Swedish School of Economics and Business Administration, Helsinki (SHH)

i was able to improve my written english and my understanding of academic texts. concerning my finnish i was a bit disappointed that i was not in the position to improve it. but i will establish a proper "sisu" and at some time succeed in improving my finnish language skills. i got used to the pronounciation and intonation a bit more. i had to work a lot for the university so i could not dedicate time for additional language studies.

finland was my favourite country already before and here my attitude was enforced. be busy at university, you can learn a lot in those intensive courses. but don't forget to live: travel around the country, there's lots of overwhelming nature to see in finland. concerning neighbours: maybe go to tallinn, st. petersburg, moscow, stockholm. nature is fascinating in all seasons, drinking water is clean and quality of life is high. however, keep in mind that there is a population of about 5m people which makes an extended public transport system (like e.g. the one in vienna) superfluous. you will have to make use of busses rather than of the metro, but still it is not a big problem to get to wherever you are going to. in the city center you can go on foot to all important places.

it was not possible to rent a laptop which is a big problem when you have to do a lot of homework on the computer. concerning saving cost on food: just do not save money to extendedly. rather buy less but to your taste, otherwise food will become boring (but this is my general opinion, does not have to do anything with finland)

my roommates and me were very lucky with our accomodation: rent was quite cheap for helsinki and the apartment was bigger than the others. although we had to use the metro to get into the centre, the "travelling time" was not too bad (about 20 minutes) and it was made up through the beautiful landscape we lived in (near the forest and the sea).

for "dark" music fans: check out www.tiketti.fi to find information on metal and gothic concerts - take place mostly in nosturi and tavastia klubbi; both are small and recommendable. i loved them.