Written by: Belle Echeverria | Spring 2024
ISEP Exchange in Jyväskylä, Finland
1. Making Friends
In all honesty, I find it very hard to make friends and I was scared that I wasn’t going to be able to make friends while I was abroad, and I was going to be all alone. Luckily for me, the University of Jyväskylä hosted many events (even events at bars & clubs!) where the international students could make friends! I found this to be the easiest place to make friends because everyone was there to have a good time and make friends. Plus, making friends through other friends was an easy option too! Overall, though, I just got lucky with the people I met. They pretty much all just fell into my lap!
2. New Style of Education
I remember when I first got to Butler as a freshman, I struggled a lot with adjusting to different professors’ style of teaching, homework, exams, etc. Plus, as a first-generation college student, I had no one to lean on for advice. Similarly, I thought the struggle was going to be the same when adjusting to the Finnish style of education. Luckily for me, Finland highly values their students as humans and their wellbeing, so they were incredibly accommodating and rarely assigned homework (they viewed it as a waste of time) and focused more on in class work and discussion. I learned I actually preferred the way of education in Finland over the US.
3. The Food
As a certified picky eater, I was convinced that I was going to starve once I got to Finland. For the first month being abroad, this unfortunately was the case. I didn’t eat much because all of the food was different and figuring out what foods were while in the grocery store was tough. But after time, I was able to find certain foods that I enjoyed. It just took time.
4. Communication
To everybody’s surprise, I don’t speak Finnish. I didn’t know how communication was going to work while I was in Finland or even while I was traveling to different countries. But google translate ended up being my girl. Most people did speak English everywhere I went, but it was still nice to have google translate as an option for communication!
5. Using Public Transportation
As an American, we barely (if at all) use any form of public transportation. This might have been the thing I was most nervous for. When I was taking the train from Helsinki to Jyväskylä on my first day in Finland, I missed my connecting train from Tikkurila to Jyväskylä. Of course, this immediate incited panic and I ended up calling my mom. She then reminded me that she could not help me and to breathe, read the signs, and figure it out. After calming down I bought a new ticket and got on the correct train. Overall, it took making mistakes in order to figure out how to use the public transportation. Once I got a hang of it in Finland, it was super easy to apply to other countries. Shout out to Vienna, Austria because their public transportation system was incredible and so easy to use!
6. Managing Money
When I first came to Finland, I had a lot of money from savings, scholarships, and the ISEP stipend that I had to manage (I was very VERY lucky). But this was the first time in my life having that much money to manage on my own for rent, groceries, travel, etc. I was worried that I wouldn’t budget properly and spend too much in the beginning without having enough for the last couple of months. So, I sat down with my mom, and we made a budget for every month. I was able to pay all five months of rent upfront (once again I was insanely lucky to be able to do this). Then we put aside a certain amount for groceries every month, and then my mom left the rest to me to figure out. I learned a lot from this experience and was able to budget well enough to be able to visit nine other countries while I was abroad!
7. The New Weather
For those who don’t know, Finland is very far north and is near the arctic circle. So basically, it’s way too cold there in the wintertime. I hate super cold weather and was terrified to endure a Finnish winter. When I first got there it was NEGATIVE 26 DEGREES. In all honesty this sucked. So bad. But I learned to suck it up and I learned how to dress properly for the Finnish weather.
8. Being Away From Home 
For those that know me, know how close my mom and I are. Even when I’m at school at Butler I try to go home and visit her at least once a week. She is my best friend, and I can’t stand being away from her for too long let alone five months. Admittedly, it was super hard, and I cried often because of how much I missed her. But we did the best we could to talk every single day and she was even able to come visit me at the beginning of March! But, as time went on, I was able to be away from her without crying, but I still missed her every single day.
9. Missing My Pets
Similar to number 8, I didn’t want to be away from my animals for five straight months. My cat is getting older, and I was scared something would happen to her or my dog while I was gone. Thankfully, my mom and my sister would send pictures and videos to me often and I was able to facetime and see them too! It was still hard not seeing them for so long though.
10. Regret
Ultimately, I was scared that I was going to regret my decision to study abroad at all. This turned out to not be the case at all! I regret that I even thought I was going to regret this incredible experience. I’m a better person since traveling abroad and have made lifelong friends and memories. If anything I regret not studying abroad sooner!