Working opportunities in Scandinavia for Non European Students

The motivation behind writing this post is my recent interaction with different employers and students in Norway and Sweden. I have this feeling that cross-cultural communication and understanding can make both employers and the students comfortable during the recruitment process. As I have personally experienced the environment and the circumstances in which the foreign students pursue their education and apply for jobs, therefore I am sharing my thoughts about that.

I still remember when I graduated from school; I accidentally attended a seminar organized by a student visa consultant. I was never interested to move abroad and had never given a thought about it either. The consultant told people so many success stories without mentioning the real challenges of living a life abroad. I was a teenager. I got impressed by his speech. And I know that these kinds of businesses in all under developed countries contribute a lot in students’ mobility all over the world. The reason I mentioned them is that they always present studying abroad as an investment to earn a lot of money. Therefore I have hardly met any student that came to Scandinavia for just learning, they always have a hidden objective of staying and working and payback all the expenses of their education.

Many years later when I completed my Bachelors in Engineering, moving abroad for work or study was very popular. People were using big amount of savings, loans, selling their properties to pay the Human resource consultants for working in the Middle East. And a lot of them were planning for studying in United Kingdom, Canada, Australia or USA. The study visa process of all English speaking countries is very expensive and complicated. Every year they are making it more and stricter to limit the students to just education. Before students used to work part-time to pay their tuition fees and now because of laws and abundance of students, it is getting almost impossible. A middle class graduate cannot even imagine about studying in these countries. They demand a long history of a huge amount of money in your bank account to get a study visa, and there is no chance of work therefore you have to have enough money to pay all tuition fees as well. You have to provide all details of your family income, expenses and make them believe that you are just going there for studies. It is a complete process of self humiliation. At the end of education, there were some graduate visas, which they have stopped now. So investment in education is not profitable anymore. Therefore English speaking countries, education has become a luxury for rich people of under developed countries. I would like to mention some bright students who get scholarships and for them it is a different story.

The other way they see was to go to Middle East, work a lot there for a few years on a relatively low salary and then go as a skilled immigrant to these English speaking countries. Or make enough money in Middle East and then go for studying in those countries. In short for a person with the best education in under developed countries, it can take up to more than 5 years of continuous struggle to get settled in a developed country. A few can get lucky, but the mainstream is following this way. Every year this mainstream is increasing and the governments in foreign countries are reducing all possible way to stop this inflow of people. This is a story of the best talent in those countries and the rest, you can imagine.

Now it comes to the rest of the world. There is an additional challenge. It is language. Some people used to take French or German language courses during their bachelors so that they can go to Europe for studying. China, Russia and Far East Asia became popular later on. Many universities in the rest of the world started teaching masters courses in English. Therefore people changed their direction as well. Majority of these people were from middle class.

Swedish, Finish, Norwegian and Danish universities became very popular due to the free education and there was a big in flow of applications to these countries. Later on Denmark introduced tuition fees, all the pressure went to Swedish, Finish and Norwegian Universities and Swedish universities also decided to introduce tuition fees on non-European students. The purpose of writing about the study visas is that because almost all the people I met from under developed countries who are working in Scandinavia came here for studying. Even a lot of people from central Europe working here were university students here.

Now the real story job; all the bright students that applied to Scandinavia and after compete with thousands of other students get admission and move here. Most of them knew it before that it is going to be expensive to live here. I have already written about accommodation, food and other challenges, therefore I will focus on just job.

A student is allowed to work as much as he can in Sweden and Norway. There is no limit of working hours, but the biggest challenge was to find a job. After the financial crises the unemployment in Sweden was very high and due to a lot of students it was also not possible to get a reasonable job. Distribution of advertisements, restaurants and the newspapers distribution were the only sources of income for foreign students. There were also a lot of Swedish students in the town, but they already get some stipend and loans from the government, some European exchange students were having some financial support as well. The rest of the free movers were the most poor and tired people in the class. They could not socialize with other students due to jobs or cost of socializing. The salaries from restaurant jobs were between 40-60 SEK per hour, by advertisement job (Reklam) they used to get around 20-40 SEK per hour. The distribution of newspaper was the highest paying job, people used to get between 7 - 11 thousand Swedish kroner after tax. But it was a 7 days job; you start in the middle of the night and finish in the early morning. The weather conditions are tough and people faces serious health problems after working for a while. And your studies and social life suffer a lot. After working whole night it is hard to concentrate on the lectures the next morning.

After graduation there were no work permits in Sweden. People used to take another admission to continue their part time work or they used to apply for Denmark green card scheme. Denmark was in need of labor and they had this scheme for job search purpose. Denmark took a lot of foreign master’s graduate from Sweden through this scheme. But these guys again had to go through learning language and stuff. There are hundreds of people who have Masters in Engineering and medicine from Sweden and are doing restaurant, cleaning and newspaper distribution jobs in Denmark. Why these people do not go back? Because they get motivated by a few successful fellows who score a professional job in Sweden or Denmark and they know that if they will go back it will be hard to get a job in here. In short the numbers of unsuccessful stories are huge as compared to the successful stories. But they keep on struggling. Some give up and go back to their native counties or some other countries and some stop trying and just work.

Besides Danish green card scheme there was another work permit in Sweden. It was for the people who have completed 30 Ects in Sweden and then get a job that can pay minimum 13000 SEK before tax. Many of the people that were working for newspapers distribution, a few from restaurant and cleaning jobs got these work permits. Later on many people did a deal with restaurant and cleaning company’s owners to get these work permits, I mean they were getting fewer salaries, but the employers were paying the taxes. So Swedish migration board made many professions black listed. Now the employer has to provide a lot of details of his income as well to apply for a work permit for a foreign worker. 

The people, who got Swedish work permit, now have to work for at least 4 years to get a permanent residence. So all these skilled educated people are now doing odd jobs for the sake of a permanent residence status in Sweden. These numbers are big as well. The inflow of international students has already reduced remarkably due to the high amount of tuition fees. Some of these people on work permits are already trying to take language courses, and applying every now and then. Swedish industry has its basis on Engineering and Technology; therefore most of the universities are offering courses in these fields. That results in abundance of local graduates for the jobs. After them it is much easier to hire a European citizen and in the end the last option is a non-European citizen. Only large corporations can afford to go through all documentations.

There are a few other ways to get settled much faster than learning and work hard. But there is a question about ethics. First way is to marry a local. Swedish government has a lot integration plans for the common law partners of the Swedish citizens. They are eligible to get unemployment benefits and also the employment office helps them to get a job. The second category is people on asylum on the basis of some reason. They get paid, they get paid to learn the language, they get a permanent residence faster than a highly educated professional

Every year a non-European spend in Scandinavia cost them a lot until they get a job. The cost of one month is equal to the cost living of the over half of the year in their home country in some cases. Many job coaches stress on the socializing, ignoring the fact those Scandinavian countries are one of the most difficult places on earth to socialize, it takes a long time and money to become a part of this society.

After a critical discussion, I want to suggest the ideal way. If you want to get a good student life and job in Scandinavia, earn enough money before you come. Always take admission in the best reputed universities and the courses that have high demand in here. Live like a Scandinavian, do good studies and in the end you will get a good professional job. If not you will have a great experience of living abroad. Otherwise you will have to live like a struggling alien with very little knowledge about the society.

In the end there are many questions about these top talents from middle class in under developed counties. Do the employers know anything about what they gone though when they read their CV?  What is the real value of these people? Are they superior, inferior or equal than a local student who has hardly faced any big financial, social or legal challenge during their whole life? Why education has been made a business than a social learning?

Eating at School

Normally people think that all Scandinavian countries are almost similar, and I have always been asked from Norwegians that what differences I have observed between Sweden and Norway, same question is asked by Swedish people about Norwegians. The story is not different if you are in Denmark. In fact there are plenty of differences in all these countries but I am going to discuss the eating habits from school and I will compare it with Pakistani system in the end.

When I was in Sweden I read an article that about the food in school. Swedish kids get lunch at school since they start it and they get it for free until they graduate from the college (Called gymnasium). Even after graduation some people go to their college for eating, if it is nearby to save some money. Since they get it for free therefore on lunch tables most of the time they are complaining about the food. Therefore in almost all cities there are so many restaurants that offer lunch buffets. Because eating outside home becomes a part of their behaviour. All major companies have nice restaurants inside and some people who want to eat in the town go out of the office and eat there. You can get a whole catalogue of the weekly menus of lunch in the whole town. Also in the university’s website they publish the menu for lunch. When it is lunch time there are very long lines for getting the food. And the restaurants get very crowded. Coffee is also a part of Swedish life. Coffee breaks are the best way to socialize with Swedish people. You can ask almost everyone for a cup of coffee because they take these breaks often and even in the evenings a lot of people hang out at coffee houses. In Sweden you can get food from all parts of the world, because they travel a lot.

In Norway it is very different. In Norway parents prepare the lunch for kids before they drop them to school. It is called Matpakke. Therefore it becomes behaviour; most of the people in Norway are always equipped with the food, when they go out. One reason can be the prices of food in Norway. It is very expensive to eat outside here. If it is lunch time and you are in the university’s cafeteria, don’t worry you will get plenty of space. Even you will see a lot of people eating in their lunch boxes at the cafeteria. They have microwaves for the people to make the food warm. If you are travelling then matpakke is a good solution as well.

In Pakistan bringing lunch from home is considered as a childish behaviour and buying from school’s canteen is considered as a cool thing. Small children bring their food from home but also get a lot of pocket money to buy candies and other stuff. When they grow up they stop bringing lunch with them. One reason can be that due to house wives system our schools close between 1:00 or 2:00 PM and you can eat lunch at home. Normally the lunch time is between 1:00 to 3:00 unlike Scandinavia where it is around 12:00 PM. The quality of food is extremely bad at most of the canteens in schools, colleges and universities due to poor food regulations but still all the kids want to spend as much money as they can at these canteens. Most of the students do not even know how to cook and since they eat three warm meals a day therefore the sandwiches and fruits are not that common. Tea is drunk like coffee in Scandinavia. There is no free food for students anywhere from schools, colleges or universities. The children are never happy with their pocket money, they always want more than they have and it is the story of every family, in the morning kids are asking for more and more. When people enter universities they stop eating candies and when they start working they start bringing food from home. Because when they start earning, they seldom spend it on low quality food outside and prefer to take home made lunch at work. And one reason behind that is long working hours as well. 

Feelings that make you nervous

There are always moments in your life when you are paralyzed by some thoughts. These thoughts are normally about an event that can either excite you a lot or they can make you miserable. No matter what the results are you forget them after a while. If you become excited, this excitement stays for a while and then it seems normal to you and vice versa.

What I have noticed that the great feelings stay with your memories and the bad feelings normally fade away.  You cannot even remember them. If someone understand this phenomena they might not get the excitement that someone ignorant will have but they will get over the feeling of being a loser.

Right now I am going through such an experience. It reminded me of all my life changing experiences. Hope is the feeling that has brought me to this level. As I have talked about it that it is the situation that makes you a hero or makes you a zero. I know that this time will pass away and may be I won't remember a thing or maybe I will always look back to memorize this moment and the amount of joy in it.

There were times in my life when I felt like a complete failure and broke. And it took me a while to get over it. But when I see my achievements after those times it gave me a lot of happiness. But still nervousness comes in your way and sometime it is a great feeling being nervous.

To answer your curiosity I can tell you I have made it into top four in an organization in Norway. Today I am expecting the result. Since I was a teenager I had a believe that only education can give you the drive in achieving your goals. Therefore I have always been interested in studying in the most renowned institutions. Today I remember all those times when I tried and got what I wanted. My admission in many universities, offer of admission from NED University, when I got my first job offer, when I got my first student visa, when I was accepted at Chalmers, when I was nominated for an exchange studies. All these events were big for me. There were so many days and nights of efforts behind each and every event. I do not even remember the times when I failed, what I do remember is that these events made me what I am today.

Today I am nervous but I am more confident that no matters what happen today, I will keep on moving ahead. Now I believe more in giving others the benefits of my experiences. Now I am moving forward with the feeling that I really enjoyed this nervous feelings and it gave me the confidence to write.

Socializing in Scandinavia

The whole world is amazing. Its soil produces so many different kinds of products under same conditions. And one particular environment produces so many different behaviors in the people. Even two children born and grown up in the same family have different behaviors. And these differences are the beauty of life. If we want to standardize nature or people, it is practically impossible. But all these people have their own role in balancing the societies. By understanding and communicating our behaviors we can produce a better balance in the society in which we are all breathing. Scandinavia is one of the societies in today’s time that has set some standards. Due to many reasons it is one of the best places on earth to live. Therefore it is an attractive place for immigrants. A lot of governments are spending billions of dollars to settle the foreign immigrants based on their residence permit. But the challenges related to immigration are really huge. Human behavior is something that takes really long time and consistency to chance. Sometimes it takes more than two generations to have a complete integration. A lot of universities are doing studies on global immigrations and therefore it is interesting to learn from experiences of the individuals in another society.

Since I am not a social scientist, I am just reflecting on the basis of my experience in Scandinavia. I am sure that every person who has lived here in Scandinavia has his/her own story. During my first two years I spent most of the time with Pakistani community, and later on I spent most of the time with Swedish people at work and living with exchange and international students.

Starting from my early days, all the universities in the Scandinavia has an office for international relations. People in these departments are working really hard to deal with students from all over the world. Since the inflow of the students in different universities is quite different, therefore their experience in handling students from different regions of the world. Believe me it is very exciting and very annoying job at the same time. There are lot things that are normal for the people living in here and they are really strange in other parts of the world. And due to different understandings of the same information, a massive amount of questions has been received by the international offices. Their experience in dealing with a particular group of students becomes very good and with some groups it never becomes that comfortable. For example the majority of the students in Scandinavia are Europeans these days. So a major number of orientation activities fit well according to them and they are not that good in case of international students from other regions. On the other hand side there are two kind of students, the ones who are open to learn all kind of new experiences and have the passion to integrate and the others that are curious but really shy or reluctant to try new experiences. Both kinds of students end up in different experiences of living abroad.

There is a lot of information available by student magazines, local online English newspapers and international offices for the practical guidelines to survive in Sweden, Norway and Denmark. Ways of social integration and general information about Scandinavian people and their behaviors, therefore I am not going to write in detail. General information is that due to cold weather, less population density and good social system, Scandinavians are much more isolated than other parts of the world. It is a difficult task to make and build connections here. It takes a long time to make a friend but once they are your friend, they are friends forever. They are different when they are drunk and alcohol is a big help when it comes to socializing in Scandinavia. A common friend is always an advantage; otherwise the people here are not that good at socializing with a stranger. Modesty, sports and healthy life is one of general priorities in the culture.

Pakistani students in Sweden, Norway and Denmark are much more closed community, even more closed than Scandinavian society. There are many reasons behind that

The first and more vibrant reason is source of information. Majority of students that come from Pakistan do not do much research about the local society and specially the student community. Most of them apply in many countries for education and depending upon the admission and visa availability they take their final decision. There is another believe in Pakistan since Afghan war, that it is better to live anywhere outside Pakistan than Pakistan. Therefore coming to a developed country is already considered as a great opportunity. No one thinks that how much it is going to cost them, how long it will take to integrate, what kind of job opportunities are there and what are the growth opportunities for the people with similar backgrounds. They normally do not have any idea about what they are going to face. Since they do not have enough information, therefore they face enormous amount of cultural and economical shocks in the early stay and they feel their behavior as an alien in the society and in the end they hang out with the people from similar background.

On the other hand majority of Scandinavian population has wrong information about gradate Pakistani students. Media in Europe always covers the stories of regional war, some stories of gender discrimination, corrupt politicians and extreme side of the south Asian society. The main stream is never in the stories in the news channels. It is totally different from what they read and listen. Since Scandinavians are shy they never go and talk to these students, so these kinds of misunderstandings continue.

Second major reason is the economical differences. I have already written about it before. Cost of socializing is really high. Since the rents are high therefore Pakistani student share their accommodation in the low rent areas of the city and the local students can afford relatively expensive housing close to the university due to reasonable financial aid and study loans from the government. Pakistani students avoid eating outside and spend money on café; therefore they never get the opportunity to socialize with the local students during free timings at the university and after university. The sports are also expensive as compared to home.  Due to shared accommodations they do not invite people over as well. Some guys who do part time jobs do not get enough time to socialize as well.

People with good information about each other and reasonable economical balance can easily socialize from both regions. But here it hits the third challenge.  That is difference in values. In Pakistani culture there are three major values

1-      Family

2-      Money

3-      Education

4-      Religion

For a Pakistani family comes first, every thought and every act is done to make the family life better. All the assets are shared, and due to inefficient social system, people in the family are dependent on each other, children on parent, and adults on each other and older people on young people. 2^nd money can give you status, respect and everything you want in the society, 3^rd is education, if you have education you have a good respect and finally the religion. Everyone believes in religion and you will hardly find people who do not believe in religion.

On the other hand the Scandinavian society has following major values

1-      Equality

2-      Individuality

3-      Modesty

4-      Society

When Pakistani students meet Scandinavian students, they talk about family and relations, it makes the counterpart uncomfortable. No one here do that until they know each other very well. They think that they should be respected for their degrees, but it do not give them any benefits, it is really hard for them to believe that people do not believe in God. Social boundaries, food and drinking habits are totally different in both societies, therefore when they are in social gathering in Scandinavia they look kind of mysterious to the local people. And this uncomfortable attitude between both groups creates a long distances. That leads to three kinds of Pakistani students. The ones who start drinking and since they are uncomfortable with their fellow Pakistanis on this behavior, they just hang out with the non Pakistanis. The other group tries to hang out with both of them but do not drink and keep their choices; Scandinavian people respect that as well. And the third group is the closed group of a few Pakistani students who just hang out with a small group and stay online all day and night and talk to the people back home. These students do not learn much from the local society and even after staying 5 years in Scandinavia they can hardly speak a few sentences of the local languages.

I personally know a lot of examples of all three kinds of people. Everyone has its own reason for their decisions of living their lives. All of them know that how and how much they can get involved in the society. This kind of behaviors do not just exist in Pakistani students, they exist in most of the Asian societies. For example people from China, India, Korea, Malaysia, Indonesia, Africa and South America. Students from North America, Canada, Australia and major regions in Europe face lesser cultural shocks in Scandinavia and get themselves easily comfortable in these societies.

From the Scandinavian point of view, the students who have already lived abroad understand the situations with international students better. These are the people who always move forward to invite you at their places and introduce you their friends. They are a little different from the main stream Scandinavian and these outsiders in the society are a real help for the foreigners to be a part of the society.

Based on my experience I would like to give some recommendations to foreign students in the Scandinavia and the Scandinavian people who want to integrate foreigners in the society.

As a foreigner, try to understand the values of the local society and respect them. Imagine if a foreigner in your own country want to bring his/ her system would you like that or not? Avoid getting trapped in an international bubble or people from your own country. Keep a balance in all of your social gatherings. Learn from other cultures, share your culture. Difference will  be there, try to focus on common interests like sports, food that you can share, social work, topics that you can discuss, organizations with common interests and celebrations. Love everyone.

As a local student, try to understand that there is plenty of experience from other countries; international students are a good source of learning. If you respect other’s values they will respect you more and will be ambassador of your culture in their home towns. Since Scandinavian economies are based on exports, therefore relationships with all foreign countries will bring a lot of benefits. If you think that you have better values in your society, export them. And a stranger is a friend whom you have never met before.

Socializing in Pakistan

There is no doubt that society has major role in behavior of everyone.  If you follow the main stream of socializing in the society, you can easily find people of common interests and can hang out with them. If you have different ambitions or social values then it takes more time to find people with common interests.

“A man is known by the company he keeps” best defines the Pakistani society’s thinking. If you are a really good person inside and have a bad reputation, people will keep distance from you and vice versa. The reason is that majority of us is not known by who we are. You family backgrounds, your parents’ occupation, your friends, the schools you attended and where you live are major criteria to define who you are.

I remember that my parents and my teachers were always concerned about my friends at school and in the neighborhood. Whenever you go to visit your friends and you knock the door. You are lucky if your friend opens the door. Otherwise I have gone through a lot of interviews by the parents of my friends. Like whose son are you? Where do you study? What you guys are going to do? When you will be back? After you pass this interview your friend gets the permission to meet you or go out with you. The most terrible part was when some one’s father opens the door. If we were more than two people visiting a friend then there was always a fight that the other one will knock the door and go through the interview. Those were the times when there were no mobile phones. Sometimes we used to fix a time to meet at a place to avoid such kind of interviews by parents. I had good reputation in school and the neighborhood so some of my friends used to tell their families that they are going out with me, even if they are not with me.

Since our childhood our parents train us to meet people. For example some guests are at the home and your mother is in the kitchen, so it is your responsibility to sit with the guests and talk to them and again give the similar interview. If you know the guests before and you are uncomfortable with them, you still have to sit with them. Some of my father’s friends used to take quizzes about mathematics, history, English language and other stuff. If your replies are good, your father is happy. Otherwise it was an embarrassment for him as well.  And the funny thing is, if you embarrass your father. He will complain to your teachers and then you have to study more both at home and school.

One of the keys competitors are the cousin in your age group. No matter in which part of Pakistan you live, after every academic year everyone used to call to ask your grades. In Pakistan weddings and religious celebrations are the times when all of your relatives gather somewhere. Parents are always talking about the education of the children and again everyone is taking interviews and quizzes. Your answers and cool behavior build or destroy the reputation of your parents and school.

Until you are at your own, you hardly meet any stranger. Most of my friends in childhood are either from school or the neighborhood. My parents know almost all of my friends and the parents of my friends know me as well. In most of the cases they are also friends.

Some of the Pakistani parents are really cool. They do not want to force their kids for anything. So you can see these kids playing all day long outside. Do whatever they want etc etc. But our society is very competitive due to limited resources. Most of the kids that are not in the competition end up their education after the school and without a university’s degree it is almost impossible to live a middle class life. I do not know if it is the right way of upbringing, but the social system is so weak that if parents are not helping then the children cannot progress.

During teenage things changed a lot. It used to seem like everyone is scared of you. There was so much energy. I was into motor bikes. Even I was not allowed to drive them. Craze for cricket was there and yeah like all teenagers, girls were always in discussions. And everyone was talking about each other’s crushes and stuff. All the older people was trying to advice you in those days about career planning, education and being a good person bla bla bla and you were never ready to listen to any of them. The story is getting long and I think school and college time feelings are kind of similar in both Pakistan and Scandinavia. The major difference is existence of alcohol in Scandinavian society. I have not experienced it in Scandinavia so I should better avoid commenting on it.

Weather has its own effects on socializing. In Pakistan the weather is mostly warm therefore most of the activities are outdoors. In the evening everyone goes out in open air. Therefore most of the times you know people living in your neighborhood. The summer is never celebrated in major parts of the country. However the rain is being celebrated. Everyone is happy when it is rainy and cloudy. We used to go to the beach or bunk our lectures during the rainy days. It does not rain often therefore it has a value. In Pakistan the only holiday was on Sunday. Therefore the Saturday night was always important. Normally I used to spend it with my friend on some Tea hotels and we just still and drink a lot tea. Make fun of each other, talk about sports and politics and sometimes spend the whole night at the beach.

Talking is the hobby of Pakistani people. If you are in Pakistan you can see that we have tremendous amount of tv channels. And most of the time there are talk shows. In the morning, morning talk shows. In the afternoon we have talk shows about sports and from evening to late night we have political talk shows. If you want to talk to a Pakistani for hours they will not mind, if you ask them to do something, everyone suddenly disappears.

House wife culture is still very popular is Pakistan. That is one of the reasons to make talking a hobby. Most of the house wives spend their free time in watching televisions. After watching a lot of tv shows and movies they discuss it with other women on the phone or by visiting houses in the neighborhood. In the evening when the men are at home they repeat all these stories. The men talk all day at the work and after coming home some of them do not want to talk, but they still have to listen. And some of them tell stories from their office work. So our office and house life is pretty much connected. Sometimes you can hear the opinion from your work colleagues from some family member through his family. That is the reason; in Pakistan army they say that your wife is one rank above yours. If you cannot talk to your boss about an issue, and your family members can influence some of the family member of your boss, your problem can be solved.

The adults are totally different in Pakistan, Middle East and Scandinavia. The climate, economy, culture and religion have a big impact on the society. The biggest difference is distance between men and women. After you are adult you keep distance from the ladies you used to hang out with before. As usual the parents decide with whom you can hang out and with whom you cannot. Majority of guys hang out with guys vice versa. The technology has changed many things like in old time people used to stare at each other and a few of them used to dare to write a letter to each other. And now a day people try to get the number or use social media to get connected. Things have changed quite a lot. But there is always this discussion that is it right or wrong.

Being a foreigner in Pakistan you can make friends through your institution. If you are successful in making one friend then the friend of friend is a friend. It is more than enough to have a common friend to make other person a friend. Even if you write to a facebook friend of mine that you are my friend, you do not need to do anything else. The other person will be very comfortable with you. Sometimes I used to visit another city and a family of my friend in that city treats me as a family member. So in childhood it is a little bit controlled but after you grow up your network has no limits. Pakistanis living abroad also do the same stuff. If they are in a city and they do not know anyone, they try to find a Pakistani through all of their contacts and the host has to treat you like your own family member. It saves a lot of money for staying in hotel.

One thing I forgot to mention. Our housings always have guest’s rooms in the apartment. So you are not expected to stay in a hotel when you visit any other city. If you do so, it is very offensive for your friends and relatives in that city. It is a serious offense. When a couple get married they always make a lot of stuff for guests as well, like extra pillows, kitchen utensils, blankets etc etc. If there is an event in the neighborhood then people share their guest’s rooms for the guests of the other people. So if there are fifty guests visiting me for a week and I have a small house, my neighbors will accommodate them for me.

I can write much more on this topic, but it is already very long. Please provide your feedback on this. Thanks for reading it as well. I will soon write about socializing in Scandinavia.

Celebrations

Life is a blessing, it should be celebrated. And when we share happiness, it gets multiplied and when we share our sorrows, it somehow decreases it. That is a general principle all over the world. Why, when, where and how to celebrate is totally different everywhere. Especially the people around you matters a lot.

I recently saw a page on facebook and some viral pictures that define happiness. And the amount of people liking these kinds of comics and pages is massive. That made me write about the different type of celebrations I have witnessed in my life.

If I do a little brainstorming the time to leave school was one of the happiest times of my childhood. Now it feels different, but the teachers that were kind of stress for you, if they were a little late in class or were absent due to some reasons used to make your day. A public holiday or a surprise off from school was more than a blessing. I still remember the enthusiasm when the school bell used to ring for a break or leaving school, we all used to run really fast towards the play ground or out of school. That feeling or experience is something that you cannot have after you grow up. In our illusion we used to think that we are prisoner inside the walls of the school and there is a life waiting for us outside these boundaries. But after the summer vacations or a school year we used to wait for the time to go to the school again. The feeling of first day was always amazing. Since everyone was controlling us, so we were celebrating a little freedom between the class hours, when the teacher is not looking at you, playing time, visiting other cities or a family for dinner, wedding ceremonies, when the parents were not at home or they were sleeping,  were the events we used to celebrate a lot.  In all those celebration the major partners were your friends from school or the ones living nearby and your siblings because we were all going through the same situation.

Besides these small celebrations there were some religious and national celebrations. In Pakistan there are two Eid’s celebrations. Normally it is celebrated with families and relatives. The national days like Independence Day, defense day and national days were celebrated mostly with a patriotic spirit and reminding of the history. These celebrations were all big because everyone used to celebrate it with you. On television so many programs were telecasted during these days. There were special ceremonies in the schools and the places around you. But in the childhood these celebrations had much more excitement for us and with time the meaning and way of celebrations changed a lot.

In Scandinavia the celebrations are quite different. Christmas and New Year’s evening are the biggest celebrations. Easter and midsummer are also celebrated.  National day is just another holiday for Swedish people. But for Norwegians it is a really big day. Everyone wear the traditional national dress of and sing and dance. As it is the graduation day as well so it makes it even more fun. So if you are in Norway on 17^th May, you will really enjoy it. Besides these Halloween is also a big day in Scandinavia.

The biggest difference in celebration of academic is that in Pakistan we celebrate the secondary school graduation a lot and then we celebrate our bachelor’s degree. These two celebrations are one of the greatest celebrations of anyone’s life in Pakistan. Everyone is greeting you and your family and friends are really proud of you in these moments. In Scandinavia the biggest celebration is graduation from college. The month of May is worth watching these kids enjoying it like crazy. Dancing here and there and spending most of their time outdoors. In the end they have their proms in first week of June.

Wedding is one of the most important celebrations in Pakistan. We spend a major part of our income in attending wedding ceremonies. And if someone in your family is getting married then the cost and the celebration is very much high. All close relatives gather for at least a week at the houses of girl and the guy. A lot of food and sweets is eaten, a lot decorations are done, music dance and so many things happens in the days of the weddings. There are so many customs that has to be followed by both of the families. And your relatives from all over the country come and share the happiness with you. Weddings in Scandinavia do not have that big budget. I have not witnessed any wedding in Scandinavia so far, therefore I should not comment on it.

The other social celebrations are very different. In Pakistan we celebrate every small thing that happens around us. For example I have got an A in a small test in the class. Then I have to give a small treat. Any of my siblings have some small achievement, we celebrate that. Once I remember one of our friends joined a gym, we celebrated it. Once his brother got admission in a university we celebrated it. One of our friend joined university after being sick we celebrated it. Writing a small assignment together is celebrated. If Pakistan wins a cricket match or it rains, or summer holidays or something unusual happens and we celebrate it like something really big has happened. Sometimes you have to pay for the tea of everyone if you buy a new jacket. These small celebrations are a part of daily life.

 In Sweden and Norway the modesty is at its peak. Everyone here has done something really great in their life but they still do not tell other about it. They have always been taught that you are not better than anyone else. Therefore one of the major mistakes foreigners do here is talking about their achievements. It does not impress them at all. Therefore these small celebrations do not exist in Sweden or Norway. They celebrate weekends really hard. Some theme parties are announced and people dress up according to the theme and they get drunk. This is a typical way of celebration in Scandinavia.

Being happy is an important part of everyone’s life. And celebrations are a booster for it. So celebrate your happiness with others.

Student Unions

Student unions play an important role to teach the things that students cannot learn in the class room. Leadership, communication, understanding the power of organizing and many other lessons can be best learnt at Student unions. The students with a vision always do something being a responsible or part of the unions that people after them remember them. University students have so much power, energy and influence that they can change the situation in a country. That is why it is important to understand how they work in a country.

My personal experience with student organizations or unions has been different in different situations. I remember the time when I joined NED University at Karachi. The life in student hostel was dominated by some political and non-political organizations. However they were not so much strong in the campus. As a resident many of the people were forced to be a part of these organizations based on their educational and cultural backgrounds. When I got a room in the hostel I found out that I have got to be a part of it. It was partially forced and partially my own decision to become a part of Punjabi Students Association (PSA). I and a few of my friends decided to get an apartment in the city and leave hostel to get rid of PSA. But later on we thought that it is fine to stay and become a part of it.

Since 1999 student unions were banned in Pakistan. Therefore these organizations were kind of not allowed in the university. But they survived somehow. University’s administration could not do much about them. Most of organizations were influenced by political parties and they used to bring the political fights from out of the university to the inside. And the rest of them were using the student power for getting some favors from administration and academic staff to get better grades, fake attendances, and getting books from book banks and avoiding lines during the exam periods. Negative side of these organizations was the meaningless fights against each other. There were both good and influence in the organizations but in case of some fight the organization had to support the bad influence due to the identity. During all these years I have seen the expectations of students were never positive from these organizations. They all used to think that they are all here for the trouble and wasting time. Therefore the members of these student organizations were not that much as compared to the population of the university. I was optimistic about the future of student unions, but even after a lot of efforts I could not change the general image of the student organizations. The expectations were still negative when I graduated.

Besides these students groups there were some clubs or groups run by university’s administration. They were strictly controlled and students were not able to do much about them. Some of them did not even have an organizational structure or proper memberships and activities. I tried some of them for example Literary and publication society and green society. Green society was just doing one tree plantation once a year where they used to invite vice chancellor and some deans. I had two certificates for attending them for 15-20 minutes in the whole year. Some other students groups were also there without any memberships or official system. They were just for fun. Examples were Anti-Dating society, civil outlaws, and people from social networks. I used to use ‘Uqaabi Nigahain’ as my nick on the virtual network of NED University. And yes they had a society for girls as well. This society used to arrange a Pakistan tour for ladies.

On the other hand when I came to Sweden, the membership of student unions was mandatory. They had all the support they needed. But the sad part was that the student unions in Sweden are only for Swedish students. Since the international students were not in big number at the university therefore they did not have any representation in the unions. The introduction events were carried out by the office of international relations. They had a lot of activities and all these activities made them integrated with each other than Swedish students. They provided all the necessary information that was required. After 2 years when I had enough Swedish friends I have found that majority of them was not active in Student union as well. In introduction everyone become a part of some groups and then they hang out most of the time in those groups. However there was similar story in case of international students. There was one international students union that was taken over by Erasmus student network. There were a few people who were involved in all of the activities, not a majority from international students was active in ESN. But some of the parties had a lot of participants.

When I joined Chalmers university, it was different and role of the student union was way too much visible than the student union of boras. Perhaps they had a bigger number of students and university’s administration also supports it. In 2011 Swedish government removed the law of mandatory membership of the student unions however Chalmers University still kept the old rules. It is still mandatory to be a part of it. The student unions in Chalmers have a Chalmers international student reception committee. That is responsible for welcoming the international students in the Chalmers. In Chalmers there were also many other organizations and I do not even know all of them. Examples are Board of European students of Technology, Erasmus student network, AISEC, Amnesty international, Charm (they organize a huge job fair every year) and every department had its own sections. The students were also free to make their own student organizations under the student unions. One of these groups were ‘Reflecting Engineers’ I liked them very much. But there were still so many groups that I don’t even know about.  Since I was working and studying therefore I could not get into the systems of the unions. However the student union of Chalmers University was ranked as number 1 in the whole Europe by the students.

Student Union owns a big building with a lot of seminar rooms, sports gymnasium, swimming pool, sauna, cafes and restaurant. Their budget was quite big and they were trying to engage students in a lot of activities. Every week I used to get an email from my section about the social activities, some seminars and other stuff. But I could not join any of them. Anyways the people involved in them were learning a lot. There were also some other events organized like a construction competition, bike sales, midsummer celebrations, concerts, some proms etc etc.

Norway is one of the perfect examples of student society and unions. Or maybe it is just the Trondheim. Student Union of Trondheim is a really big organization with a lot of member and volunteers working in it. I am not sure if I still understand it all. But I have some idea how it works. The other great thing about Trondheim is that majority of the students are part of something. Some group, sports team, a society in their departments or some international community or activities. Most of the organizations are made and run by the students themselves. The impressive network of big sports facilities, housing, cafés and restaurants were made and being run by student groups. Students are also active in the university’s politics. One student can work in Student union for four semesters. The alumni also stay involved in the union even after their graduation. Student union of Trondheim engages students throughout the semester by different activities. A lot of concerts, talk shows, quizzes, movie nights, dance shows and many other activities are happening in the house throughout the year.

Besides this stuff the union arranges the biggest cultural festival of Norway every second year. Almost 90,000 tickets were sold this year. I was a part of this year’s festival. This festival is called UKA and it has completed 100 years. I heard it all the times during my orientation that it is not difficult to integrate in Norwegian society; you just have to get involved. And for getting involved there are so many opportunities according to your interests. One of the criticisms in internationals student circle is that the way Norwegians are involved in these groups is very intensive. The people in sports team spend most of their time there; the ones working in the student union building spend most of their time there. Most of the groups are closed for socializing. If you are not part of some group, you are not welcome.

It has been a really long story; I still have a lot to write about. But I think that I written enough to give an idea how student unions are working in Pakistan, Sweden and Norway. Please provide me your feedback or comments or correct me if I am writing something wrong. 

Food and drinks

After an hour I am going to attend the international food festival organized by International club of Trondheim and Erasmus students’ network. I hope it will be fun. Therefore I thought that i should write about food now, as it is one of the most important part of my life. Lolz

I remember when I moved to Karachi from Taxila cantt, the biggest problem for me was the food. The quality of food at the canteens in NED University was not good and there were no cooking facility around. I got sick in the early months. That was one of the reasons I wanted to quit my studies, but i survived. There was a ranger’s mess nearby. One of our friends talked to them and they agreed to provide us food on a subsidized price. The only problem with the rangers mess was the timings. I used to eat dinner around 8 or 9 PM and they were eating dinner at 6PM. And also the whole country eats lunch after 1 PM and they used to eat it before 12 PM. Anyways it was a good deal and survival. Later on I got used to the food in Karachi and did not face much difficulty, except in the final year of my bachelors. I started buying the drinking water that resolved the problem.

The food in the Middle Eastern countries like United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia is also very cheap and good. During my stay in these countries I never cooked.

Cooking came to my life when I moved to Sweden. In the early days everyone was really careful about the ingredients of the food they bought. No one could really read Swedish and they were consulting the students living there for a longer time. I have a funny story about this. One of the guys who was also new, claimed that he know everything made us buy some food, that was not ‘right’ to eat.

 The typical Pakistani food was our first choice and the search for the cheap ingredients was an adventure for all of the guys. The written advertisements called Reklam were distributed by different stores and the people used to read them carefully. If they see an offer they used to buy and stock a lot of the stuff. Halal food was the main focus. Therefore everyone was checking all the ingredients. People were keeping their cooking and eating utensils on a separate place if they were sharing the kitchens. Before moving to Sweden I got the tip that I should bring my own spices, they are not available in Sweden on a reasonable price. So I packed some spices and most of the guys that arrived brought their own spices. In earlier days cooking was a lot of experimentation. Some of the guys had their mothers on board. Skype was a big help. The cooking experiments were success sometimes and sometimes they were a big failure. Everything was being multiplied by the prices in the home towns and it made it very difficult to eat outside. Even in some welcome parties, people was either not going or if they went they were not eating or drinking.

Drinking alcohol doesn't exist in Pakistani society. It does exist somewhere but not legally. So the way people do networking is kind of different. Therefore people from Pakistan consider it a terrible thing to do. In start some guys were going to the welcome parties and with the time they reduced going and the ones who were attending the parties were criticized by others. Anyways some people stopped partying and some of them continued doing that.

After the first year many things changed. Due to jobs people started eating outside. Some were still conscious about the halal food and they preferred to eat vegetarian or sea food. And some were not that conscious about these matters. The cooking utensils and plates etc. was not a big deal to share. In start I used to hear that in café they wash cups and alcohol glasses together so we should not drink anything outside. But it changed. There were still some people who never changed. One more thing that some people start drinking a lot, some occasionally and some of them never try it. 

I myself did not like cooking therefore instead of eating ‘roti and salan’ I started eating pasta, potatoes, fish, kebab and other kind of food. Since I had some good friends from Pakistan they also fed me for a long time. I am really grateful to all of them. I was lucky to work part time in different restaurant and ate really great food. Still whenever I relocate to a new place, eating is the first problem for me. It took me almost a month to start a little cooking at home when I moved to Norway.

Eating habits are quite different all over the world. Especially among international students it might be something really great of delicious for some people and for some other peoples it might be the terrible one. Everyone has different choices but in the end they agree on some similar approach when they eat together. A lot of students spend the money for food on drinking alcohol. Some people really like healthy food and some don’t care about that as well. Your food habits are somehow affected by the people around you. 

Accommodation

Accommodation has two major problems both in Pakistan and Scandinavia

1-      Availability

2-      Cost

I remember that once I was trying to find a house in Karachi for my friends, it was really difficult. The advance fares and security deposits were out of reach. For single guys it was even more difficult. People were willing to give their houses to family only. The process was really annoying and tiring.

When I came to Sweden, the housing crisis for student housing was at its peak. There was only one big real estate company that was renting some student housing. The process of getting a house was totally on luck. At 8 AM they used to publish the student rooms and the first one who was successful to click got the room. The room rent was really high. So everyone wanted to have as small room as they can. The minimum room size was 9 square meter. And its rent was somewhere around 1200 SEK. In Pakistan it was possible to book an apartment of 2 bedrooms with this price. Similarly the average rent away from university was around 1800 SEK and on campus it was around 4000 SEK. In bigger cities in Sweden the prices were higher and the availability was even worse. 

In Norway the student housing is also a very big problem. The available number of rooms is very less than the number of students. Non European students has a benefit here, university provides the guarantee of accommodation because it is in the visa requirement. Therefore non Europeans get the accommodation easily while the local and European students struggle a lot with this. Cost of accommodation is much higher in Norway than Sweden and for a student coming from Pakistan it is a disaster. However the quality of accommodation is quite good.

When someone applies for a study visa, they need to show that they have enough money to stay in the country for the period of study. I can understand that the immigration offices give a fair advice to the foreign students that they should have a reasonable economy to live a normal life in their country. But the ground realities are different. Even if people have that much amount of money, they still compare it with their home country and they don’t dare to spend that money. For example the living cost in Sweden is 7300 SEK/ month according to the migration board. But I have seen people living under 1000 SEK, and majority spending between 1000-3000 SEK per month. Even the European students having better economy were not spending more than 5000 SEK. If you are curious then I can tell that my living cost in Sweden was under 2000 SEK for first year. After I got a job, it increased a bit but not that much. After working for over a year it increased and then never came down to that level. 

Most of these costs were saved on accommodation. There were many rooms or houses where 3-5 people were sharing one room. Sharing the rent and food was costing them around 600 to 900 SEK. Most of these people were avoiding the traveling costs by walking and avoided any possibility of eating outside. 1000 Swedish or Norwegian Kroner is still a big amount of money in many countries. The after effects of these shared accommodation made it difficult to rent apartments. People living in shared rooms were always scared that someone will complain about them and then they will have to change it. Anyways they all survived and saved as much money as they could. In Norway I have also seen a similar trend of saving money due to the shared accommodation. But comparing to Sweden it is still not that common.

In Sweden my last student room was costing me around 1600 SEK and in Norway it is costing me around 3800 SEK and the size of both rooms and apartments are almost same.

After getting some odd jobs some guys started booking single rooms or apartments and after getting economical stability the majority started living in a better condition but some of them did not left their accommodations to save the money.

It is not a discussion of what is right or what is wrong. It is what has happened.

Life as an Immigrant - Success

What I am doing in Norway or Sweden? How much money I earn? What I am eating? Do I have a girlfriend or am I going to marry? When I will come back? Are the kinds of questions I encounter regularly from people connected to me, since I am out of Pakistan.

Do you like Sweden/ Norway? How long will you stay here? How women are treated in Pakistan? Do you guys still do arrange marriages? Do you like the weather? Where you want to work? And many other questions I encounter regularly by the people living here since I am here.

I have decided to write about it. Whenever I will get time I would like to write about my personal experience. The motivation behind writing is answering to the people asking these questions, personal learning, surveys about international mobility and an interview by Trondheim kommune's project about the international student's motivations to come to Norway and stay here after studies.


Your feedback as a reader is very important. My first note is on a relaxed Friday evening after a half day of sleeping. And after some brain storming i can write some things and miss a lot of stuff. Your questions will help me to cover those parts. Also this writing is totally based on my personal reflections.

As everything is about the experience and you are using all of your senses during that experience. Therefore experience and words can't give the exact explaining but they can give an idea. Anyways at this time i believe that there are three factors that decide what you do in your life

1- Social
2- Economical
3- Environmental

My reason of moving abroad was economical. I am from a middle class family that was under huge debts due to my higher education. Since our country is not economically stable, the trade deficit is quite big. And for many other reasons we don't have equal opportunities to study or work. So a young person in Pakistan is totally dependent on the family for most of the things. Some people build a network in a young age, to support them economically but how is it done is a big discussion as well.


Journey from a middle class Pakistani to a middle class Scandinavian resident was really challenging. I met so many people, involved in a lot of situations where I was totally alone, gone through a lot of changes in these years. Since there were no guidelines available so me and the people with the same background made different decisions and everyone has different results. I will reflect on some of the similar cases as well. But in the end it is an experience worth sharing.

After getting economical stability, the next stage was social stability. It is still under discussion among the groups I am hanging out with, what is the best social-work life balance. Social work like balance is one of the core values in Scandinavian society. But it has not that much value in other societies. So people are driven by different values.

Therefore a successful person in one group of people might not be considered as a successful person in some other groups and similarly that person might be considered as a successful case in some countries and unsuccessful case in other countries. So it is always difficult to judge in a certain situations that am I really successful or not? My only motivation about these arguments is that I have an experience, whether I was trying something and achieved it or failed. But everything I have done has given me an experience that is invaluable and no one can take it away from me. It doesn’t need any appreciation or criticism. What I can do in future can still be discussed and the lessons learnt from past will always reflect on my decision making in the future. These lessons can isolated me from societies or can make an integrated part of some societies. It is the situation that makes you hero or zero.