Studera utomlands

Are you an international student that found it difficult to find friends in Stockholm? Are you afraid to go on exchange because you have to start again from scratch? Fear no more, the Turku Friendship Programme is here to help you and offers you an awesome start for your exchange.

What is the Turku Friendship Programme?

The Turku Friendship Programme connects locals from Turku with international students studying in Turku, including exchange students. This matching is done based on mutual interests and is made for one semester (so no worries if you come to Turku only for the spring semester, like me).

What does it imply to participate in the programme?

The answer to this question is quite simple. The official requirement is to meet with your new friend once a month and do different activities together, such as hanging around, visiting different places or cooking some traditional Finnish food. There is much freedom in this project, thus the entire experience is even more fun, and you are not constrained to one type of activity or simple meetings.

My experience

I decided to take part in this project because I wanted to connect to locals outside the academical setting, thus it was the best approach available to me at that time and, to be honest, I did not encounter any better opportunities to bond with locals. In my case (and, I believe, this was true for most cases), I was paired with a local as well as with another international student. We have already had some meetings, and we also visited the market (big markets are not common here, so it was really interesting to see many Finns walking around) and we tried some Finish doughnuts (no picture with us because there was some drama involving sugar and beards). We also plan to visit some museums and even take a daytrip to another city.