10 Reasons I Chose Norway

((Megan is blogging regularly about her life in Oslo at meganinnorway.blogspot.no))

…and specifically Oslo!

• Erasmus grant. This is literally free money (you don’t have to repay it), provided by the British Council and organised by Southampton, and it is only available to you if you study in Europe. It makes a HUGE difference – I get around £3000 (plus my maintenance loan from Student Finance) and without it there would be no way that I would have been able to even consider studying abroad. It is a HUGE perk!

• Teaching in English. I did French A-level, but I wasn’t confident that my ability in that language would be enough to see me through; after all, studying law can be difficult in English let alone a foreign language!!

• Modules that I found interesting. When I was choosing which university to go to, I made sure to check out what they actually taught – Oslo offers various international law, human rights and criminology focused modules which sounded really interesting and right up my alley (and they have been!).

• Excellent international reputation. I wanted to go somewhere that would look good on my CV, so I checked out all the unis I was considering on the QS world rankings, and the University of Oslo was in the top 100.

• Plenty of support for international students. Oslo (and ELSA Oslo) offer a really excellent buddy week at the start of term, which I thought was really important as a way to settle in and meet people – much like Freshers in first year! It was a really fun week, and I wrote about it here.

• It’s somewhere I’ve never been. I had already visited some countries that I could’ve chosen to study abroad in, but I really wanted to explore somewhere new and have the excitement of getting totally out of my comfort zone.

• Norwegian culture. I did a ton of research about Norway, and the one thing that struck me was the ‘outdoorsy’ culture associated with this country. I have always wanted to become more of an outdoors person, and this seemed like a great opportunity to kickstart that! Norwegians love the saying “det finnes ikke dårlig vær, bare dårlig klær” – literally: there is no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing. Rain and snow doesn’t intimidate them – or me, now!

• Living in a capital city. Oslo is not huge (which is how I like it – I come from a small village in Devon!), but there is always something going on – food festivals, cultural festivals, music festivals, etc. There is no excuse to be bored here, and as I love to be busy, so that’s perfect for me! There is SO much here that I still haven’t seen or done.

• Transport links. I knew that I would want to travel on my study abroad (again, that Erasmus grant is the best thing ever) and it is really easy and surprisingly cheap to fly around from here (plus good train/bus/ferry links with Sweden & Denmark).

• Norway itself! Norway is consistently ranked at the top of surveys that refer to quality of life, equality, and literally whatever else you can think of that you could possibly aim for in order to live a better life. Plus, the nature of this country is absolutely incredible – from the fjords and mountains to the Northern lights, there is a whole lot of beauty here!