Hei everyone! I am Phat Do, a Vietnamese student currently in my second year of the Master’s programme in Linguistic Sciences at the University of Eastern Finland, Joensuu campus. Since it seems there have already been (and will be) many posts sharing about students’ and staff’ personal experiences in Finland, my post will be a bit different and focus more on an aspect that I believe to be of interest for a lot of potential students around the world: the finances of a student’s life in Finland and tips on saving.
I believe this topic is relevant since Finland, as well as its Nordic neighbors, is considered among the countries with the highest living expenses in the world and is rightfully so. As a result, despite the numerous great things about the country, particularly its education system, financing one’s studies here is always one of the biggest hesitations for potential students, especially ones coming from home countries with less expensive living costs. As I am a Vietnamese who had never resided abroad before the current study, you can be sure that I am speaking from my own experience, too. Also, as significant as tuition fees can be, I am not referring to them in this post, since I believe UEF has one of the most generous scholarship schemes among Finnish universities and it should ease up your budget quite a lot, leaving the living costs to be the main headache.
