SRA meeting fall 2012

More than 130 alumni (former international studnents who have returned) attended this annual reunion and represented almost 20 out of the 40 Swedish Universities. Members of SRA met old friends and new friends during reunionevent and had the opportunity to view the Exhibition Innovative Sweden.

SRA  program also included presentations by Mr.Anders Andersson(Embassy), Ms.Birgitta Tennander(SI), Ms.Anna Clarin(Swedish Trade Council) as well as Ms. Yangkun, Mr.Liqiangbo and Mr. Prof. Wu Zhensheng who shared their experience about innovations in the companies.

SRA committee Dinner with SI

For more information about Swedish Alumni Network in China  www.sanchina.org and for more information about support available for Alumni from the Swedish Institute, contact: Maureen Hoppers, alumni@si.se

About SRA

• SRA-Sweden Returned Alumni  is a non-profit organization for and by all alumni of Chinese who studied in Sweden and now live in China.   
• The platform exists in order to improve the networking between alumni and Swedish organization & companies. Ultimately we hope to improve Sino-Sweden relations, especially in the academic area.
• Founded in March 2010 in Beijng.
• More than 600 alumni from 30 Swedish Universities

After the Alumni and new students taking turns to introduce themselves a buffet followed…

Also 9 new international students, of which 7 were new Swedish Institute scholarship holders preparing to arrive in Sweden to begin their studies this fall managed to attend.  The new students received a pre-departure briefing on what to expect when arriving in Sweden.

It was also a delight to have the former Ambassador of Indonesia to Sweden 2006-2010, Ambassador Linggawaty Hakim, a Stockholm University alumnus, speak her experiences of studying in Sweden as an international student.

Speech about living in Sweden as an Indonesian student by Ambassador Linggawaty Hakim, former Ambassador of Indonesia to Sweden 2006-2010, a Stockholm University alumnus

Hopefully we might see a new Alumni Network, soon in Jakarta. To meet Sweden Alumni in Jakarta, also visit the official group on Facebook.

The event was supported by the Swedish institute and many thanks to the Swedish Embassy and Swedish Ambassador to Indonesia Ewe Polano for hosting the event as well as to our enthusiastic Alumni in Jakarta. 

Alumni in Indonesia with Swedish Ambassador to Indonesia and Ambassador of Indonesia to Sweden in center

For more information about Alumni in Indonesia email: Amreta Sidik through, ambassaden.jakarta@foreign.ministry.se at the Swedish Embassy in Jakarta and for general information about Sweden Alumni Networks post a comment or email: alumni@si.se

I had the great pleasure of meeting Dr. Stamatis Kalogirou, the head of the Alumni Association in Athens, this morning. 

Dr. Stamatis Kalogirou, head of Athens Alumni Association & Maureen at the Swedish Institute in Stockholm

We, together with colleagues MariAnne Walz and Hans Lepp from the Swedish Institute, had a great meeting about the former and current activities the alumni association has conducted and their plans for future activities.

The Athens Alumni Associations full name is: The Hellenic Society of Swedish Scholars who you can find the Alumni Association on Facebook and in SwedenInTouch.se. 

 I would like to recommend to all international student from Greece who have studied in Sweden to join the Alumni Network: HSSS –  The Hellenic Society of Swedish Scholars in Athens on both platforms to recive invitations for activities and events.

And like the last time, it was great to meet with the graduating students and to congratulate them on their accomplishments. I hope that all Swedish universities will provide some kind of diploma ceremony for their graduating students as it is well deserved that the students’ (and the university’s) efforts are acknowledged at an event like this.

Congratulations to all of you that are graduating in the spring of 2012!

Photos: Karl Peterson

If you are curious about what I said in my speech, click on the image below to read my notes:

North America and the Nordic countries perform the best according to the ranking. The highest ranked country is the United States, followed in rank order by Sweden, Canada, Finland, Denmark, Switzerland and Norway. In total 48 countries have been included in the study.

Read the full report at www.universitas21.com.

Five Swedish universities are also present at the fair: Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm University, Uppsala University, Chalmers University of Technology, and University of Borås.

The Swedish booth stands out with the little red and white ”House of Sweden”. We have had thousands of students visiting us and asking us questions about studies in Sweden, most of them interested in medicine, dental hygiene, engineering  and business.

The IECHE is a big event in Riyadh and the fair is heavily advertised and several TV- and radio channels are reporting from the fair. Both Karolinska Institutet and Uppsala University was interviewed live on Saudi TV.

Niclas Boborg (Swedish Institute) and Pär Skånberg (Embassy of Sweden) with two Saudi students at the Study in Sweden booth.

The number of students that have paid the application fee has increased with 22 % so the increase is not mainly related to an increase in applicants that are exempt from fees. (Due to EU legislation, students from the EU/EEA, like Swedish students, do not need to pay tuition fees.)

Increasing number of international applications for Swedish mastern's degree programs. Photo: Ulf Lundin

Here’s a list of the top ten countries (with the number of applicants from each country in parenthesis)*:

1. Sweden (1330)
2. Germany (918)
3. China (883)
4. Great Britain (807)
5. India (755)
6. U.S.A. (639)
7. Greece (562)
8. Iran (531)
9. Bangladesh (475)
10. Pakistan (425)

And here’s a breakdown over the top ten most popular universities (with the number of applicants in parenthesis):

1. Lund University (11449)
2. Stockholm University (6724)
3. KTH Royal Institute of Technology (5534)
4. Chalmers University of Technology (5032)
5. Uppsala University (4611)
6. Linköping University (3905)
7. University of Gothenburg (3592)
8. Stockholm School of Economics (2169)
9. Malmö University (2084)
10. Blekinge Institute of Technology (1931)

If you are interested in more detailed statistics, including number of applicants for individual study programs, here is an excel file of the complete list of statistics from The Swedish Agency for Higher Education Services (VHS). We’re all about transparency.

* The list refers to the number of students that have either paid the application fee or are exempt from application fees. The total number of applicants per country can be found in the excel file above.

With breaks for “fika” and rounding off with a plenty of time to mingle, all in all it was a success. We are planning our second alumni meeting in the US to take place in April at the Swedish Embassy “House of Sweden” in Washington DC.

Hopefully we will see you there!

Once in Burkina Faso our first impression, being from Sweden, was the fantastic weather: we were swept away with Sub-Saharan temperatures of approximately 38 degrees Celsius on a daily basis, even though the country was getting closer to what they called ”winter”.

Panorama view of Ougadougo, capital of Burkina Faso

Our first visit was to the University of Bobo, a four-hour drive from Ouagadougo (the capital of Burkina Faso). We where very lucky to have the opportunity to speak to some 200 students.

Meeting students at University of Bobo-Dioulasso

Leaving Bobo, to drive back to Ougadougo where we where staying, we were lucky enough to pass the beautiful Grand Mosque in Bobo, built in the late 1880´s.

Grand Mosque in Bobo Dioulasso

Back in Ouagadougou we spent the next few days visiting a number of universities, one of them the University of Ouagadougou with over 35,000 students at Bachelor and Masters levels. Along with the students we met, we also met with government officials.

On the left; Owe Andersson Chargé d'Affaires in Burkina Faso, followed by Head of Assambus, Researcher and Niklas Dahlberg last on the right.

We managed to catch up with the local alumni association “Swedish and Burkina be friendship association” in Swedish: ”Vänskapsföreningen Burkina Faso – Sverige ASSAMBUS-BF”.

An extraordinary experince for us was the press confrence held on December 1, the same date as Universityadmissions.se opened for international applicants. Visit our Youtube channel to se the TV interview and coverage, in French. As a result, we increased the number of visits to www.studyinsweden.se from Burkina Faso with an astonishing 25000%.

Happy 1st prize winners

The challenge that tested the skills, knowledge and motivation of Indian students was launched in October and attracted over 1900 talented contestants. Out of them 9 winners managed to reach the final and the grand prize ceremony that was held during Sweden Education Day at R.V College of Engineering in Bangalore the 2^nd of December.

There was a great deal of excitement in the jam-packed seminar room when the 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd prize winners were announced. Andreas Muranyi, Science & Technology Counsellor at the Swedish Embassy, handed out the prizes and besides Ipads, books and diploma the finalists received long applauses and cheering from the audience.

A festive celebration ceremony was later held at Vivanta by Taj for the first prize winners that got a full tuition fee waiver at 3 of Sweden’s leading universities.

Smarjeet Sharma from Birla Institute of Technology and Science was the happy winner of a full tuition fee waiver for the master’s program in Wireless Communication at Lund University. The fee waiver at Chalmers University for the master of Technology-Automotive Engineering went to Rakesh Sridhar from the Indian Institute of Technology in Madras and Vikas Chauhan from BITS Pilani won a place at the masters in Embedded Systems at KTH Royal Institute of Technology.

Second place winners were Bharat Mohan from Vellore Institute of Technology, Peter Sam Raj from Indian Institute of Technology and Deepanker Parik, also from Vellore Institute of Technology.

3rd price winners

The third prices went to Vibhor Jain, Vellore Institute of Technology, Saideep Bollam
Vellore Institute of Technology and Shubham Dwivedi from Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham.

A big congratulation to all the winners!

For more information about the challenge and a list of all the winners and participants visit www.challengeyourself.in

On our webpage Studyinsweden.se we are from time to time presenting challenges and competitions that grant scholarships at Swedish universities. Currently, there is a challenge online targeting Chinese students arranged by Chalmers University together with Volvo cars: Talentrace

So go ahead, challenge yourself!