robinso01:
is it possible to work when schooling there?

NothingDoMe:
Travelland, I think you should credit the author of this writeup.

travelland:



Nice observation but I'm only passing on information to those who for one reason or another can't access it easily

travelland:




There are seven Universities in Iceland with the two largest, University of Iceland and the University of Reykjavik right in the capital city. The northern city of Akureyri also has a public university.

The University of Iceland is by far the largest University with about 15,000 students and the other two universities have only a couple of thousand. Some of the students at the universities are distant students that actually live in other parts of the island and do much of their work online.

The campuses of all the schools in Iceland are tiny compared to the gigantic universities I’ve seen in the United States and everything is far more intimate. Seems like I knew just about everyone when I went to the University of Akureyri and remember seeing foreign students from Norway, Denmark, Poland and the United States.

Foreign students are welcome and encouraged to attend Icelandic universities and about five percent of students do come from other countries. The largest problem for a foreign student is language, as would be expected many of the classes are taught in Icelandic.

However there are some classes and quite a few graduate degrees offered at the University of Iceland in English and unless you are fluent in Icelandic a foreign student is required show proficiency in English. Without being fluent in Icelandic or English it is pretty much impossible to attend university in Iceland and I doubt very much if you’ll find many people that can speak Korean in Iceland.

There are counselors at the universities that deal with foreign students and before applying it is probably wise to talk to one of the counselors to see how many courses are being taught in English in whatever it is you wish to study. Every university has information on their websites explaining how to make an appointment to talk to a foreign student counselor for specifics

travelland:
Iceland is extremely safe country. Getting sick will not wipe you out, living there is expensive but a lot of things you consider expensive are very cheap, like heating and electricity.

Due to weather, our houses are built like Fort Knox, and I am not joking.

Ok, lets take the bad things first.

Number one, numero uno, is the weather. It is so bad there that you can walk up to any stranger and say “damn this weather” and you just made a friend and you can talk about the weather to anyone. It rains sideways, forget about umbrella, it will just break to pieces and hurt someone. There is always wind, what you call storm, we call tuesday. It can snow in the summer, that is quite normal. When I was a kid, houses used to snow in, meaning you had to dig yourself out of your house. Today, it snows, then almost melts, then snows, so get used to either wearing serious boots or being wet on your toes. Being thrown down by the wind is not a youtube video moment, it is so common to see people rolling like tumbleweed it isn’t funny. I am not making this up, but driving 300 meters to fetch something is something people do, even less than 300 meters.

Then living. Like I said, houses are built like a Fort, they cost a fortune, not a small fortune, a large fortune. You have to borrow to pay for it. Here is a huge reason why I don’t live there. You can today choose between paying 8% interest rate on a huge loan, or have inflation guarantee on the loan. This means that everytime you think you pay down the loan, the capital increases, and so does your interest payment. This is completely effed up.

The currency. We have a small currency, called Krona. It isn’t very well managed and hasn’t been. So in the years back, you not only had huge inflation which meant that if you did not spend your salary before lunch the same day you got it, you could not afford what you wanted. Today, stores take a huge fluctuation of the krona as a license to add a buffer on everything. So TV’s and computers and pretty much everything not made in Iceland, is expensive. Food is also expensive.

The country is small, we are about 330 thousand, including 10–20 thousand eastern europeans, numbers vary a lot between quarters. This means you know someone who knows the prime minister, chances are you will meet him in the swimming pool, no lifeguards.

Being such a small country has thousands of benefits, it also has down sides. Work is quite limited. Get an education and it is pretty much only Lawyers, Priests, Business and to some extent computer science, everything else is pretty useless unless you want to become a teacher, which gets crappy salary but needs 5 years of university education to have. You can work in service which is quite varied, food industry and the most basic industry work, carpentry, mechanic and electricians. That almost sums it up. You also don’t have many employers to pick from, even in Reykjavik and neighboring towns, which have about 2/3 of everyone living on the country.

The economy is VERY small. If one large company goes bankrupt, that usually has noticeable effects throughout the economy. We have huge upswings and then abrupt downswings. The downswings usually are there for longer time.

Healthcare has seen better days. It is very underfunded as it is now, goes back to the size of economy, and the fact that it is very usual that people get to be 100 years old.

Enough about the downsides, all countries have similar downsides except for the loans and the extreme economy.

The good sides.

Iceland is open for you. Almost free hospitals, free schools, free universities. You can take a jeep and drive on the highlands, stay on the roads, driving offroad is forbidden but you can drive on glaciers, valleys and just about everywhere. Take care though, dress well, and keep food with you, because of weather anything can happen, you can get snowed in quickly.

We have swimming halls everywhere. Even small towns of a few hundred people have a huge swimming pool with everything. We have steam baths, warm pots and excellent service. It isn’t very expensive either, so people go there after work.

We don’t have much variations in food. If you want some food, you can get it, but most restaurants sell similar foods. We have too much Lamb meat, and that meat is absolutely the best Lamb you can get.

You won’t get bored in Iceland. There are so many things to do, so many places to visit, see and enjoy. We have have weekend celebrations to just go out, tent and have fun. You can’t live on the rock without going out and party.

Overall, Iceland is a great place to grow up in. We have extremely high education level. Very tough immigration. The size of the economy sure hurts us. But the freedom you have in Iceland I would say far exceeds anything you are used to. Being able to walk in the highlands, drive there, sleep there, that is worth a ton of money, and we know that as we get close to 10x as many tourists as people live in the country, probably more. They pay us a ton of money and smile. You see things you can’t see anywhere else, get to go places and be around very nice people.

I forgot to say, Icelandic people are very open, very friendly and all around nice to a fault.

It is tough to live there, and ever since the year 800 (eight hundred), it has been tough. We don’t know anything else. We are so used to this you would have a very hard time learning that.

I would probably not recommend anyone moving to Iceland honestly. But for your unborn kids, it is the best place to grow up in. It is normal for a kid to leave home at 9 in the morning and come in at 7 in the evening, that was the norm anyway. It is very safe place. But I would whole heartily recommend visiting Iceland, even if it is 2 weeks or 4 years during university, work program, research.

justwise:



https://www.quora.com/Is-living-in-Iceland-as-good-as-it-sounds

dav704:
Top places to visit in Iceland

In this article, I am going to list out the top places to visit in Iceland. Traveling is going to become an ever-wanting activity, after months of enduring lockdown and restriction to your movement. Dust your passport and reach out to your travel agent or better still dig through travel sites, get your plane ticket and prepare for your flight because destination Iceland is calling on you for the most exciting trip.

https://roundtripholidays.com.ng/top-places-to-visit-in-iceland/