Four weeks ago i started my personal Stockholm experience. So the perfect time for my first blog post! Maybe first I should introduce myself: I am Dominik, 25 years old, from Germany and spending my exchange term at SBS for the Fall15 semster.
During those first four weeks I could gather first insights about the life in Stockholm, the life as a student at Stockholm Business School and the life at Lappis (Lappkärrsberget). I will present these in some general key learnings, survival tricks and following detailed experiences.
But let me just start off with my key learnings:
- Nothing is cheap in Stockholm, beside coffee and kanelbullar (the classic coffee time-combo also known as fika)
- Studying in Sweden is well-structured, but different what I am used to (what is a good thing, I guess)
- There is a lot to explore in Stockholm (seriously, A LOT)
Those topics will always be some backbone structure of my future blogging with the aim of presenting an awesome, entertaining mixture of student life, daily struggles, recommendations and helpful insights.
The first is dedicated to the differences in the studies here in Sweden to what I know from my studies in Germany.
Main differences:
Course length:
You only have one course at a time. This means the duration of one course is not longer than 5-6 weeks. This is a rather short time span which on the one hand creates a certain intensity and pressure about the expected learning progress, but on the other hand also allows you to put a straight focus on the course topics instead of struggling with the prioritizing between different courses.
Course structure:
The courses are structured in lectures and seminars. The lecture are mainly about the transportation and explaining of content and knowledge of the lecturer to the class. The seminars in contrast are used for reflection and discussion of the lecture content and past assignments. This straight differentiation between lecture and seminar increases the focus of each sessions but at some point are also prohibiting some possible discussions.
Breaks:
There is no specific point of time in the lecture where a break is supposed to be. This depends on the lecture and the lecturer him/herself, when the break is supposed to happen. This maybe improves the flow of the lecture due to the free choice of break, but also make it unpredictable for you when you are able to buy your next coffee ;)!
These are my first key learnings about the difference in studying here at SBS.
I hope you enjoyed reading the post and are already excited for the next one 😉
Dom!
The SBS Student Blog 