Follow me on twitter!

I believe that the hardest information to find on the Internet about Sweden and Uppsala University is about the little things that students do on regular basis. I wanted to invite you all to follow me on twitter and get a better idea not only about what I think of my days but about what I do. You’ll see if I have lectures, if I’m working on my assignments or just enjoying some free time!

I hope you like it!

I also want to thank all my readers! I’m incredibly happy that you all have found this blog useful and I’ll keep writing based on your suggestions.

The cost of living in Sweden

When thinking about studying in Sweden, a very common question is: how much money do I need? Well, I have to say that, at least from my experience, living here it’s quite expensive. Still, since I think this is a very personal opinion, I believe it would be better to share some numbers with you. I took some numbers from the website http://www.studyinsweden.se but mostly I’m putting my comments.

Food: SEK 2000. I believe this is possible, but in my opinion it will actually be more expensive. Having lunch at Rullan, an on-campus restaurant in MIC, costs around SEK 80 and a regular meal at Burger King costs SEK 60. Of course cooking your own food is cheaper, but still you’ll find that 1 litter of milk costs SEK 10.90, 1 box of All Bran cereal costs 31.90 and 1 litter of juice costs around SEK 10. In my opinion the cost of food is at least SEK 3000.

Accomodation: SEK 3200. One thing that’s really nice about Sweden is that you’ll find a nice place to live for very little money. You can pay in less than SEK 3000 for a 19m2 room in Flogsta, with your own bathroom and shared kitchen. All services are included (Internet, water and electricity) and you don’t have to pay for July and August. If you’re renting an unfurnished room, don’t forget to check IKEA.se to get a pretty good idea about furniture prices. Still, you can find used furniture for half the price!

Local travel: SEK 500. This number is actually the maximum amount you’ll have to pay. If you buy a bike, like most of the students and Uppsala inhabitants, you will only have to pay for it and forget about public transportation. If you want to use the buses you’ll have to pay SEK 30 to the driver for a ticket that lasts 90 minutes. If you buy the ticket using your mobile phone (text message) you’ll only have to pay SEK 20. You can also buy a rechargeable card. You’ll have to pay a SEK 90 deposit (that you get back when you return the card) and you’ll pay only SEK 16 for each trip. All those tickets include all the busses you take on a 90 minutes period. Finally, you can buy a monthly card that will cost you SEK 500 each month and you can use the buses as much as you want!

Student Union Fee: SEK 400 – 600 each semester. There is no way around it. You can pick the cheapest one if you want and you’ll still be able to visit all nations.

Cinema: SEK 110 – 130. You can find cheaper tickets during the weekdays using the student discount.

Books: SEK 500 – 1000. Buying used books it’s always cheaper and not all courses require you to buy a book.

Train trip from Arlanda Airport: SEK 130. The bus costs SEK 100 but the trip is a little bit longer.

Everything else depends on you. I would like to add that here alcoholic drinks are pretty expensive too. If you’re interested in some other expenses in particular just let me know about it!

A little bit of everything

This post doesn't really have a specific topic: it's more like a summary of the latest weeks. First I have to say that I haven't have the time to write much since this period has been kind of crazy: a lot of programming and a lot of reading!

In case you were wondering, there are many courses that are project based. In my particular case I'm taking User-Interface Programing, but there are many other courses like this one, where you need to develop a group project during the whole period (or even 2 periods). The idea behind those courses is really good and you can learn a lot. At the same time they require hard work every week, group communication, researching and again: more work. This courses will also give you the opportunity to work with people with different backgrounds and make excellent friends.

For all those non EU/EEA citizens how are planning on coming to Uppsala, read this article about future University's fees.

http://www.thelocal.se/25092/20100219/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=136

Visiting Stockholm

Less than an hour from Uppsala is the amazing city of Stockholm! I’ve been studying so much that I waited and waited until the winter break came and I finally went there! I honestly have to say I didn’t know what I was missing. Stockholm is actually a very beautiful city and it looked really amazing all covered with snow.

The train tickets are very cheap and you can come back to Uppsala the same day. You can walk around the city, visit some of its many museums and you can even take a boat trip.

If you are interested in taking a tour, I recommend you to look for the Hop On Hop Off tours. Just like in most cities around Europe they have many tours and even they have a boat route around the islands. The bus tour is a very good option during the cold days since you get to see the city, go off the bus in the places you like and then get in the bus again and hide from the cold weather.

Stockholm also has many outdoor theaters which I’m dying to enjoy during the spring!

Constraint Technology

This course is about presenting a set of techniques and tools for solving combinatorial problems. For example, a Sudoku puzzle is a combinatorial problem where you need to place distinct digits from 1 to 9 in each row, column and 3x3 squares. Other examples include scheduling, planning, molecular biology, finance, linguistics, and so on.

This course combines theoretical foundations with hands-on experience in modeling and solving combinatorial problems.

You can find this course interesting if you like apply logic, reasoning and optimization. It’s not like any of those backgrounds are necessary for taking the course but it is that kind of course. If you are also interested in research you’ll really enjoy it. On the other hand, if you are more industry-oriented you can also find it useful but you need to give it a try. There are many examples during the course about how this is being used in industry and there is a guest lecture from a company working with CT that will try to attract you to work there.

In order to pass the course you will need to do 2 assignments with a partner and one final project by yourself. There is also a final exam. The assignments can take time if you are playing with them and testing different concepts. I think that really helps to understand better the theory. For the final exam is important that you manage all the concepts in the class. There are not so many concepts and everything is related, but you need to be sure you know how things work. If you go to class, do the assignments and solve some old exams you’ll be fine. But you really need to understand the class! If you feel like nothing makes sense and you don’t start understanding by the time you are working on the second assignment then the exam is going to be really hard!

Notice that it is just my personal opinion mixed with some comments I heard in order to give you an idea. If you like it, don’t let anyone tell you it’s too hard!

Walking around Uppsala

When I decided to come and study in Uppsala University I didn’t know exactly what I was getting myself into. I have a friend how came few years ago as an exchange student and he’s truly fascinated about this place, so I said to myself: “It has to be a wonderful place”. Now that I’ve had the opportunity to walk a little bit around Uppsala I can understand why. It’s a beautiful city, full of flowers and people walking on the streets. The atmosphere is very refreshing and everywhere you look at you can see young people from around the world. If you pay attention you can hear people talking in a lot of different languages.

There are a lot of pretty places to visit. Sadly I haven’t had the chance to visit them all, but I recommend you to walk close the river, visit the cathedral, and the castle. Anyway, here are some pretty pictures about Uppsala and I hope I can share more with you very soon J

Something worth highlighting is that Swedes are very friendly: almost everyone speaks perfect English and in any case they will ALWAYS try to help you. They might seem timid and reserved, but you just need to give it a try and talk to them.

Flogsta Scream!

I really don’t know why but every day at 10 pm you can hear a lot of people scream from their windows! Most people get scared the first time they hear it, but for me it was quite different: I immediately remember a Gilmore Girls episode when Rory is spending her first night in Yale and the boys are making wolfs sounds. It’s a really funny joining and screaming as much as you can!