Hello! My name is Oskar Franz, I am 16 years old and I got to spend round about 4 months at the “Klassikka” Highschool as an exchange student from Germany.
Having spent a lot of time in Finland and being a half Finn, this isn’t a foreign country to me, but it was still a rather humbling experience noticing that my language skills were kind of rusty. I am happy to be able to report that I got used to speaking Finnish surprisingly quickly and don’t have to think a lot anymore before saying a phrase. All in all, I had a great experience in these 4 months reaching from the very pleasant atmosphere within the school created by very kind teachers and nice students, to all the things I got to see and do outside school like cross country skiing for the first time in my life or a trip with some friends to Turku.
Comparing the Finnish school system with the one we have in Germany is nearly impossible: Finland is far more progressive, especially regarding the digitalization, which makes me wonder why it isn’t like that in Germany where everything has to be done on paper. But that’s the reason I chose to do an exchange year: To experience something completely new. It goes without saying that this goal has been reached and even exceeded.
Thank You!
