Now that you’ve been admitted, you unfortunately can’t sit back and relax until you arrive here. Moving to another country requires lots of preparations, as Vivek detailed in this blog. Here are some of my tips on how to be better prepared to handle and of this!
Residence permit
If you are from a country out of the EU, you need a residence permit to study here. You can apply for your residence permit as early as May, so make sure to read the procedure beforehand. Migrationsverket, the instance responsible for visas and immigration requires a lot of documents from you in order to complete your application, so make sure to look it up now in order to be ready when you want to apply. If you are unsure, there will be two webinars depending on your location that should answer all your questions on April 27th and 28th.
*When you apply for your residence permit, you only have to show that you have enough funds for one year, but need to write down when your studies are ending. The website will tell you that you have insufficient funds for the length of your studies, but DON’T PANIC, IT’S OKAY! You will just re-apply next year to renew your permit.
Plane ticket
It might be good to start looking at tickets now to see how the prices vary. If you are from a European country, it might be good to consider using the train or the boat! It might save you money and will definitely reduce your CO2 footprint 🙂
Budget
A lot of the things you need to do requires lots of fund, so make sure to plan a ahead. You need to prove that you have enough funds to live in Sweden for one year in order to get your residence permit approved, so you might need to take out a loan, or move some money around. Also, you will need to pay tuition (if non-EU), buy a plane ticket, pay the first month of rent, as well as buy school supplies and things for your accommodation, so it’s important to be aware of that. The first month or so will be more expensive, but your budget after that will stabilize, don’t worry. Vivek detailed all of his expenses here, to give you an idea. To help you out, I also suggest looking if your home country offers a student loan program for international students.
Money Transfer
Once you’ve moved to Sweden and gotten a personnummer (identification number for anyone in Sweden), you will be able to open a bank account here. It is necessary if you want to work or even sometimes get a membership at the gym. But before that, I suggest opening a Revolut account, a digital international bank. It will allow you to transfer funds from one currency to the other at the instantaneous rate, without any markup. It also allows you to transfer money from one person to another before having Swish, the Swedish direct transfer system.
I think the lesson I got from moving half way around the world last year is that even though there is a big part that is unknown, it’s important to plan ahead in order to avoid unnecessary stress.