It’s been almost a year that we’ve been in Sweden and I think we’ve managed to settle in gracefully. The first six months were busy with getting my residence permit in order and looking after my youngest daughter. Once we got her into daycare, I started going to Swedish for Immigrants classes.
I thoroughly enjoyed going to school and learning a language. I think it is great that Sweden has a program that lets newcomers learn the language at no cost. A lot of the jobs require fluent Swedish and especially in the marketing field, you need to know even nuances of the language in order to communicate effectively.
Once I finished the SFI courses, I started to apply for marketing roles but then I quickly realized that I probably wouldn’t be as effective a marketer, at least not in the near term. I thought about what else I enjoyed doing. Throughout my 10 year marketing career, I had always looked for and found excuses to code for work. Those times I also felt the most exhilarated about being able to solve problems that way. So why not do it full time?
At first I tried to do applications as a junior developer and self educate on my spare time but it’s really hard to find spare time when you have 3 kids. There is always something else to do! Then I found an ad from https://www.study-at-salt.com/. They are running a 3-month intensive course and at the end of it try to match you with companies in their network.
There are actually a number of other consultancies that do the same but for most, the education would have been in Swedish. I don’t think it would have been a problem for me because I can understand basic Swedish. Also, because I already have a coding background, I don’t think I would have had too difficult a time keeping up with the lectures.
The main challenge was that in order to get into the program, you had to pass 3 online tests: math, logic and comprehension. The logic tests were okay because it deals with the usual sequences and patterns. However, the math problems and comprehension tests being in Swedish just added a whole other level of difficulty since the tests are also time limited. I remember I actually tried to take one of the tests in Swedish just to see what it was like. It was 12 minutes of my eyes glazing over, needless to say, I didn’t pass.
When I saw the SALT ad, applied right away because I saw they were going to do the education in English and so their application tests were then also in English. The tests were from the same provider and of the same scope. Those I cleared, got accepted and now I have signed up!
The course starts in September and will be for 3 months but the good news is that a job is going to be waiting at the end of the 3 months (if you pass the course of course). I’m looking forward to it and I’ve certainly prepped for student life with SFI and now SAS courses.
A summary of my first year in Sweden: going to school and learning new languages.
being in tech 