A Semester Abroad in Uppsala!

It is hard to organize all of my thoughts into one review but here is a bulleted list of the highlights
- The program is small enough that you personally get to know the staff, and the other students.
- Uppsala is a very safe town, so you can walk or bike (and boy are there a lot of bike paths!) at all hours.
- The student housing, while not the fanciest, is a great way to meet Swedes and other international students. Every night at 10 pm, all the students scream out the window as loud as possible to relieve stress.
- Uppsala University's social scene is organized into student nations. Each nation hosts formal balls (called gasques), has cheap restaurants and pubs where you can eat or volunteer, and organizes numerous other social activities. I particularly liked the gasques at Kalmar Nation, which is probably one of the more 'hippy' nations, and salsa dancing classes at Varmlands Nation.
- I ended up taking MS courses as an undergrad, and they were challenging. The professors were not as hands-on as in the US, and there was a lot less busywork, which was nice. The bad part about the MS program was that the course schedule made it hard to travel much. The good part was that I was with a very small group of international students for the entire semester and I made a lot of great friends!