Hi everyone!
My Name is Emma and I am a swedish exchange student at Maryville College during this fall semester. I have been chosen to be the International blogger for this fall and I will blog about all kinds of things that I will be doing during my stay here in Tennessee.
So who am I? I am in my senior year as an Industrial Engineer in Sweden at Mälardalen University but here at Maryville College I felt like doing something different so I am currently studying art, business and theatre. Most of my spare time I spend taking photographs, socialize with both international and american students and, of course, exploring the US life. One of my biggest interest is traveling and I have visited over 17 countries so far in Europe, Africa, Asia and America. My goal in the future is to visit Australia and South America as well. Another thing that I have been doing since 2009 is longboarding so it will probably appear on the blog now and then.
Me in my apartment in Lloyd residence
Me and my Austrian friend Ralph, Maryville College Trails
To summarize what I have been up to over the last 8 weeks I have gone to Knoxville, Atlanta and Chattanooga. I went to the TomorrowWorld festival which is the american spinoff of Europas big electronic music festival called TomorrowLand. It was awesome and I will totally go to the next TomorrowLand festival in Belgium Europe! Last weekend, me and three other students went to Raccoon Mountain Cavers in Chattanooga to do some caving. Spending 2 hours crawling and climbing in completely darkness is something I have never ever experienced before! So freakin´ amazing! Me and some other international students have plans to take a road trip from Tennessee to Florida during Thanksgiving and another trip to New York before I leave the US.
So far I have not gone to any of the MC Mountain Challenge trips yet but I am planning to participate sometime during this month. For more info about the Mountain Challenge program you can check it out on this link: http://www.maryvillecollege.edu/students/mtn-challenge/ .
So far I have not gone to any of the MC Mountain Challenge trips yet but I am planning to participate sometime during this month. For more info about the Mountain Challenge program you can check it out on this link: http://www.maryvillecollege.edu/students/mtn-challenge/ .
TomorrowWorld Festival 2013 Chattanooga
Caving in Chattanooga
If I were to compare my studies in Sweden and studies here in US, I would say that they are quite different regarding structure and number of assignments. In Sweden, we have four semesters each year, five if you include the summer semester. You are studying 100% of the time if you take two 7.5 hp (Swedish point system) classes every semester. So, every year you take at least 60 hp that is equivalent with 30 credits. I believe that the biggest difference between US and Swedish studies is the size of projects and number of assignments. What I have experienced here at MC is that in Sweden I had less assignments but bigger projects. Meanwhile, my studies here in US are the opposite with a lot of small assignments and fewer big projects. I believe that it is because you only take two classes at the time in Sweden so you have more time (on a shorter period) to put on your projects.
International Students Fall 2013, Smokey Mountains
The absolute best thing about studying abroad at MC is all the amazing people that I have had the opportunity to get to know here. I expanded my friend network from a few countries to a wide variety of nationalities. I now have friends from almost every continent of the world except for Australia and the north/south pole. But I am still young so I will have to find them too!
My parents are coming to visit me for 10 days this week. So during fall break we are going to Nashville to see what it has to offer :) I will tell you more about it next week!