My Erasmus-semester abroad at the Uppsala university in spring 2014

Transcription

1 My Erasmus-semester abroad at the Uppsala university in spring 2014 by Therese Schwalenberg during a trip to Stockholm Since I started studying at the University in Vienna I thought about spending a semester abroad at another university. I didn t do it during my Bachelor-program, so applying for Erasmus was the first thing I did when I started my Masters. The university in Vienna has many different partner universities in different countries, like Spain, France, Italy and Germany. But I was always interested in Scandinavia and especially Sweden. That made it easy for me to decide which universities I would apply for Stockholm and Uppsala. I have to admit that I wanted to go to Stockholm instead of Uppsala. I travelled there some years ago and I really liked the city. But luckily I got the spot in Uppsala and looking back now I m very happy that I didn t go to Stockholm. A small student city was the total contrast to a big city like Vienna and I never thought that I would like living there so much. But before I could go I had a lot of things to do. I needed to fill in several application forms and the learning agreement, decide which courses I wanted to take while being in Uppsala and most importantly find a room and improve my Swedish. Finding a room wasn t as hard as I thought it would be. The university of Uppsala provided a student-room in one of the many student houses for me. Out of all the student houses I could

2 choose three I wanted to apply for a room for. I don t know anymore which three I chose, but I got a room in Rackarbergsgatan. This is probably the easiest way of finding a furnished room in Uppsala. Also internet and a laundry room are included. So that s another thing you don t need to take care of. Moreover most of the Swedish and foreign students live in student houses, so it s a good start to meet new people. We were five students in our corridor two international students and three Swedes. I was lucky and had really nice corridormates. We spent a lot of time together and they are now really good friends of mine. Me in my room at Rackarbergsgatan So after all this planning and waiting the time to go to Uppsala was finally there. I left Vienna early in the morning at the 19 th January After arriving in Uppsala I picked up my key and went for the first time to my new home. Luckily I hadn t any class during the first week because the university organised a Welcomeweek for all the new international students to meet each other and to get to know the nations. The nations are something very special in Uppsala. Every students needs to be a member in one of the 13 nations, otherwise they won t get into the student clubs, pubs, cafés and restaurants where food and drinks are a lot cheaper. Moreover the nations have formal dinners (called gasque ), musical events, sport-clubs and a wide array of personal interest groups.

3 The nations were founded in the 1630 and 1640 to provide a home away from home for the students living in Uppsala. The nations had, and still have names of different regions in Sweden. Traditionally only students from that region could be become a member of that nation. Nowadays this is voided, with one exception, the members of Snerikes nation still have to prove that they re from that region. But this doesn t count for the international students. They are allowed to choose whatever nation they want. After this first week of meeting new friends and getting to know the city my first course started. The university in Uppsala is the oldest university in Sweden and was founded in Nowadays it ranks among the best universities in Northern Europe. Most of the university buildings are in the city and center around the cathedral. The department of food, nutrition and dietetics though is at the BMC, the Uppsala Biomedical Centre. It s a big complex, around two km outside the city center and the home for research and education in biology, chemistry, medicine, pharmacy and social science. The main building of the university The course-system at the university in Uppsala is very different from the system at my homeuniversity in Vienna. In Uppsala the courses have 7,5 hp or even 15 hp. In Vienna most of the courses have just 3 hp. That means you have to take more courses at the same time, while in Uppsala you just have one or maybe two courses. That makes it easier to concentrate on one topic and just study for that one instead of many different. Also you don t have this big exam periods at the end of the semester because you have the final exam right after the end of the course. Moreover you have to prepare something for mostly every lesson. This could be, for example to read an article or a book and answer several question, to write an article or hold

4 a presentation about a specific topic or to be prepared for a practical day. After all these smaller homeworks it s a lot easier to study for the final exam because you already have a lot of knowledge about the topic. That s a big contrast to the courses in Vienna, where you most of the time just study right before the final exam because you don t have to prepare anything for each lesson. The courses I took during my time in Uppsala were Food, health and communication, Dietetic and clinical nutrition II: Diabetes mellitus and renal disease and Basic Swedish 2. The first two courses were completely in Swedish but I was allowed to do the presentations and the final exam in English. Because I hadn t been learning Swedish for that long it was really hard at the beginning. But the teachers and the other students were really helpful and in the end I also wrote my final exam in Swedish! In my opinion there many differences between the university in Vienna and the on in Uppsala. In Vienna there are many more students than in Uppsala. Therefore it s really common to sit in one classroom with more than 100 students. So the teacher don t really know every student and it s up to you if you learn enough for the final exam. In Uppsala it s much more familiar. The teachers know every student and could address individual problems more often. For me it was a lot of fun to see such a totally different way of studying and I enjoyed it very much. Starting with the welcome-week and during my whole stay I met a lot of international students from many different countries. There were a lot of events, like the international gasque, especially organised for the international students. In the first week were a lot of pub crawls to get to know the different nations where I met really good friends I spend most of my time with. Pub Crawl with international students from different countries

5 Since I just been in Stockholm once I did some trips around Sweden. In March I went to Kiruna and Abisko in Lappland. It was an awesome trip because the landscape there is so beautiful. We saw the northern lights, went hiking, did a dog-sledding tour, visited the Icehotel in Jukkasjärvi and went to the mine in Kiruna (what is the biggest steel-producer in the world). I just can recommend this trip to everyone because it was so beautiful, even though there were -25 C. Hiking in Abisko

6 Of course, I ve been to Stockholm several times, since it s just a 40 minute train ride away. There I visited for example the Skansen, which is Sweden s first open-air-museum and zoo where you can see the ways of life in different parts of Sweden. I also took some trips around Uppsala and one to the west coast, where I visited Gothenburg. Haga Nygata in Gothenburg

7 But you don t need to drive far away to visit beautiful places! In Uppsala all the museums are free for students, so you can visit the art-museum, the evolution-museum or the Gustavianum. Or if you re not interested in museums you can always take a trip to Gamla Uppsala, a now historic landscape in Uppsala. Moreover has Uppsala a really nice city center with the cathedral, the university main building, Saluhallen and the river. The Uppsala cathedral and the river Every year at Valborg the Forsränningen (a boat race) takes place in this river. Valborg is really big in Uppsala and every year a lot of former students come back to Uppsala to party together again. In the morning of the 30 th April it starts at the river with this boat race. Every team gets all the stuff to build their own boat and then they race down the river. After that, all the students meet in Ekonomikumparken to drink, party and have fun together. And at three o clock they all go together to the nations for the Champagne Galopp. There everyone can buy a bottle of Champagne to spray it around on all their friends. It s something really extraordinary, I ve never seen before and it s a lot of fun!

8 Ekonumikumparken during Valborg And then suddenly the 15 th June arrived and I sadly had to leave Uppsala again. I still can t believe how fast the time went by. With a heavy heart I had to say goodbye to this beautiful city and all the new friends I made. Even though it was scary at first to leave my home and friends, it was the best decision I could have made. I had the best time of my life and it was so much fun to meet so many people from different countries and cultures. I hopefully will see them all again one day but I definitely will come back and visit Uppsala! A dinner with my corridormates and friends