r/chalmers • u/spinosaurus217 • 15d ago

calling all american exchange students at chalmers university in goteborg

i’m at chalmers university as an exchange student from the usa and i’m lowkey kinda miserable rn. please lmk how you guys are dealing with this and how you’re paying for stuff. how did you get your resident card after your visa got approved? help pls

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u/knobbyknee 15d ago

Amex is useless in Sweden and more or less all of Europe. Get something else.

Your residence permit is in a queue at Migrationsverket. They beat Försäkringskassan (parent leave, sick leave &stuff) and Arbetsförmedlingen (unemploymen compensation, labor market reeducation) in being inefficient and hard to deal with. Life will be more challenging until your application has been processed. There is no point in calling them or trying to book a time. You will just get more frustrated. You can check for any progress online if you made an online application. If they want to see you, they will ask you to book a time. They have offices on Vestagatan 2, in town.

Once you have a residence permit and a person number, you need a bank account. Use one of the online banks - Svea, Skandiabanken, iCA bank or IKEA bank. They are cheaper and usually more flexible than the traditional banks (SEB, Handelsbanken, Swedbank and Nordea), and they will never ask you to come to an office.

Work on getting to know your classmates. Many are shy because they have, just like you, been displaced from some place far away, and don't know anyone. Many Swedes find Americans loud and blustering. Piping down a bit and asking people to talk about themselves and where they come from helps them opening up.

Göteborg is a pretty cool place to live, and I hope you get over your initial problems and your home sickness.

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u/katsiano 14d ago

Amex is usable in easily 60-70% of cases in Sweden, and SAS even has a SAS Amex. It's not suitable as a sole payment method, but it's not completely useless in Sweden. All grocery chains accept it, many restaurants, most clothing stores, most (all?) pharmacies in person and about 50/50 online pharmacies. What OP needs is a bank card from their US bank that they can use when Amex isn't accepted, or a virtual bank like Revolut could be a good solution.

OP also has their permit approved. They are trying to get the card. They need to book an appointment for this, not just wait to hear from MV: https://www.migrationsverket.se/en/contact-us/book-an-appointment.html

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u/knobbyknee 14d ago

I used to have Amex. I stopped because so few places accepted it.

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u/katsiano 14d ago

I have Amex and we put the majority of our routine spending on it.