Today we met for the first time. Our group includes Dani, Lieke and Katja from the Netherlands and Emma and I (Anna) from Germany. We met at Dani’s house. I wasn’t nervous before the meeting because I already knew Dani and Emma well and we had already met in private. We had decided to spend a relaxed evening at home for our first meeting. Everyone brought a few typical snacks from their home country or baked something.
We talked about the school systems and were surprised at how different the German and Dutch systems are. In Germany, it is very difficult to get money from the state alone. There is “Bafög”, but it is very difficult to get. On the other hand, the semester fee is not as high as in the Netherlands, you pay between 80-200 euros.
In the Netherlands, students receive money from the state for their expensive studies. One year of study costs about 2500 €.
Then we compared our systems with the Finnish school system. We have all had similar experiences with the Finnish system so far and were able to exchange funny anecdotes.
As we have all been living in Finland for about a month now, we also talked about our experiences in Tampere so far. How different or similar life here is compared to our lives in our home country.
It was nice to get to know the others better and exchange ideas. I was very surprised how different the school systems in Germany and the Netherlands are.
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