About 300 international students recently landed at Arlanda Airport and then continued onwards to their accommodations in passenger cars – all to avoid large gatherings of students. A further 72 students landed at the end of August and then continued onwards to Campus Gotland.
The majority of these students were likely paying non-European and European students who came to study as part of a Master’s or Bachelor’s programme. This is an educated guess by Lina Solander, International Officer at the Unit for International Mobility, since GDPR prevents one from having detailed information about who the arriving students are.
Admittedly, the students registered to be able to participate in the Welcome days. But, to comply with GDPR, this only involved registration of data needed to manage their arrival, i.e. their name, arrival date and time, flight number, and whether they have accommodation via the Uppsala Housing Office or not.
The welcome reception was then held in the Segerstedt Building, where the students were divided into small groups and given a welcome folder, campus card and student portal login.
“We have just over 600 paying students beginning their studies this autumn semester 2020. In addition, we have about 300–400 new students from EU countries,” says Lina Solander.
Blended learning
The majority of the University's programmes are offering online instruction in whole or in part this autumn. For example, most Master’s programmes in the Disciplinary Domain of Science and Technology will offer distance learning for the first half of the autumn semester. The hope is to be able to offer on-campus instruction the remainder of the semester.
Despite this, the international students are choosing to come to Sweden and Uppsala University right at the start of the semester. Why is this?
“Yes, our experience is that many want to come here right away. This may be because, for example, they want to experience a new country, have time to get settled here before on-campus instruction begins, or Sweden simply has better infrastructure (internet speed, etc.) for online studies than their home country,” says Lina Solander.
Matt Greig, Head of the Unit for International Mobility, adds that the students’ perception of Sweden as a country has a great added value for those who want to study here.
“Correspondence with the students has shown that they want to come here as early as they can, regardless of the form of instruction. To some extent, this may be due to practical aspects, e.g. to reduce uncertainty if one of the countries were to close their borders or if Sweden is forced to change direction in its Corona strategy. But we still stand behind our ‘declaration of added value’. This is also based on surveys conducted by the Swedish Institute, which indicate the Sweden is highly valued as a brand,” says Matt Greig.
In addition, some of the students also have requirements for physical presence in Uppsala. This is not always due to lectures, but may instead be because of factors such as the students needing library resources that are not available digitally.