Hi! My name is Luci Youman and last year, I decided to get a passport, pack a suitcase and head over to the University of Gothenburg in Sweden to attend the Summer School for Sustainability. This pilot summer program focused on global environmental challenges and the UN Sustainable Development Goals, offering an array of short courses that tended to many different industry areas. I personally chose the course “Digitalisation in a changing world”. I chose to study this subject and do so in Sweden because of the experience (who wouldn’t?). It was a great opportunity to travel and do so by studying a topic I am personally very passionate about. Scandinavian countries are known for being environmentally and socioeconomically orientated and to experience and learn in this culture was purely a dream come true, as cliché as that sounds.
To be completely honest, arriving in Gothenburg was slightly nightmarish, after having missed my last flight, trekking the city with no phone service and realising I was in a completely new country all by myself in a horribly jetlagged state. However, the fear diminished on my first day of attending class after meeting my classmates and immediately forming friendships with people from all over the world. I realised there was a certain comfort to knowing you wouldn’t feel isolated from that point on and thus, the experience began.
I had class two days of the week for five weeks and was taught by a wildly adventurous, spiritual, yoga-loving professor called Birgit Penzenstadler (and yes, yoga quite literally was a part of our syllabus, as well as multiple “mandatory lessons in the park”). We were only in class for about 3-4 hours of the day, which made it very easy to explore the city in our spare time and join the entire summer school on excursions or social activities planned by our project coordinators.
The five weeks were jampacked; they would plan day-long excursions (for free), transporting us to nearby villages or islands in the Gothenburg Archipelago to do hikes, historical tours or simple explorations. At least every second day they had organised social activities for everyone to get together such as trivia, “fikas” (morning/afternoon tea), movie nights, and boat races to name a few.
We all became very friendly with the project coordinators, who were university students themselves, making it easy to get along with them. If we had any questions or concerns, they were easy to communicate with and provided their personal phone numbers so you could contact them directly. The summer school host was the same and with my situation (being the only one travelling so far), she made the effort to make my transition as easy as possible.
The amount of energy that the coordinators put into the summer school was extraordinary and it was one of the most well-organised events that I have ever been a part of. The university had also organised all international
students to take tenancy in the student accommodation for an extremely cheap price. Each student had their own apartment along with an ensuite and a shared kitchen for each building. Due to it being summer holidays, there weren’t many Swedish students in the accommodation, so the international students definitely took over, meaning there were many afternoons spent having picnics and BBQ’s together in the common areas.
The accommodation was about five minutes away from the university building we had to attend. The university buildings were all over the city, often not anywhere near each other but luckily, Sweden has an insanely efficient public transport system so there was endless opportunities to get where you needed to be.
In my personal opinion, as someone who has been interested in travelling since they can remember, the best and most memorable part of this journey was experiencing the submersion into Scandinavian culture and seeing this beautiful part of the world. Coming from Australia, Europe is an entirely different ballgame. The history, culture, food, architecture, monuments are all so extraordinary and unique. As well as the fact that you’re in a continent where you can get to another country via a three-hour bus journey. I took full advantage of this and on the weekends explored Norway, Denmark and other areas in Sweden such as Stockholm and Malmö. I remember going up the Christiansborg’s Tower in Copenhagen, looking out into the city and bursting into tears. Albeit this was a little bit embarrassing and my friend from Slovenia was looking at me strangely, I had never seen something like it and the whole experience hit me like a truck.
If I was to persuade other students to do a short course overseas, this would be one of my main reasons. Another reason would be the connections you build to the host city and other students. Even though you are only there for five or so weeks, you are building a life in that city; you have a home, daily and weekly routines, study sessions at your favourite cafes, and you get to know a whole new university life. It is something so otherworldy and beautifully idiosyncratic, you can’t help but form a longing for it when you leave. By the way, leaving the city and your friends and embarking on your solo journey back home is absolutely heartbreaking. However, I now have so many friends and connections all over the world, as well as memories that I’ll hold onto forever, so the heartbreak is (almost) worth it.
And that is why I will always try to convince people to do a short course overseas! I can genuinely say it was the best few weeks of my life and only good has come from it.
Global Traveller 