know the address of the Embassy?
5) Student travel: Cheapest airlines, SL cards, ISIC cards etc.
6) Accommodation: www.sssb.se and other similar organizations.
7) Cost of living: Living on a shoe string budget no problem
8) Beating Stress and Depression: Free anonymous help is right at your hand.
9) Health insurance
10) Bank accounts, Personn Number, Free Swedish Language Courses, Thesis Work, Scholarships, Conferences and the list keeps on growing every week.
In short how to live on shoe string budget. Don't worry most of the students don't have a lot of money and here we exchange ideas to make life a bit more comfortable. We share knowledge, tips and info etc. Please, don't hesitate and feel free to discuss your issues and problems, you will find yourself in warm hands.
Join us and take the advantage of this invaluable network of former students. Please, do read the message archive of the group (We only keep useful emails there, rest are deleted on monthly basis) and the email that you get while joining the group before asking questions. Here is the web link towards our group http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Education_in_Sweden/
I humbly request you to use your genuine email IDs as fake email IDs are automatically detected, removed and banned from the group. How can one trust a person on web who is not ready to tell his real email ID.
The information is free, there is no advertisement, spam, anything. As a former student in Sweden, I saw the need of support systems for students. Most of the people are quite social and they will be able to get mingled with their class fellows or fellows from their home country and avoid the blues of being alone in a foreign country. However, in a quite country like Sweden, cold and dark winters along with the pressure of studies may make ones life stressful that often leads to depression.
Lucky are those fellows who have got a lot of money at their hands and they can go to clubs/bars to shake off the tiring day. Even luckier are those who have a relative, whom they can depend on.
But more often than not students don't have a support system and they don't have any idea whom they should turn to in case of problem. This is the primary reason and purpose of the group.
Most important of all, help others as others have helped you. It helps everyone if you write a small article about your journey experience. Even an update about a sale or offer at your local grocery store is helpful because it helps someone out there and that is the very purpose of the group. Anything like good books and dangerous professor warning is even more useful. If nothing at least you can refer this group to other students who may gain from our experience.
All the best!
Shaikh Khurram Saghir
See you at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Education_in_Sweden/
