少し前ですが慶應塾生新聞の２月号の紙面にスウェーデンの大学についてコラムを書きました。ウェブサイトで見ることができます。「スウェーデン、現地で感じるアカデミックな雰囲気」。いま読み返してみるとかなり誇張しちゃっているような気もしますが…。（以下、英語バージョン）
　
　　I’ve written a column about the university system in Sweden at the february issues of Keio Student Press. You can read the japanese version of this column at the web site above and English version just below. I am now afraid if I did kind of exaggerate only a good aspects, though.
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　　Five months has passed since I came to Uppsala University in Sweden as an exchange student. Many Japanese people frequently asked me how university is different in Sweden from Japan. The word that came to mind first was “academic,” and how serious Swedish people are when it comes to studying.
　　In the field of humanities at Uppsala University, it is very typical that students take one course for a month. For example, there were just six lectures and two seminars in the course “Swedish Politics,” which I took last September. At the first lecture, I was surprised that the teacher announced that in Sweden it is important for students to study independently and students are not necessarily required to attend the lectures. All we have to do is to read the required books and prepare for the coming seminars. At the end of the month, we finished the course by taking a written exam for four hours. Then, the new course started the following week.
　　I had this feeling that it was quite reasonable that students could concentrate on studying a particular subject in depth for a short period. In that sense, the university system in Japan, where students take more than ten courses at the same time and have those different types of exams at the same period, is almost nonsense.
　In December, I took the course “Development and Armed Conflict,” in which not only the professor but also many PhD students gave lectures regarding their latest research. I was unaware until then that, generally, in European countries, it is quite common that PhD students are hired and teach some courses at the university.
　
　　I think this has two positive consequences. First, by hiring PhD students, the university is able to have relatively small class sizes. Secondly, an undergraduate student can be motivated to see and talk to the PhD students. I heard many times that PhD students are more prepared and give better lectures than salaried professors.
　　What is job-hunting like in Sweden? My Swedish friends explain to me that they usually start after getting their degree. This is also a stark contrast from the Japanese way. In Japan, third year students start to register for job hunting internet sites, which is open for only “shinsotu,” undergraduate (partly master) students, who are going to graduate the following year. However, there is no such thing in Sweden as “shinsotu waku”, a service only available to undergraduates. Swedish students look for their jobs without regard to their ages.
　　That is because university is usually considered to be the place of “life long learning”. In fact there are only 44 percent of students who enter university under 25 year old, and most of them already have some work experience. They are likely to have specific career goals, which leads them to become a more serious learner. I think it is understandable that the whole atmosphere in university is more academic. What I found regrettable for university in Sweden is that there are only a few small groups in which you can feel at home and not as much youthful culture compared with Japan.