Son moving to Sweden

Would recommend the Swedish programme I mentioned upthread, it’s informative but also very amusing.

My son moved to Uppsala 16 years ago after doing a year with the Erasmus scheme. He completed a masters & then doctorate at Uppsala university. He has now bought a flat in Stockholm & loves his life there. He is single & loves his job as an environmental consultant. He does indeed struggle with the long dark winters. We love visiting him & always find plenty to see & do, even in the winter!

We lost Erasmus after Brexit, but its return has just been announced.

Interested, our son met his Swedish partner when she was studying in Dublin, through Erasmus. 3 of our other children spent time studying abroad through Erasmus.

*Meant to say "interesting".

I'm Mormor ( Norwegian GC) and just wanted to say that you're embarking on a great adventure, Lindsey. Scandinavia is a wonderful part of the world.

I have lived in Sweden for many years – out in an extremely rural area although one of my daughters lives in Stockholm.

As he has a Swedish gf – she will be able to help him navigate a lot of the bureaucracy involved with moving as you need to register with a lot of places in my experience.

I assume that he either has EU citizenship or has already organised his visa and/or residence and work permit. When he arrives he’ll need to register with the tax office to get the all important civil registration number without which you cannot do anything in Sweden and also register with the Social Insurance Agency (Försäkringskassan) to get access to healthcare and things like sick pay and future parental leave etc. It is also advisable to join an Unemployment Fund (A-kassa) as it gives you income related unemployment benefits after you have paid in for a year - up to 80% of salary.

I recommend that he learns Swedish. Although you can get by in a place like Stockholm with English it is a real benefit for becoming part of the community. Local Authorities (kommun) run free classes or you can do private classes – there are a lot of options in Stockholm. You can do a basic course called SFI (Swedish for Immigrants). The basic level course takes you up to early secondary school level (age 13 in the Swedish system) but you can add to it later to do GCSE/A-level which would give access to free University education if you ever want to do a course.

It's great if you like the outdoors as skiing, hiking and outdoor skating and swimming are all close by.

There are some things that may take a bit of getting used to – such as only being able to buy alcohol at the state owned off-licence (Systembolaget) or having to pay at reception before you see the doctor.

Grannysmith

My son moved to Uppsala 16 years ago after doing a year with the Erasmus scheme. He completed a masters & then doctorate at Uppsala university. He has now bought a flat in Stockholm & loves his life there. He is single & loves his job as an environmental consultant. He does indeed struggle with the long dark winters. We love visiting him & always find plenty to see & do, even in the winter!

Uppsala is a great university (Uppsala and Lund are like the Oxford and Cambridge of Sweden).

I took 2 degrees at Uppsala.

silverlining48

Would recommend the Swedish programme I mentioned upthread, it’s informative but also very amusing.

I did the SFI programme in what was basically a refugee class many years ago.

I think silverlining meant the R4 prog called The Long Swedish Winter. Highly amusing but very true about life in Sweden!

Yes I did mean the entertaining and enlightening r4 series.