Greetings! I’m David and I study Politics and Business Management. After an awesome first year at Keele I am now spending a semester abroad to start my second year. My main reason for deciding to study abroad is the same as most others – I want to see a different part of the world. Being able to live and study in a new country seems the best way to truly experience life in a different country and learn more about it than visiting as a tourist. So the opportunity seemed too great to pass and the more I thought about it, the less I could find any real reasons not to go. 

My exchange is at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. It wasn’t actually my first choice (that was Korea University), but even having only been here for two weeks, I am very grateful that I ended up here. There were two main reasons I chose Sweden…

Firstly, it is somewhere that I never had any inclination to visit prior to the study abroad fair. That for me was the best thing that study abroad offered – the chance to go somewhere completely random that I did not know much about, and so maximising the amount I could learn from the experience. I intend to visit Australia or North America some time, but as someone who loves their holidays sunny and preferably by a beach, I would never have come to Sweden were it not for study abroad.

Secondly, I was adamant that I wanted to go somewhere that had a different language. Living somewhere with another language makes the culture difference that much more interesting to me. Though, Swedes do tend to have a very high standard of English so it’s not too worrying if I get lost!

Anyhow, that’s why I’m here. It has already been so much fun and I’ve met people from so many different countries. Looking forward to sharing my experience with you!