Nice things happen to me in Sweden series- Learning Swedish

I have spent enough time in Sweden where my Swedish language skills where/are better than someone who is just off of the plane but too poor given my circumstances.

So I decided to take learning Swedish seriously and happened upon the information about Swedish Intensive for Academics. In sum it is a new program in Stockholm for people with a high level of education (at least an undergraduate degree) with a background in business, engineering, law, etc.

It starts from the C (out of A-D) level of Swedish for Immigrants, the notoriously famous free Swedish courses for newcomers to Sweden that, at best, gets mixed reviews and runs through the advanced level.

Additionally this experimental program is run inconjunction with an institution of higher learning in Sweden and pairs students with a mentor from their respective career-track union and a guidance counselor.

In sum, this program aims to get us immigrants with education into the Swedish workforce as soon as possible.

I applied and was accepted and am now studying feverishly. It is SO MUCH WORK! I have met very interesting and funny people in class, taken a couple of trips around the city I hadn’t made before, and am actually up and out by 7.30am each day. I was so used to working from home.

But this was a very nice thing that happened to me in Sweden.