north2north exchanges: From Tampere to Ås

In this report, Silja summarizes the experiences from the two semesters spent in Norway.

"I spent my exchange year (two semesters) 2025-2026 in Norway studying in the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU). The university is in Ås which is a small town (20 000 residents) in the Eastern Norway. Oslo, the capital city, was only a 20-minute train ride away. I was very excited to live in a smaller town after growing up in Helsinki and studying in Tampere. Ås is a pretty place with a lot of fields and forest, and the NMBU campus is known as the most beautiful campus area in Norway. I lived in a student accommodation in the city center, but it was always peaceful. Sometimes they had local festivals in the city center like food festivals or election market events before the parliament elections in 2025. 

I chose north2north because I wanted to study something else than my own field, and other exchange programs were not as flexible in that sense as north2north. I had very different courses during my exchange: my courses were about aquaculture, immunology, global and local food production, climate change, architectural history, economics, and ecology. We had quite diverse teaching with lectures, group works/group discussions, and even excursions. I had two excursions, one of them was to South Norway (aquaculture) and the other was to Germany (architectural history) and I understood that excursions are common at NMBU. 

There were a lot of free time activities and associations for students, and NMBU students are described as the happiest/most satisfied students in Norway. I didn't participate in the student activities that much, but my favorite thing was outdoor swimming in Oslo fjord that they organized every Sunday! 

 I am very happy with my exchange year, I became so much more confident to speak English, which has always been difficult for me, and I learned Norwegian quite well. I had a Norwegian language class, but it was pretty easy for someone who already had learned a bit Swedish in school (I'm not fluent in Swedish). I noticed quickly that the best way to learn the language is to try to use it every time you have a chance, and, when you're living in a foreign country, I have the chances all the time. By bravely and stubbornly speaking the language, the skills develop without even noticing. Additionally, I learned so much about other cultures and the world, things that I would not have learned without the exchange."