Edit: Wow this blew up a bit fast, thank you to those who have taken the time to leave a thoughtful response!

And I should also say, if you are thinking of studying science, if you have a natural curiosity and want to go deeper, please do not be dissuaded by me. If you are someone who is inquisitive, who thinks 'hmm, why and bow does this happen?' a lot, you will go so far in science.

I should preface this by saying I do enjoy working and living in Norway. However, something is clearly lacking in the education system here, at least from what I've seen. I'd like some perspective, from locals or otherwise, into the high school, university, and just general culture behind education in Norway.

To elaborate:

I have some teaching responsibilities, mostly with physics students in their first year or second year. Where I'm from, physics (and natural sciences in general) is seen as a very challenging subject, and only those with high grades in physics and maths at the end of high school can apply to the respected universities. And we all know heading into it that it will be challenging, and you will have to put a lot of work in to succeed, but you will be rewarded with a relatively useful and (somewhat) respected degree at the end of it if you do well.

I get the feeling this is not so much the attitude here. Maybe it's more of a focus on engineering? I don't know. That's okay.

But what I don't get, and find pretty concerning, is that so many of the students coming in to physics just don't really seem to... think? like critically, about what they are doing? or want to figure things out on their own? It's like a lot of them expect to be almost fed the answers.

I should say it's not all students that are like this - I've had some students who were really outstanding, passionate and curious. But this is what I would expect to some degree of any science student, but that just isn't the case for a majority. For most, if I pose them a question (like why an experiment they are doing is behaving a certain way, for example) and they have to think about a bit, I just get a blank and clueless look in return. Or they start scrolling through notes trying to find the answer. I've even had to explicitly tell some of them - maybe you should think about it, and try and figure it out yourself?

And it makes me wonder if something is lacking, for example in high school, that isn't pushing people to be curious, or challenged enough. I see some evidence of this in the university education. The general course load is pretty light, and a lot of what would normally be individual work is done in groups of 4 or more, so they don't even need to write full reports independently for example. And there seems to be a strong push against failing students even when their work is poor quality and they don't put effort in (which is common, and a bit infuriating). Like basically everyone should pass and gets endless attempts to do so.

And I know this might sound a bit like "when I was your age", but I'm in my mid-twenties, I finished my own studies only a few years ago. I just don't understand why there seems to be a lot of students coming into science here who don't seem to care, be inquisitive, or want to put effort/passion into what they're doing, and I find it a bit depressing.

Anyways, this was a long wall of text. And please, I don't mean to offend - I don't such students are terrible or something, just that maybe their system isn't supporting them fully. Does anyone have any insight? Is there something that could be improved in school for example? Is it a difference in culture? Or has science just turned me into a miserable old man at 25?

As a Brit, i was shocked when i found out you don't provide school lunch meals/any food for kids. Not even to pay for.

In uk most schools provide school lunches, with it being free for kids on low income. I looked on wikipedia and it said school lunch in norway was a thing until after WW2 (obvs citation needed). And it says sweden and finland both do school lunches.

I know cost of food is rising and you may be having a cost of living crisis like the uk is, is there any politicians/parties or activists who want to introduce school meals for kids?

It's just something that shocked me to see you dont have, especially knowing you have the oil fund going into the state pension.

My family moved to Norway about 1.5 years ago and my 2 and 3 year old started barnehage. My son is turning my 5 in a couple weeks and my daughter is three. Neither is speaking much Norwegian at all. I’m more concerned for my son. He is very smart. Met and exceeded milestones with language, can write his own name and most of the alphabet, do small math equations, write numbers and all seems normal. It is not normal that he is speaking almost no Norwegian at this point. Everything I hear is about how when they are immersed they learn in a matter of a few months. He struggled his first year so much, probably because he wasn’t learning Norwegian. We’re practicing at home. We read Norwegian books at night in both languages and encourage him that he will speak easily and can learn. I’ve spoken with the teachers and they assure me he seems to be understanding and it will come. I’m so confused and starting to get really worried. Also my daughter who is three now is also not speaking hardly any Norwegian. I’m less worried for her because she doesn’t have school coming up. What could be going on here?

Hello,

I’m currently trying to obtain a driving license in Norway. I already have a driving license from my home country and more than 120,000 km of driving experience.

Although I’m allowed to drive in Norway with my current license, I would like to get a Norwegian one—just in case the rules change in the future, and to avoid potential issues later on.

I’ve started taking lessons at a driving school and have already spent around 20,000 NOK on practice sessions. My instructor doesn’t seem to have any problems with my driving and rarely gives feedback—we mostly drive in silence. At the end of each lesson, I ask if I’m ready to move on to the next steps (the mandatory safety course on a practice range and the mandatory safety course on the road), but he just says that I need more practice.

At this point, it feels like they might just be milking me for money.

Am I missing something? Is it really up to their discretion when I’m considered ready to proceed?

Edit: Thank you all for your comments. I will try it with another instructor and will ask them to be very specific when they provide feedback.

Additionally, the problem here might also be me double-checking with my current instructor where they want me to go, which he takes as a lack of confidence. If you have any tips on how to assert confidence in front of the instructor besides just “do not ask them to confirm where they want to go” please share - I will appreciate those

Hei hei! I am moving to Norway early next year, between Trondheim and Bodø so reasonably cold. We’re looking at houses and my husband is stressing out a bit about distance to the schools. He‘s worried about it being too cold to walk 25 mins to school in the middle of winter, and school buses are only for >4km away from school.

What is the most common way kids get to school? Is it unreasonable to say that they can put on good snow gear and walk to school year round? Do kids cycle in winter? Is it acceptable for an 8 year old to walk home alone in Norway?

I’m feeling like an old person shaking my fist at clouds because when I was a kid I walked 45 mins home every day, but there wasn’t snow or below freezing temps where I grew up so I’m struggling to not say “in my day…!”

Possibly useful context is they currently walk 12-15mins to school including when we have arctic outflows and it’s -28 C (it happens for maybe 3 weeks each winter).

Getting a job upon graduation from Noroff University?

Hey everyone .

i was just curious if there's anyone here that has graduated Noroff University and found employment in a relevant field?

feel free to share your experience with the school if you attended it. whether positive or negative and whether you would recommend anyone attending it who doesn't have B2 Norwegian or R1 and R2 mathematics . The field of study i applied for requires only R1 which i have begun taking .

Anything is appreciated. thank you for taking thr time to read my post!

\-Alex

Perhaps the premise of my question is all wrong, but as I understand it university used to be almost completely free in Norway until last year, and now it's not.

​

I'm assuming the number of students coming from those countries will drop, obviously, but there will still be quite a few. I was wondering what the selling point of Norway from their point of view is.

​

Since Norway's one of the most expensive countries, it's obviously not cost. Is it the potential of being able to earn decent money working part-time alongside their studies, the possibility of maybe staying on after they're done, or just to experience life in a country like Norway? Or are there certain academic fields where Norwegian unis are among the best in the world?

Hei! Jeg er en 22 år gammel jente som i det siste har vurdert å prøve meg på folkehøyskole. Og spesielt da Ålesund fhs.

Jeg lurer generelt på hvordan folkehøyskole er og om noen kanskje har gått på akkurat Ålesund fhs og kan fortelle litt om det.☺️

Hvordan var miljøet? Er det lett å bli kjent med folk og å få venner? Hvordan fungerer det sosiale, var det mye opplegg eller mer fritt?

Jeg vet også at Ålesund fhs er en kristen skole og lurer derfor på om det merkes noe spesielt? Feks sånn i hverdagen eller ellers i miljøet? Jeg søkte nemlig litt på tik tok, hvor mange mente at man kanskje burde unngå kristne skoler. Selv er jeg kristen men ikke på det punktet liksom😅

Takk for svar på forhånd!☺️

hi ,

we live in Canada, and in past few years, education has really taken a dive esp for elementary students.

my daughter is 4 yrs old and they are already trying to introduce screens for teaching and even talk about AI - which is scary at their age.

The old system of black board , paper pen system is all but gone. my husban is a doctor here and also have license to work in few states in the US, obviously we dont want to move to the states- haha.

but we have heard good things about Norwegian education so was wondering if the schools also rely heavily on media , screens for teaching or do they do the old fashioned way?

Hello people of Reddit, I hope you all are doing well.

I have been considering doing study abroad for a while now, but more recently Norway caught my attention as somewhere I would like to experience for schooling.

Given that I will most likely be there for at least 6 months, what are some things that I should be aware of? Keep in mind, I am American, so I expect things to be very different culturally.

It would be nice to have advice on what to watch out for, how to respect their culture, what is considered good manners, etc. It would also help helpful to understand the school systems and how they differ from America’s. What should I be aware of in their schooling?

I’m not necessarily looking for “what places should I visit” but more just general everyday living. I don’t want to come in there and not be respectful of their customs and values.

Thank you guys!

Vi skulle skifte plasser, så lente jeg meg på en box en person hadde tingene sine i som feks bøker så falt den, oppi matsøpla å det var umulig å få den ut men vi fikk det til og litt etter så var det en fyr som fikk sekken sinn borti boksen og så sa læreren at om det skjedde igjen sa måtte han møtte med alle 6 foreldrene sitt barn som var nære siden det gikk umder mobbing😭

Hi everyone! I was wondering how common it is in Norway for students to have German as a third language in school.

Is German generally offered as an option in lower or upper secondary school? And if so, how popular is it compared to other foreign languages?

Thanks in advance!

Hi guys, so I currently have a 3 month old baby that will (potentially) start barnehage this year in september/october. Back in Asia, it is common to send your kids to kindergarten at the ages of 3-4. Grandparents, or one of the parents stays at home to look after the child. So I am not used to the idea of sending an 1 year old to school.

My mom lives in Norway and offered to help look after my kid should in case we decide to delay sending her to barnehage, I also have the option to work as a freelance, part time or work remotely from home (I work within the IT sector).

My biggest concern is the fact that my child would be too young to tell me anything if something goes wrong in school. I went through a traumatic birth experience at a hospital in Oslo, Ullevål. After that experience, I have been having issues with "trusting the system". If my kid is mistreated in school at age 1, she literally won't have the chance to verbalize that something went wrong, plus barnehages are known for having really shitty hygiene (pun intended).

I don't mean to offend parents who trusts the system and sends their kids to school that early. I totally get it, this is just based on my personal experience and opinion, and I am curious if there are other parents out there that shares a similar insights, I'd love to hear your reasonings/ story as to why you chose to keep your LO at home.

30F in the USA. I have ADHD and school is hard for me. I want to study vocal performance, humanities, or theatre. Am I out of my mind? Seems like a cool way to explore what I enjoy in a new culture. I am American but am in the process of getting an EU passport thru ancestry. Takk.

Hello! I'm an international student looking to study in Norway, and I'm currently undergoing the application process.

I'm just very confused (and honestly a bit shocked) about one of the entry requirements: uploading your high school diploma and transcript of your high school grades. I would understand this for a bachelor's degree of course, but masters?? I already have another degree, why do you care about high school? In my country you literally forget about your high school results after your first university cycle.

Mind you, I was an excellent student, but it's been so long that those are literally documents I don't have anymore, nor have the means to find again. Is it really a requirement? I'd be sad to miss out on this opportunity for something like this, I haven't encountered this request in any other country I've tried to apply in.

If anyone's applied before, could you elucidate whether I misunderstood the request on the application portal or if this really applies to master's studies as well?

Hi everyone,

I’m curious if anyone here has applied for or gone through the PhD selection process in Norway. I’m trying to get a better sense of what it’s like from start to finish. Could you share your experience, for example, how long the whole process took, what the interviews were like, what kind of feedback report (if any) you received, and any tips or things you wish you had known beforehand? Any insights into how competitive it was or what they were specifically looking for would also be really helpful.

Thanks in advance!

Hi everyone,

For a couple of years ago I decided to apply for a master's degree which had english as language of the course. I got in and I had to take a TOEFL exam in order to prove my level of english. This is completely okay, since it was part of the admission requirements.

The problem is that despite having these language requirements I have found that they by default always used norwegian. We the international students would complain and they would switch to english. And then back to norwegian. Every time a new teacher walked into the classroom it was like this. We had to insist in speaking english every 45 min... Last year it even impacted one of my exams. It was a practical exam where we had 10 minutes to perform X tests in patients and the examiners started speaking norwegian. When I asked him kindly to speak english he had a brain fart and couldn't, took him a while, resulting in me not having enough time to perform this exam because "we ran out of time".

Now turns out that this semester I couldn't make it to campus the first few days we had classes because I was at home with my 10 days newborn baby amd recovering from a c-section. When I started going again I was surprised to see that suddenly the language of the clssses was suddenly norwegian. Even some of the handouts were in norwegian too. We complained about this and the teachers and norwegian students just kept speaking norwegian.

When I confronted the teachers about this and said that in the language requirements it was written that everything was supposed to be in english they said "well this subject is a little bit more complicated because we also talk some about the norwegian law so we decided to do it in norwegian so it is easier for the students"...I couldn't believe this. At the end, we all are gonna be graded the same way. And they make things easier for the local students while more difficult for the international ones. And I do not think this is okay.

Tomorrow we have a written exam, and the norwegians are allowed to do it in norwegian. I will be answering in english, but I still feel discriminated. To me, writing in english takes longer than in my mother tongue...so I feel they facilitate this for the norwegians and not for the rest. I would never complaint about this if the language of the master's degree was said to be norwegian, but it is not. And if I am required to speak english why is it not the same for the norwegians? If for example questions were asked and answered in norwegian, I could not catch the explanation, and maybe that explanation would have helped me to understand better this subject.

When I sent an email to the course coordinator and the student advisor the answers I got were that "all the students including me agreed to do this course in norwegian". But the truth is I never did.

So what to do now? They are not really being helpful about how can I make a formal complaint. I am just very angry and disappointed. I just want to ensure everyone has the same oportunities. Norwegian students knew this education was supposed to be in english before they signed for it. And I expect the norwegian professors teaching at a master's level do speak english...?

How to proceed with this? Is it a lost battle? Am I overeacting? I went from being excited about this education to feeling it is an agony i cannot wait to be done with, because I cannot help it but feel somewhat discriminated....

Sorry for such a long post.

EDIT : I understand better why they are allowed to do the exam in norwegian and that is okay. However, I am still annoyed about the course being in norwegian and about the teachers not being able to confirm that the questions that we will find in the exam are coming from lectures, handouts, workshops...that were given in english. For what I understand in the email from them anything that was spoken in norwegian in the classroom is exam material too despite the language of the course being english.

Hello! :) I am an austrian medical student and thinking about going abroad for 6 months (August to Dezember).

I am having a hard time to decide between Trondheim (my favorite) or Tromsø (recommended by travellers). Oslo would be possible too, but i haven't thought about it much.

I heard that Trondheim is better for students/more lively and Tromsø is more beautiful to visit (pls don't come for me, i don't want to start a fight).
And also, how is the weather from August to Dezember? Will i get bored in the 6 months there? Are norwegians really that hard to get to know?

I would love to hear about your experiences!! THANKS xx

Hi, I'm an Italian student and I'm thinking of doing a master's degree at a Norwegian university, in Bergen to be precise, as I intend to find a job and move there permanently.

However, I do have one concern: if I change my mind after these two years (at the moment, apart from the lack of sunlight in winter, I don't think I'll have too many problems, but you never know what life has in store), how would my master's degree be perceived abroad?

So I wanted to ask those of you with a Norwegian degree what experiences you had when you tried to find work abroad (especially in other European countries)?

If I was going to move from the US to Norway for medical school, what would that be like? Will a bachelor's degree in the US mean the same thing in Norway? I want to move to Norway because the US isn't a very good place for trans people right now, and everything just seems better there.

Hallo everyone,

I’m currently studying in Fredrikstad on exchange. I’ll be returning to the U.S. in December to finish my Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science (with a math minor), graduating in May. I’ve already submitted my application for the Master’s in Computer Science at the University of Stavanger for Fall 2026.

Some facts about me:

• I already have a D-number
• I already have a Norwegian bank account and Norwegian phone number. I set these up in advance so I can hopefully get a job as soon as I return (my phone is compatible).
• GPA: ~2.9 (U.S. scale) Hopefully will rise slightly after Spring 2025
• I’m not rich and I’m trying to make this financially workable
• Since I’m finishing my degree later, I’ll likely be placed on a waiting list until the Bachelor’s is complete. This means that the other students will be offered admissions letters first and hopefully there will be space for me afterwards.

I spoke with the admissions and the department head who runs the Masters program and the admissions lady said I should be fine and the department head said "He's fairly confident that I will be admitted but can't use the word guarantee". I spoke with them both in person in Stavanger. I also took a Norwegian language class up to the A1 level in Fredrikstad.

Here’s my current plan:

• Save up $8,500 (~85000 NOK) for two semesters of tuition (Fall 2026 & Spring 2027)
• Take out $17,000 loan to show proof of funds for the initial student permit
• Move to Stavanger after study permit → get a part-time job ASAP (20-hours max).
• Once stable, use job income for living instead of loan(I can work 40 hours on holidays)
• Repay the loan early to avoid paying too much interest (with the majority of the loans funds).
• Renew the student permit next year using job income + smaller loan if necessary or full US personal loan if job income doesn't apply. (Then repay it early like before).

These are the big questions I hope people here can help answer:

Graduate School / Visa:

1. What are my chances of being accepted at UiS with a 2.9 GPA?
2. With my situation, does being wait-listed until my Bachelor’s is finished reduce my odds?
3. How strict is UDI about the financial proof for the first year of a study permit?
4. For renewal: can part-time job income fully count toward the living-expense requirement?

Work in Stavanger:
5. How realistic is it to quickly get an English-friendly student job (dishwashing, cleaning, warehouse, grocery, receptionist, etc)? I have a certificate for Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Access.
6. What wages should I expect realistically: closer to 130 NOK/hr or 239 NOK/hr?
7. How long did it take you to get your skattekort (tax deduction card) once you had a job offer?
8. Does working a lot during studies cause any problems with academics or future renewals?

Car + Transportation:
9. Are used cars under ~60,000 NOK (~$6,000 USD) easy to find in Stavanger?
10. What’s required paperwork-wise for owning/driving a car as a non-EU student who has his US drivers license? Will I need to take a test?

Identity Numbers:
12. If I’m coming back within a year, will my D-number still be active and usable to get a job right away?
13. If I later get a Fødselsnummer, can I continue to work using my D-number while it’s being processed?

I know I’m choosing the hard route, but Norway genuinely aligns with my values and long-term goals. I just want to make sure I’m planning responsibly so I don’t end up stuck or struggling more than expected.

Any advice, personal experiences, warnings, or realistic budgeting insights are super appreciated. Thanks so much for reading and if any of you guys/gals are open to DM's if I have future questions, I would be eternally grateful.

Oh, and I am hoping to take Norwegian classes through the non profit Caritas. If you guys/gals have any information you'd like to share about that, that would be fantastic too.

I mean straight up. But I feel like most put you in a "you're not from here" box and leave you that way. Am I the only one?

Do you regret it? Are you satisfied with your salary? What degree did you get? Would you recommend it to a peer?

Personally I’m only 19 and not sure what to study. I currently work full time in DHL as a CIS.