Liv, Åmål

• Age
  • 18

• Country
  • Sweden

• Describe a typical day at school?
  • Usually we started at 8:30, but in high school it’s really different. You can start at 10… The ordinary one is from 8:30 to 3:30. Sometimes you only have 1 hour in school, 1 course. The teachers there are flexible, so they can say that you can work at home. So maybe one day you only have 1 or 2 courses instead of 4 or 5. Every day looks different.
  • It’s a really good education in Sweden, but they do some tests sometimes to see how you are ranked in every country, and we are really low.
  • Also the education is free. In the high school you always have one hour for lunch at least, and we get food at the school for free. That’s common everywhere, but I don’t think that’s so common in other countries.
  • You can choose different directions. I was studying economy and law. The second year in high school you choose one more direction in addition to your first direction. For example, I was studying economy, and then I could economy/economy or economy/law. Or for science you can choose to study science and science or science and society.
  • There are 3 years of high school. There are some classes that everyone has: math, English, Swedish. Science also, but there are different levels because the ones that study science have a higher level of math. I was studying economy, and economy and society have the same level [of math.] The first year I studied science as a big subject, [on a broad level,] but if you study science, then you have chemistry and physics, the different areas. It’s flexible. You have the courses that you need to have, but you can also choose another subject that is just for you. Like sport or you can study math. Also, in your program, you can choose a little bit as well.
• Public school or private school? (Individual or on average. Quality comparison)
  • Most people go to public schools. In the bigger cities, like Stockholm, the capital, it’s more private. In my town, there are only 10,000 people living there, and we only have one high school, and that’s a public one. It’s not so different.
  • It’s private schools as well [in Sweden.] When you are 4, you can go to private kindergarten. In high school my cousin went to a “free school,” and she didn’t pay for it, but for example, the university, there are some private ones, and you pay for the semesters.
  • We have one school that is private, a boarding school that the famous people go to. They wrote a lot of things about this school because they are fighting a lot. The education I think is quite the same. The teachers are not that much better. The free schools can do a lot more things outside of the schools. For example, they are going to Greece for a week. And they can tell the parents to pay or that they could choose [whether to go on the trip or not.] In public school they couldn’t do things like that because some people couldn’t afford it. My cousin went to free school, and every year students went to a different country, to Greece and to Berlin… And then you could choose if you wanted to come or if you wanted to stay and study something that you have failed. At my school we couldn’t. If we wanted to do something after school, we had to, as a class, together, do some things together.
  • *A “free school” is similar to what we would call a charter school in the United States. The school has to follow some rules to get money from the government, but it is separate from completely government-run and regulated private schools. There are extra activities and excursions paid for by students that would not be offered at public school.
  • *In private schools, the students pay. But it’s not common. They don’t have many of them. The boarding school is a private one. In fact, private schools are so rare, that people in Sweden often call the “free schools” private schools even though “free schools” are government-funded, and students don’t have to pay anything to attend.

• In what capacity did you learn about other cultures or countries?
  • We had religion, so then we learned a lot about other religions. And also I studied history, but that was more about World War II, like the big things [major world events.]
• How much standardized testing did you have?
  • We have the national test. That’s every second or third year so you can get the same correction [grading] in the whole of Sweden. Also we have a test to get into university, and that’s also the same in all of Sweden. That one is more correct [regulated] because people from other places come to the school, and you have to show your id, and you cannot cheat.
  • The national test is English, math, and Swedish. For example in Swedish, one part is to speak, one part is to write, and one part is to read and answer questions. To speak in front of the class, it’s the teacher [the student’s teacher] who corrects it. Even if it’s a national test in all of Sweden, it’s going to be different because it’s different teachers in the different schools. The essays for the national test, the teachers at your school correct it. But for the university test, they send it away. They send some of the national tests away as well, but for the university test, it’s the same for everyone. For everyone they send it away.
  • I have taken the University test one time. It’s math, Swedish, and English. You can take it two times a year: in autumn or in the spring. You have to take it if you want to go to public or private university. Another cousin studies graphic design at a private school. He applied with stuff he has done already, like recommendation letters and things he has already done. Grades are so important. When you apply to university you can apply with the test and grades from high school. Also, you pay 40 or 50 Euros for the university test.

• Did you enjoy school? Why or why not?
  • Yes, I did. One thing that I really liked about school, I think it’s really common in the states, we have a group of people at the school, 6 or 7, and they arrange different things to do. That was really fun. I think it’s good that it’s the students that plan it instead of the teachers because when the teachers planned something, no one came, and when it was the students, it was more fun. There were different competitions like eating a cake, and there was floor ball (like hockey but inside) with a big game, and every class plays with each other. That one, we have every year. They plan different sports activities. One thing that I miss is different clubs… like a club that reads. I think that would be nice to have. We didn’t have that. I don’t know about other schools in Sweden, but we didn’t have that, and I don’t think that’s so common. You connect better with each other.

• Best and worst part of school?
  • Best part: Meeting friends, but also I liked to study.
  • Worst part: In school the teacher doesn’t have a good vote in the classroom because the students can say, “Can we do this instead?” They can fight against them, but before, they punished the students. It was really strict. I didn’t think it should be that strict. [Now] it’s more like a friend than a teacher. So if you like the teacher, it can be really good, but I think it can also damage. I still think it’s really good that you can give your opinion, but I think the students should have more respect for the teacher.

• Favorite classes?
  • My favorite class was math. I always loved math. When I studied economy, for example, we had the same math as the people that studied society. It was not harder math. In the economy class, it was more like different terms and how to do different budgets. Also, economy and law.

• Do most students learn a second language? Is it required? Which one(s)? When do they start learning?
  • English, we start in first or second year when we are 7 years old. Then when you are in middle school, you choose one more language. The most common languages that you choose between are French, Spanish, or German. Or you can also choose English instead of another language. For the ones who are not so good at English…if it would be too hard to learn another language more. Then you study that language for three years. Then when you are in high school it depends a little bit. For the first year you have to study that language, and in the second and third year, you can choose if you want to study that language. If you choose that you want to study that language for the second and third year, you get an extra point for when you want to apply for university. If you choose English for the final year, you get ½ a point or one point more.
  • In total you can get 2 or 2 ½ points more. There is a way to calculate it. It depends on what grade you get. In Sweden we have grades from F to A. A is the highest one. A is 20 points, and then you divide it by the number of courses you have. One class can be 50 or 100 points; it depends on if it’s half time or full time. You can have 20 points total, and then you can have 22 or 22 ½ total [after bonus points.]
  • One thing that you have to do that is obligatory in addition to the national test is the high school essay. It’s an essay that you write to prepare you for the university. Mine was about economy, how to be a company. That one you do in the last year of high school. You don’t need it for university, but everyone has to do it. It’s not in different grades, it’s just “okay” or “not okay.” [Pass or fail] If you don’t do it, or if it’s not okay, you won’t have a high school exam, so you have to do it. You can ask questions to the teacher. It’s over the course of a couple of months. You can do it at home.
• How involved are parents?
  • That depends. I think that they are more involved when you are younger. When you are 18, they cannot contact your parents because you are a grown up. If you don’t come to school, they can’t tell your parents. When I was a kid from 6 years to 12 years, they have a parent meeting, and the parents can come and discuss things. When I was in middle school, there was a parent committee. They planned stuff. Then they are more involved, but in high school they are not. Maybe they have a meeting that they can come to. Usually in high school we have one day when the parents and the students that are going to come to the high school come and look at it [the high school.]
  • Every semester, the parents have a meeting with my teacher. We have different teachers, but my class has 2 teachers that are taking care of just my class. Every year they have a meeting with my parents, my teacher, and me. In high school, my teacher didn’t care, so we didn’t have it. We only had it the first year. It’s just to see how it goes in school. If someone has problems in school, they will probably have more meetings. The parents don’t collect money for the school or something like that.
  • [There are] 24, 25 [students] in my class, and that’s the most common. Just the economy students. Then there were maybe 20 that studied society. Science was two classes of 25 and 25 because they were a lot. You choose one more direction in second year. My economy class, half was economy/economy and half was economy/law. We had some classes differently, but otherwise we were always together.
  • In middle school, the ones that were studying languages were all together. The ones that were studying French were all together in one class, and I was studying French, but we were only 10 people in the whole school that were studying French in my age, [so we were] mixed with students studying German, Spanish, and economy. Everyone that was in first year of high school studied French together.

• Is teaching a respected/well paid profession?
  • No. That’s something that they have talked about a lot in Sweden. The salary for the teachers. For example, the middle school that I went to, now they have a lot of non real teachers. They aren’t graduated teachers. Because there aren’t so many people that want to be a teacher. They give jobs to the ones that finished high school so they can work as an extra teacher. They don’t have a university [certified] teacher. In the big cities they probably have them, but in the small schools, no. People that they hire for a week or for a month. In the small towns they can’t have so many schools, so they close a lot of them.
  • For me it was okay actually. I had my teachers when I was in middle school. They were kind of old, so 3 or 4 years after, they retired, but there were no new ones, so they just took in someone to be a teacher. Also a problem. They cannot put a grade on you if you don’t have a teacher’s license, so other teachers have to give you a grade even if they don’t have you [as a student in their class.] That teacher has to show the other teacher [with a teaching license who will grade the student.] That’s more in the small towns than in the bigger ones.
• Do you feel like you learned practical/life skills at school?
  • No, and that’s a problem. That’s something that I… I think that I wrote an essay or article that was about how you don’t learn the real life. You just learn that this war between these countries was called blah blah blah . I think that it’s getting better and better. It was just about the facts, but now they’re changing the school system and what you need to accomplish to get the degrees. Now it’s not just about facts; it’s about thinking. In middle school we learned how to cook food and to clean and things like that and to take care of a house, but that was just in middle school. We didn’t learn how to pay bills. That kind of stuff? No. That would be something good to do in school.

• Can you tell me about the process of applying to/being accepted to university? National exam? Choosing concentration before starting? Public versus private universities. Where do you live? (At home, student residence, apartment)
  • You don’t have to take the exam. You can apply on the exam or your grades or both. The best thing to do is the test as well because you have more of a change to get in.
  • You go onto a website on the Internet, and you can choose what courses you get. You don’t have to choose a 3 year long education; you can choose just one course. For example, last year I studied just one course. You can apply to as many universities or courses as you want. For example, if you apply to 5 universities, and you’re accepted at the first one, you cannot choose the 3^rd one because the other ones will be deleted. And if you’re accepted to the first one, you have to accept it. Otherwise you will miss [lose] your place. I applied for some courses because I didn’t want to do a long education. So I was accepted at the first one. You can study some points [credits] in one semester. Now since I took that course I have 15 or 30 points. I think that you can study 45 points every semester. Then I was accepted for the first course, but that was only 30 points. So then I could study 15 more points. The second course, I was on the wait list. I applied to university to just take one course.
  • But if you apply to university to be a doctor, you apply for the whole program. If you apply for a long education, in that education you can choose between different courses, but I don’t know how that works. The one that I was talking about, you can just choose courses for fun or the ones that you need. In Sweden we don’t apply just to the university. On this website, we type in “I want to be a teacher.” It’s more the career path. So you choose the area of study and then your school. It’s more fun to study in some cities. They are student cities, so maybe you know where you want to be and what school, but you don’t apply for a university and then choose the different studies. If you apply in some cities, it’s more difficult to get in than in others.
  • In the public ones, you don’t have to pay. It’s free. As a student, you can get one or two hundred euros a month for free, and you can borrow some money to pay back later. A lot of students do that because they have to pay the rent for their apartment. But if my mom lives in Stockholm, then I can live with her, and I don’t have to borrow money. It can be free, but most students borrow money for food and living. But the schooling is free. There are also scholarships.
  • Most students live in student apartments, but it’s not so common with campuses as in the states. It’s more like students live in apartment buildings. I have some friends that live at home in the first year and then move away, but that’s only if you live close to home. Usually you go to study in the student city, and then you have to live there.
  • In Sweden we have 16 universities and 31 other “kind of universities.” The difference is that at universities you can do research in your area of study, but that’s after your education. [Like a college versus a university in the United States.] 16 universities and 31 colleges kind of. You can also study at a distance/at home taking online classes.
  • There are no private universities in Sweden. The one that my cousin goes to isn’t a university or college. It’s just a school. He’s studying graphic design for ads. There are private schools like that school or schools for advertising. It’s not a university, but it’s a famous school in Sweden, and if you have the education it’s really good.