Type of housing: single room in shared apartment in apt bldg

Arranged by: Independently - My choice

If returning, I would choose:

Why? I would like to stay here again, really close to both the city centre and the oulu university of applied sciences - and i have my own room, compared to the housing offered by the uni.

Personal comments:
i got my room via PSOAS, i live in Välkkylä. the rooms are not extremely big, but more than sufficient. the bathroom and the kitchen are rather small, toilet and shower are in one room. everything is more than ok, except the fact that we dont have a kitchen table. may sound stupid, but you have to eat at your desk and can't invite a lot of friends for having dinner together. by bike 5 mins to oulu uni of applied sciences, and same distance to the bus and train station. distance to city centre maybe 7-8 minutes by bike, 3 huge supermarkets within walking distance of 300 meters. right next to our house is a park, the ouluhalli, a swimming hall, the icehockey stadium (you have to go there to see a match!)and so on..

Describe host city: Student life dominates the city

Activities: Takes place mostly within the university/student environment

Travel: Takes place mostly outside the university/student environment

Nightlife: Takes place both within and outside of the university/student environment

Personal comments:
my favourite place for going out is defintely "onnela", free entrance and beer for only 1Euro (!) on wednesdays and thursdays. fri and sat cost 7 eu entrance and 5 eu for a beer. 4 floors (disco, oldies, suomi-pop, rock), pretty full, and great atmosphere. nice places to have a drink are: st. michael's (irish pub) never grow old (right next to st. michael's, an institution, funky interiour) cafe bisketti (pulla, sandwiches, coffe and more, the best café in town) other places: gigglin marlin, amarillo,

Course recommendations:
in my personal case i had to take all of the courses (DIME) as a package and could not choose. therefore i had to study some stuff which is completely different to what i do at home.but i think that's more a lack of flexibilty of my home uni. we had lots of foreign teachers, and most of them are really professionals, and not teachers in their "normal lives"

Personal comments:
none

Language of instruction: English

Main source of funding:
An ERASMUS grant

Other sources of funding:
Family
Personal savings
An ERASMUS grant

Work opportunities:
I didn't want/need to work

Personal spending habits:
Food = ca. 10% more expensive than Austria, but if you go to Lidl, or if you know the supermarkets well enough, you dont necessarily have to spend more than at home. Although: Meat, fruits and vegetables are more expensive than in AUT. Telephone: Bring your phone and buy a simcard here, it's ridiculously cheap! in 5 months i used 30 euros! (but of course there is skype at well:) ) travel: i spent nearly all of my money for travelling: stockholm russia (st.petersburg and moscow), within finland, 5days through norway to northcape. i just dont travel that much during the semestre at home. there's lots to see!

Travel: was more expensive than at home.

Food, Overall: was the same price as at home.

Nightlife, Telephone, Housing: was less expensive than at home.

I wish I had known...
hhmm.. nope :)

In my opinion:
Everybody loved it, you will too!