Sweden: Week 0
A Series of Short Blogs Chronicling The Lund Experience
Hello everyone! As part of a series of short blog posts I am required to write for my study abroad experience at Lund Tekniska Högskola (Lund University’s School of Engineering - LTH) in Lund, Sweden, I thought I would chronicle my experience on Substack so it’s easier to find for other students looking to study away here in Sweden as well. This blog focuses on what you need to consider before coming to LTH as a bachelor’s student at the Tandon School of Engineering at NYU (New York University) from the US though this advice generally applies also to other students coming from the US. Enjoy!
For those who are not aware, this was actually my second attempt to try to go to Lund. Before me, the only other student at my school to have gone to the school was Michal Urban, a computer science student who grew up in the EU. Being an EU citizen makes things extremely easy because it allows you to skip a lot of bureaucracy required to stay in Sweden longer than 90 days (the maximum amount a US citizen is allowed to stay under a tourist visa) and moves you straight along to working with the international advisors to select courses for the semester abroad and get introduced to future students on WhatsApp groups. When I chose Lund University as my study abroad location, Sweden had just enacted stricter border controls requiring all exchange students to obtain a residence permit prior to entering the country if you were planning to study or work there. Most notably, EU citizens get to skip this process since Sweden is in the Schengen Area.
The process to obtain a residence permit involves a lengthy application to the Swedish Migration Agency describing your future studies, a brief statement on why you want to study in the country along with a letter of acceptance from your given institution, a copy of a valid passport with your passport page, a copy of a health insurance policy to insure against any emergencies that might happen abroad and proof of finances for day-to-day living in the country provable by a bank statement with at least 56,700 SEK (USD $5,101) in the account in your name only (see more details here). Take your time with this application. If you make a mistake, you will have to spent additional time emailing the migration agency with clarification or clearing up additional items - be as simple and direct as possible with sources of income and reasons for studying abroad. You don’t want to spend additional time waiting for the permit to be granted or worst case, have it denied due to incorrect reporting of income.
Once you submit the permit application and pay an application fee of 1500 SEK (USD $134), you have to wait until the agency emails you before proceeding to your nearest Swedish embassy for additional clearance. The purpose of this visit is to show proof of identity and to get fingerprinted for the residence permit card. In this case, the US consulate located next to the U.N. in New York City does not count as an embassy. You have to take a day trip to DC in order to go to the Swedish Embassy in Georgetown in order to get approved. After that, you pay a small fee for the permit card to get shipped to your home address and you are free to leave to Sweden!
It is critically important to receive the permit card before you plan to go to the airport for the flight. For those leaving in the fall semester, I used DL 218, a non-stop Delta flight that leaves at 22:00 from JFK and arrives at CPH around 11:40 the next day. This is quite useful for getting to Lund for Arrival Day (as the flight leaves the previous day and gets into the greater Copenhagen area the next day - Arrival Day is the main day you are scheduled to arrive into Lund) as most other students will be arriving into Lund by the early afternoon. This seems to be the best option for the flight over to Copenhagen Airport (a friend from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico told me he went ELP → ATL → JFK → CPH all by Delta) but other itineraries seem to go via London as well for a bit cheaper.
When I arrived at Danish customs and replied that I planned to study in Sweden for 6 months, the official demanded to see the permit card or a confirmation on the permit’s delivery prior to letting me clear. If you don’t have the permit card, the situation is a bit precarious if you want to enter Denmark via a tourist visa and want to get it mailed to you in Sweden. In order to avoid getting turned away at customs and to avoid getting banned from the Schengen Area, I would recommend applying for the permit card as soon as you have the letter of acceptance around 3-4 months in advance. That way, you can clear any problems you might need to take care of prior to arriving to Sweden. I had to renew my passport and convert my bank account to one in my own name - make sure that you have time to do the same to avoid waiting anxiously for the email to visit the embassy.
It is also advisable to have a small fanny pack or purse so that you carry both your passport and residence permit card on all trips outside of the greater Copenhagen area. I’m currently trying to plan a trip during a 2 week break I have in October and realized that without my permit card, I might not be allowed to re-enter Copenhagen Airport to get home. So treat the residence permit card as carefully as your passport during its period of validity. You can always renew it if needed.
Even though Skåne County (where Lund is located) does have an airport at Malmö Airport (MMX), most international flights are handled through CPH Kastrup Airport in Copenhagen. If arriving into Lund for Arrival Day, Lund University mentors in blue shirts will meet you after customs and will direct you on the path towards the trains. Big red ticket machines from Skånetrafiken (the regional transit provider for Skåne County) will allow you to purchase a train ticket to Lund C via the Øresund Bridge and mentors will also help you if you arrive there on Arrival Day. A ticket onboard the Øresundståg train will cost 165 SEK (USD $15) and will take about 38 minutes to traverse between Denmark and onto Sweden! Make sure to have your passport and residence permit card handy in case a border check happens once in Sweden.
I will describe more about the Arrival Day venue and offer a brief recap of the trip from New York to Copenhagen and onto Lund in the next blog post but know that if you arrive to Lund on Arrival Day, you will have tons of help with the process of arriving into Lund, getting settled into your apartment and getting used to the new surroundings by mentors, advisors and staff from the university all day long. I will also be covering the process to get housing and to complete your study plan in future blog posts as well. These sections will be clearly identified so you will have a complete picture on what to expect once you get cleared to travel into Scandinavia and have to prepare for the eventuality of actually studying abroad.
If you do plan to do an exchange semester at Lund University over whichever term you pick, I greatly applaud you for your choice! Even though it is an arduous process from clearing the choice with NYU, GE3 (the organization that connects US students to foreign universities) and Lund, my studies at the university so far have been rather enjoyable and Scandinavia has been one of my favorite European experiences thus far. I hope it will be one of your favorite experiences too. If you have any questions about the experience, feel free to reach out to me at batavm01@nyu.edu. I will be happy to answer your questions if you need additional assistance.
Good luck out there and see you in the next blog post!
— Michael Batavia