From Helsinki to Munich

Hi everyone,

My name is Aino, and I come from Helsinki, Finland. I’m a Bachelor of Arts with Finnish and Nordic linguistics as my major at my home university, University of Helsinki. I finished my bachelor’s degree in the spring of 2024 right before leaving for Munich and am currently continuing my Master’s studies here in the Institute of German Philology.

My love for languages was my primary motivation behind applying for an exchange in Germany, as I wanted to hone my German skills in a natural environment surrounded by locals. Munich came to be my German city of choice based on the positive experiences I’d heard about the atmosphere, climate and universities. A couple weeks into living here all the positive things have turned out to be true – if not counting the late April snowfall we’ve gotten in the past few days. It has felt a bit unreal to live my daily life firstly in a German-speaking society and secondly in the vastly international community of exchange students in Erasmus events. It still doesn’t feel like actually living here, but rather a very stretched-out vacation of some sort. Munich is beautiful, clean, safe and welcoming, but at the same time bustling with life and larger than expected.

My expectations for the exchange were something with which I didn’t want to create too much pressure for myself. The main goal truly is to learn to live life in German and finally push myself beyond the limit of perpetually being somewhat uncomfortable speaking the language. That has been the main expectation I’ve set for myself, in addition to just enjoying the warm weather and summer activities. There are of course so many expectations and fantasies related to an exchange semester – it should be life-altering, crazy, movie-like, the best time of one’s life. I am excited to take in all the adventures this summer in Munich has to offer, but I’ll try to do it in my own way, so that the exchange will feel like a true adventure, instead of a to-do-list with specific boxes to check off.

Cheers to an exciting new leaf in Munich,

Aino