A Blog about Education Abroad

Tag: Finland

  • Vanessa at the University of Helsinki, Finland

    Vanessa at the University of Helsinki, Finland

    Pre-departure:

    Thanks to the hard work of everyone at SU International, the pre-departure preparations went smoothly. The team made sure that we had all the information we need. In terms of preparing for the trip itself, the travel bursary was really helpful with paying for flights and the trip to the Finnish Embassy in Pretoria. The Finnish Embassy has a wonderful website where you could apply for your Student Resident permit (for people staying longer than 3 months) which made things a lot easier. No paper work was involved, so glad I could save a few trees.

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  • Vasti at Åbo Akademi, Finland

    Vasti at Åbo Akademi, Finland

    Pre-departure:

    Preparation for going abroad was certainly more work than I anticipated. I had to organise five months worth of medication, organise health insurance, and apply for a visa. The visa application itself was not particularly painful, I was quickly granted a residence permit that I had couriered to my home. It is important to note that the only Finnish embassy is in Pretoria, so I had to fly there for my interview and to get my fingerprints recorded. It was also very expensive to apply for this residency permit – 300 euros, which works out to about R4500, so I had to make sure to budget for this from my travel bursary.

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  • Nadia at Åbo Akademi, Finland

    Nadia at Åbo Akademi, Finland

    Pre-departure: Finland Bound

    Preparing for my exchange was simple: the support offered by both the International Office and my host university made the process easy and stress-free. I was also in the fortunate position that I did not need to do a Visa application so I was spared that admin, stress and expenditure. In terms of pre-departure admin the following things were on my checklist:

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