Hello and welcome to my blog!
For my first official post as a student blogger I decided to write about my first two weeks as an SLU student. I also decided to add some practical information and tips that I thought could be helpful, especially if you are a prospective student and want to know what you could expect from your first days at SLU.
It is going to be a bit long so I divided it in two parts; one more focused on information I thought might be important for new students, and the second one is more about my own experiences during my first weeks at SLU. Happy reading!
Part 1: Useful information for soon-to-be students at SLU
Before digging into the events that took place during the welcoming week for international students, let’s talk about the “Checklist.” What is this checklist I’m talking about? Well, this is a list of information that you can find at the SLU student’s web page and it contains the things you should take into account before, upon, and after your arrival in Sweden. My first tip is: read it all! Even click and read all the links that come in each section. I know it might be a lot of information to take in, but it is necessary that you go through all of this, so you know exactly what you need to do before you start your overseas move.
Another tip I could give you is to divide and conquer. As I mentioned before, this list is mainly divided in before, upon, and after arriving in Sweden, so my advice is that you should just concentrate in one section at a time. You might think ‘duh! That’s obvious!’ but when you are stressing about moving to another country, many people (including myself) want to know and get done with everything as soon as possible, and that is not realistic. So, breathe in, breathe out, and do just what you need to do in that moment.
After you are done with the first section of the checklist – getting a visa, insurance, and accommodation – then it is time to attack the second part of the checklist! This section is full of terms that might confuse you like rollcall, IT account, access card, library card, registration day, personal identity number, etc. And all of those terms play an important role during your first days at SLU.
When my classmates and I first arrived at SLU, we were completely lost! We practically spent our first week stuck at the service center’s desk asking for everything and anything! So, with that experience in mind, I decided to make a simple flow chart that illustrates what you need to do and in which order –according to my classmates and me—when you arrive at SLU so you are completely set!
I won’t be mentioning the third part of the checklist because it is pretty much included in the flowchart above.
This concludes the first part of my notes on the first few weeks as a student at SLU, make sure to check out part two here!
Have a lovely day!
Anna