In this travel report I tell about my experiences from , where I studied for one term in Spring 2016 in the department of business in Uppsala University. I hope this report is useful for anyone considering lovely Uppsala as their exchange destination!

UPPSALA UNIVERSITET

Exchange studies in Spring 2016

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Content

Why Uppsala? ...... 2

Preparations ...... 3

Studies ...... 5

Free time and other information ...... 7

Final comments ...... 11

1

Why Uppsala?

Uppsala slottet.

I chose Uppsala as my exchange destination because I desired to live in Sweden as I wanted to improve my Swedish skills. First I considered , but as I heard that Uppsala is a much more convenient city to students, the atmosphere is cozier and getting housing is easier, I decided to go there. Also the good location of the city had an impact as Uppsala is located 70km from Stockholm and only 30km from Arlanda airport. This was important to me because I love Stockholm and I thought I could visit there often and I also wanted to do some traveling, so the closeness of the airport was an asset.

I am very happy with my choice and Uppsala is one of the most beautiful cities I have visited, especially in spring and summer time. I improved my Swedish, but in this you really have to be self-imposed and just speak the language even though it feels so easy to switch to English. Uppsala is the fourth biggest city in Sweden with 140 000 inhabitants (approximately as much as Jyväskylä). The city is well known for the river called Fyrisån that divides the city, Domkyrka which is the largest church in Scandinavia and the botanical museums inspired by Carl Linnaeus, maybe the most famous student of Uppsala Universitet. Uppsala Universitet is the oldest university in Scandinavia, founded in 1477. As a student it feels like the whole city operates for students and I wouldn’t be surprised if Uppsala really is the best student city in Scandinavia as they say.

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Preparations

Domkyrka och solnedgång.

Moving to Sweden as a Finn in extremely easy. No special documents like Visas are needed and the school didn’t require too much paperwork. A bit tricky was the course selection, which is done well in advance before departure. The selection of courses to choose from was quite narrow, and it was hard to choose outside the list which was a pity as I would have liked to choose courses in Swedish and the list had courses only in English. Arriving to Uppsala is easy both by boat and plane, as both the harbor and airport are nearby. I arrived by boat and car, as that made it possible to take with more luggage than in a plane. Uppsala ekonomerna, which is a local economics student association, operates a “Buddy system” which aims to welcome and help the exchange students. Your Buddy will contact you well before departure and helps with how to get to Uppsala and how to get started.

The housing office of the university offered housing to all the exchange students (at least I didn’t hear about anyone not getting an offer). To try the free housing markets in Uppsala is not recommended, as it can get very expensive and there are not many apartments available. I got the housing I wished for, and I think it helped that I filled the housing application at the very time it opened. I would recommend to apply to either Klostergatan 3

(my choice) or Flogsta, depending on what you wish from your exchange period. Klostergatan has an excellent location in the city center and a reasonable 20-minute walk from Ekonomikum, where business courses are held. The rent was about 4200 kr. Klostergatan is a former hotel and nowadays it offers single apartments with a private kitchenette and bathroom to exchange students. During my stay they were renovating the place and building a common room and kitchen, which makes the place even more attractive. The rooftop of the house offered a beautiful view over Uppsala.

Slottet och domkyrkan från Klostergatans tak.

Flogsta is a legendary housing place and most of the exchange students as well as new Swedish students live there. Flogsta is located about 3 km from the city center (a bike or using busses is needed) and offers shared corridors with varying condition. The housing area is known for its corridor parties, and parties can be found every single day from some of the 10 houses. The nature surrounding Flogsta is incredibly beautiful and offers very good jogging grounds.

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Promenad nära Flogsta. Studies

Pelle Svanslös (Pekka Töpöhäntä) kommer från Uppsala.

The dates for the Spring term were officially January 18th – June 05th, but some students left earlier which was ok. In this section I will review the courses I studied, which were Management and Control (15c), Marketing, Consumers and Companies (7.5c) and Organisational Behaviour (7.5c). The workload of all the courses were much lower than in Aalto and the lecturing style is very different, as all courses are built around seminars where

5 all groups are expected to perform. There was also a lot of group work, which I found nice as it was a good way to get to know people. My courses were all undergraduate level, but I heard that the courses in graduate level required a lot more work.

Management and Control, 15c Undergraduate course, course code 2FE412. Many lecturers.

Content: This course covers issues concerned with the management and control of an organization. The course aims to address possible problems and challenges that effectiveness of management and control can cause to members and participants in an organization. The topic is covered from the viewpoint of both external and internal customers and learning is done by case studies, which introduce typical managerial problems. Besides the case studies the course is based on a series of lectures held by senior lecturers.

Evaluation: Students are divided in groups of four people, who perform a solution to a case study every week (altogether five assignments). In addition there is one individual assignment and one consultancy project. There is also an exam.

Comments: This course was quite interesting with a reasonable work load. The course content works for everyone interested in management, and I found the case studies intriguing and instructive. Approximately half of the students were Swedish and the course also aimed to provide ideas for the Bachelor’s thesis, but I didn’t find it harmful that I had already written my thesis. Exchange students were placed in a group with local students, which I thought was very nice as I got to speak Swedish with my group.

Marketing, Consumers and Companies, 7.5c Undergraduate course, course code 2FE221. Lecturer Nazeem Seyed-Mohamed.

Content: The course is offered only to exchange students and it aims to extend the understanding of marketing with a focus on consumer behavior. The course also considers the structure and process of business-to-business marketing. Consumer behavior is covered from both the perspectives of individuals and how companies should address behavior patterns in various marketing activities. This course is part of a joint selection and must be combined with the course Organisational Behaviour.

Evaluation: Two seminar works and final thesis, all made in groups of four and an exam.

Comments: Honestly this course was probably the worst I have experienced during my university career. If you desire an easy course and don’t mind that the structure of the course is very confusing and the learning outcome is minimal, I recommend this course. The communication with the course lecturer was difficult and students were quite confused of what was expected of them. The course had no lecturers and learning was organized so

6 that every group made a presentation of one book chapter. This made it hard to learn as the presentations were only 10 minutes long and the quality varied. Finally a final thesis with some research was done. The exam was quite unnecessary as the course was passed with only the final thesis.

Organisational Behaviour, 7.5c Undergraduate course, course code 2FE223. Lecturer Mohammad Latifi.

Content: The course is structured by weekly seminars. The seminar series started with a discussion about the individual’s role in organisations and then moved to questions about groups and teams, decision-making, power and politics. Also topics like culture, change and leadership are covered. The course is offered only to exchange studies and must be selected with the course Marketing, Consumers and Companies.

Evaluation: Weekly seminar assignments made in groups and an exam.

Comments: The most important learning outcome this course gave to me was better self-confidence in presentations as we had to give a presentation every week. The lecturer was really competent and funny which made the course enjoyable. The actual content of the course was quite general knowledge and didn’t offer too much for me.

Free time and other information

Fyrisån i februari.

The cost of living in Sweden is somewhat the same as in Finland, depending a bit on the currency rates. Purchasing school books is recommended but I survived without buying any books. There are usually one or 7 two copies of each course book in the library, so you have to be lucky to get those. Groceries and other necessities are about the same price as in Finland, but it is notable that prices vary a lot between different stores. For example the ICA (biggest retailing corporate group in Sweden) in Flogsta is a lot cheaper than the ones in the center. There is not a cheap gym like Unisport in Uppsala, but for example Friskis&Svettis costed 1200 kr for three months and offered nice gyms both in the center and Flogsta (with a way too cold sauna, as always in Sweden!). Almost everyone in Uppsala has a bike and the city is known as the biking city of Sweden. A secondhand bike costs usually 400-900 kr and is necessary at least if you don’t live in the center. Busses are fine and one trip costs 20kr, but they don’t operate very late otherwise than in the weekend which is bad if you like to party at nations and live far away in Flogsta. Alcohol in normal bars and clubs are as expensive as in Finland, but in nations the prices are quite cheap (beer for 30kr and cider for 40kr) and students rarely party in regular clubs.

What makes Uppsala special is the nations. All the student activities are concentrated around the nations (osakunnat) and every student must be a member of a nation. There are 13 nations to choose from and all of them represent a geographical area of Sweden. When the university was founded students joined the nation representing the area they came from, but nowadays students can choose their nation freely. The only exception is Snerikes (Södermanlands-Nerikes nation) where some contact to the area is required. However, exchange students are able to join even Snerikes and that is the nation I and most of other exchange students in business chose. Another popular choice was nation, which had a nice club every Thursday. Nations offer bars, night clubs, brunch, lunch, dinner, coffee and activities such as walks in the nature and gasques (like sitsit but more formal). When you join some nation you are welcome to spend time in every nation, but for their own members nations usually offer discounts or free entrance to clubs. For example I got in free every Tuesday to the club at Snerikes, which usually costs 60kr. The workers in nations are all students, and also exchange students are welcome to work in for example “fika” or clubs, which is a great way to get friends and earn some pocket money. The cost of enrolling a nation is 200-400SEK, depending on nation. After joining a nation you get a student ID which enables discounted prices of for example train tickets.

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Snerikes nationshus byggdes år 1897.

Besides the nations another great way to get to know people and especially Swedish people is recceveckorna, which is offered by Uppsalaekonomerna. Recceveckorna is organized in the beginning of every term and is meant to new students who want to get to know each other and the activities Uppsalaekonomerna offers. New students are divided in groups of about 50 people who perform all kinds of fun tasks. Exchange students were all placed in the same group, but there were also local students in our group. All the groups are led by older students, “faddrar”, who are really friendly and keen to help new students to get started. Recceveckorna lasts for about six weeks and the group gets really close in that time. I warmly recommend joining the recceveckorna especially if you want to speak Swedish, as recceveckona is the best way to get to know the Swedish business students.

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En fin skulptur vi gjorde under recceveckorna.

If you want to experience extreme cultural shocks, Sweden is not the place. Basically, the only thing differing from Finland is the language. The people are maybe a bit fonder to small talk than in Finland and the student culture differs thanks to the nations. It is for example strictly forbidden to take your own drinks to a nation or enter without a nation card. There is a lot of Finns as exchange students and regular students in Uppsala, and some Finns liked to hang mostly together. However, it is of course easy to get friends among other exchange students and local students too if you are active.

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Uppsala på natten.

Final comments

My stay in Uppsala was very rewarding. I got more fluent in Swedish, got confidence in presenting in English and made lifelong friends. The city was perfect with a cozy atmosphere near Stockholm. Uppsala is very unique because many buildings are old, which makes the city really beautiful. Also the university is of good quality with a good reputation.

I truly recommend Uppsala to students who are eager to improve their Swedish, who don’t mind the weather which is very similar to what we have in Finland and who don’t strive of doing their exchange as far away from Finland as possible. Among student cities in Sweden I would definitely choose Uppsala again because of the unique nation system. They have that in too, but I prefer Uppsala as the location is more convenient to me and the city is a bit bigger.

Exchange studies are a great way to learn something about yourself and the surrounding world too. You get to meet people from all over the world, share experiences of your countries and make friendships over the boarders. For me it was important to see that I can manage in a new city all by myself, even though in my case the exchange destination was in the neighbor country. I also got to travel during my exchange to Copenhagen, 11 the UK, Tallinn and of course Stockholm, but maybe I could have done some more travelling at least in Sweden. All in all, the experience was great and I encourage you to choose Uppsala as well!

Bilder på kyrkan slutar aldrig.

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