After missing a trip to Berlin with some of the other Fulbright Finland grantees due to summer school, I decided to go myself- largely motivated by also being able to visit my friend in Rostock. The timing worked out since this lined up with my last free week until winter break. Luckily there is a …
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LUT Summer School
Since I had the time, I decided to enroll in the Lappeenranta University of Technology (LUT) summer school. I figured I might as well get ahead while I’m already here, plus it would be a good way to meet people before the school year begins. While neither class was apart of my degree program, they …
Moving to Lappeenranta
The day after the language-culture course ended, my dad and I moved to Lappeenranta, where I’ll be for my 2-year master’s degree. 4.5 hours and two train transfers later, we finally arrived. Lappeenranta, at 73,000 people, is about half the size of Jyväskylä. During the 10-minute taxi ride to my apartment, the weight of the …
Language-Culture Course: Week 3
On Saturday my dad came to visit me since he was working near Amsterdam the week prior. It was the perfect trip to split up 6 months of being away from home. Fortunately, the program was set up to accommodate guests. While I was in class, he did his own thing- walking around the city, …
Language-Culture Course: Week 2
The second week of the language-culture course lived up to the first. Back in 2016 I studied abroad in Madrid, Spain for a semester. While the experience was amazing, I didn’t learn as much Spanish as I could have because I was too scared to speak the language, of messing up and being judged. I …
Language-Culture Course: Week 1
As part of the Fulbright grant, I get to attend a language-culture course in Finland the summer before starting the master’s program. I came to Finland only knowing the basics of the language such as hi (moi), thank you (kiitos), and excuse me (anteeksi). My plan was to learn a little more before arriving, but …
Living in Jyväskylä
National Land Survey of Finland (2017) Jyväskylä is a city of approximately 140,000 people, about 4.5 times smaller than Helsinki and 2 times bigger than Lappeenranta, where I’ll be during the school year. Being so far north, both weather and sunlight conditions are more extreme. For example, the high temperature of this past week was …
Pride in Helsinki
A little over a day after settling into Jyväskylä, I took the train back to Helsinki. The main purpose was to attend Pride (my first abroad), but I also had ample time to explore the city. Upon realizing I’d be in Finland for Helsinki Pride at the beginning of June, I searched for and booked …
Traveling to Finland
After months of preparation and hours of travel, I finally made it to Finland! While in Spain I only wrote 2 blog posts, so let’s see if I can do better this time around. This first post will be more of a photo essay divided into the different parts of my trip. St. Louis –> …
Fulbright Adventures in Finland 