Being a Fadder

It’s really interesting how things are twisting in this life. Somehow happened that this semester I’m a Fadder (in Swedish, which means a supervisor) for ESN-students who came to study at Örebro University from all over the world.

A bit info about ESN if you are not familiar with it:

Erasmus Student Network (ESN) is the biggest interdisciplinary student association in Europe. It was founded in 1989 and its aim is to support and develop student mobility. ESN is presented in more than 432 Higher Education Institutions in 36 countries.

Örebro joined ESN in 2004 and around 140 exchange students come to study at Örebro University every semester within this programme.

    I’m lucky to be a fadder of the group “H” this semester. I got a chance to get to know interesting people from Brazil, Spain, France, Italy, Poland, Germany, Romania, Norway, China… 

Örebro, 2013, ESN-fadder group "H"

This reminds me a lot those times when I was an Erasmus student myself in 2010 in Kalmar (Sweden, Småland). It’s unbelievable how world is small, but here in ESN-Örebro I met people, who worked together with my fadders from ESN-Kalmar, when I was an ESN-student…

…I remember how in 2009-2011 I was working in kids’ summer/winter holiday camp as a mentor.

Moscow region, 2009-2010

And I could never imagine that this experience would be so helpful to me here! Now I’m in Sweden and I guide international students instead of Russian kids, but the feeling that you help people and they need your help – is just wonderful! I really recommend it to those who have never done anything similar!

Why Sweden?

Hi everybody! Let’s start?!

The first question I want to answer here is why I decided to go to study in Sweden.

Well, I have a long story with this country.

In 2007, when I was studying on my 2-nd year at Lomonosov Moscow State University, Faculty of Journalism, I wanted to study something exotic. That’s why I started to learn Hindi! But after a couple of months more than a half of our group left to study a new Swedish language course. Well, I decided to follow and never regretted. During 4 next years, I studied Swedish language, culture and media at the Centre for Media studies in Finland and Scandinavia ‘NordMedia’ at the Faculty of Journalism, MSU.

But I wanted more. And during the spring semester 2010 I went to Linnéuniversitetet (former ‘Högskolan i Kalmar’) as an exchange Erasmus student. I studied Swedish language, Intercultural Communication and Swedish Media there. After that experience I completely fell in love with this country, with ‘FIKAs’, ‘kanelbullar’, liters of coffee, castles and a beautiful nature. I decided that I want to study Master degree in Sweden.

Linnéuniversitetet, Kalmar 2010

I graduated from Moscow State University in 2011 and after that a year of applications, motivation letters and references started… I was interested of course in International Master Programmes in English concerning media, journalism, communication. One of the difficulties for me was to find funds to study cause education in Sweden was not free for non-EU citizens anymore. That’s why I applied only for those programs that had scholarships.

Moscow State University, June 2011

Why Örebro?

I chose the programme 'Master of Global Journalism' at Örebro University firstly because it has cooperation with the University of Tampere in Finland and Oslo and Akershus University College of Applied Sciences. This is a great opportunity to study at three different countries and universities during one programme. Moreover, some of my classmates at MSU studied there and recommended the university. I wanted to study a two-year (120 ECTS) Master programme with a strong theoretical basis. Örebro is relatively cheap, compared to Stockholm and Uppsala or Lund. Moreover, the location of the city is very convenient, it’s just in the middle of the country, on the way from Stockholm to Oslo. Luckily, I got a scholarship from Örebro University that covers all tuition fees for two years. So, from 16-th of August 2012 I’m here, ready for the second year of my programme to begin.

Örebro University, May 2013

What’s next: I’ll tell you more about the University campus and Örebro City soon!

Welcome!

From the autumn semester 2013 our international student Alla Rybina will be blogging about her studies and life as a student at Örebro University. Alla is studing on our Master program "Global Journalism". We welcome Alla to Örebro University!