Living it up in Jyväskylä

So I decided to study in Finland.
I chose to come to Jyväskylä.
I landed in Jyväskylä - lock, stock and barrel. 
In this and the next few posts I share my experiences about living in Jyväskylä as an international student.

So the second thing (the first thing being your residence permit application) you do as soon you get an admission letter from JYU is to apply for accommodation. There are two student accommodation providers that you can apply to. KOAS has different options to choose from, based on your needs and budgetary considerations. The student union or JYY's Student Village provides a considerable number of student dwellings at Kortepohja. Because the start of an academic year sees lots of new students coming to the city (both international degree students as well as periodic exchange students from across Europe and other parts of the world), my advice is that you apply to both the organisations for a student apartment. I did that anyways.

How do you chose then if you get more than one option? There are a lot of pros and cons that you can weigh from and get really confused. But I'll still do it. The student village is a vibrant student community where you'll live with students from across the world and Finland and rest of the world studying a host of things (things I imagined nobody studied!). Its decently close to the university main campus and has a some handy shopping areas around. There's a restaurant in the middle (although I have come across recent complaints on Facebook about the place being a real nuisance during some nights because of student parties). I don't live there but I find the apartments a little suffocating and poorly designed to be honest. But then my friends who live there (and love it there) chose to differ. To each his own I guess.

And then you get the options that KOAS provides you. Pretty well designed and a host of locations to chose from. I chose to live Roninmaki. It's calm, quiet, pretty close to a franchise of one Europe's cheapest budget retail chain and the apartments are pretty well thought of from a student perspective. And the most important thing. If you are going to be studying at the Faculty of IT at the Agora building, it's a 7 minutes downhill bike ride to school! YES. Of course, you climb back up all the way when it's time to come home.

Lake Myllyjärvi, pretty close to the KOAS student apartments located at both Ronimäki and Myllyjärvi

All said and done, you are going to spend a major part of your time studying at the university in lectures or the library. So wherever you chose to stay, you are still going to be doing the most important thing that you are here for - study! Just come on over and get on with it guys!

Agora building, the weekday destination for most students studying at the Faculty of IT, JYU