On the 30^th of March it was once again time for the popular student event SwedenDay, at National University of Singapore (NUS). Swedish exchange students led by event manager Hanna Manneby, had a busy day informing curios local and international students about Sweden and Swedish Universities as well as entertaining the crowd with Lucky Draw, music, a Scandinavian fashion show, speeches, cookies and lemonade sampling and much more.

It was the fourth year in a row this event was held at NUS, one of the three big Universities which each year welcome Swedish exchange students to Singapore. The renowned Swedish University Karolinska Institute is the founder of SwedenDay, which is a voluntary project held twice a year, once every semester. However 14 different Swedish universities were represented during the day and the Swedish embassy answered general questions about Sweden. This spring 20 Swedish exchange students and couple of locals from both NUS and Nanyang Technical University (NTU) collaborated and planned the event during the first two months of the semester. We were proud to have grand international and Swedish companies such as StyleNordic, Fika Cafe, Prints, MakeUpStore, Toni&Guy and Volvo sponsoring the event.

“It is amazing to promote Sweden to the students here in Singapore. Sweden is a very attractive alternative for the Asian students and you can tell that they are truly interested and know a lot   about Sweden when they ask questions” says Mona Johansson from Chalmers University of Technology. She has just got changed from the fashion show outfit to a bright blue t-shirt with “SwedenDay” printed in yellow on the chest. Among the interested crowd, busy sampling “Swedish Dream cookies” we find Wee LimChan, a third year student at Biomedical science, NUS: “I think that  Sweden together with the rest of Scandinavia are world leading when it comes to BioTech and to go there for an exchange would be an awesome experience! Though I have heard it is really cold in the wintertime so I´ll better buy a warmer jacket if I get approved”.

Michaela Asp, from KTH /Royal Institute of Technology, tells us that “The students here know for sure that it is cold in Sweden, but that it can be around 25-30 Celsius during the summer and that you can go for a swim in the middle of the capital is something that few of them know about”. In Singapore the Swedish students really enjoy the warm climate and beautiful weather. Singapore does not only offer top world ranked Universities, but being a true Asian hub, the whole of South East Asia is just around the corner which together with excellent studies makes the time in Singapore an amazing experience and a memory for life!