(edit title) Practice work and what to expect! What was YOUR experience? (if you had one! Options

[grapefruit]

Hello!
Short background.. I'm a 26 year old English woman who moved here about a year ago, to live with my Swedish boyfriend. After some faffing around trying to sort my personal number, I finally got it in August 2011, and started SFI in November. Thanks to studying at home during those free months, I'm in Kurs D already and am about to start practice work (minimum of 5 weeks) in a daycare this Wednesday. I'm both excited and nervous!

I have a few questions- I know people have different experiences and whatnot, but that's exactly what I want to hear!

- Where was your first practice work? Did you enjoy it? Were the people friendly? Did you find it easy to understand them?
- An awkward question, but, money. Will I get paid for the work? It's not full time.. I'm doing 8-12 in SFI, and then 1-4 in the daycare. My SFI buddies tell me I should get about 2.2k kr a month - isn't much, but I'd be grateful to be able to contribute even a TINY bit toward our living costs. Arbetsförmedling haven't said a thing about it so far, though, and with my start date looming I'm starting to wonder. For some reason, I feel antsy about asking my advisor - so figured maybe I could try you friendly folks first instead!
- If you could give one tip about working here, what would it be?

Cheers!
Sarah

[soultraveler3]

If you get paid for språkpraktik count yourself lucky. They may have changed the rules in the past two years, but when I was in SFI nobody was paid anything. The refugees were paid to attend SFI (not praktik) but "love refugees" and other immigrants didn't receive any money at all.

What to expect with regards to praktik really depends on your situation. They tried to place everyone here into a daycare or one of the local school cafeterias. Since I have no interest in working with children and a background in pharmacy, I was able to have språkpraktik at the library instead and then at the hospital pharmacy. If you have any form of higher education and would like to continue working as a professional in Sweden you should really talk to your teachers / praktik coordinator and get placed at relevant location. Many people aren't aware that you can do that, as it's more work for the coordinator so they might not tell you it's an option / fight you on it, but it's worth it.

Praktik at the library wasn't very good, the manager was nice, but more interested in practicing his English than having språkpraktik. The head librarian was an older woman that decided she didn't want anything to do with me after I'd finish tasks in 5 minutes that she and some of the other employees thought should take 30 minutes. It sounds crazy, but they honestly took 30 minutes or more to return a stack of 5-10 books back to the shelf. So she always came up with busy work like applying book covers or organizing the cd and video collection. Since it was always solo work there was very little chance to practice Swedish, so I got out of there asap.

Praktik at the pharmacy, on the other hand, was wonderful. The manager, pharmacists and techs were all great. They let me shadow them, allowed me to actually work and do things in the pharmacy and were fun to chat with when it was slow. I also got to interact with and talk with the customers which greatly improved my Swedish. It took a few months to get praktik there because the managing pharmacist had never done språkpraktik with anyone before and they had to make sure it was legal. After checking my papers and talking with some higher ups it was allowed. Again, you have to work for it, but getting a meaningful position was totally worth it.

The downside to any praktik here, språk or not, is that it rarely leads to a real job. Sweden pays employers to have praktik, so much of the time there's no real incentive to hire someone permanently. Young people and immigrants often get taken advantage of in these cases.

It's also unfortunate that education received outside of Sweden often doesn't count for much here, especially when it comes to white-collar work. The manager at the pharmacy where I had språkpraktik wanted to hire me but couldn't because of this. It doesn't matter that I have education and more than 10 years experience doing the exact same thing. In order to work here I'd need to go to school here for another 18 months, but would only earn about half of what I used to. It just doesn't seem worth it so I'm trying to figure out what to do. Every other professional that I attended SFI with has run into almost the exact same problem. People get lucky sometimes depending on their field, but don't get your hopes up.

Hope you have a good experience and good luck.

[Migga]

Make sure you use your praktik as experience later on when applying for jobs. It may not always be the most fullfilling praktik or profitable but the experience counts for the future. It doesn`t matter if you`ve been to a daycare or hospital, make a note of it. Experience is always asked when applying for a job, make sure you show that you have been in contact with how to work in Sweden. Even if it`s just praktik.

[grapefruit]

Hey!

Yeah, I don't expect to get paid for SFI - heck, it's a language course! It's a FREE language course! I'd pay a MINT back in England just to be able to learn it, so as far as SFI goes I am very grateful just to not have to pay and have the chance to learn swedish. But with the actual pratik, I was hoping maybe they'd contribute a little since i'm actually working, filling in a job that they would have to pay another a full wage to do.. and yeah, in that sense, the system does seem pretty flawed - can totally see where exploitation would come into it! A Polish buddy of mine from SFI is also doing daycare work, and she's being paid for it - so I guess I just have to keep my fingers crossed. We're doing okay financially, but being able to contribute to bills would make me feel a lot better.. we don't exactly live in the lap of luxury (understatement), but we're doing okay!

Migga - that's exactly the way I'm thinking. Any work experience in a new country is good experience. And it looks a whole lot less bad on your CV to show that you have actually been actively trying, rather than lazing around at home.

Soul - Wow, thanks for the huge response. I do have a higher education, but sadly it's in something completely freaking stupid (BA(hons) english literature and sociology), so .. yeah. Funny enough though, while you found the library extremely boring, I think I'd enjoy it.. granted, as you said, probably not much spoken language, but for a book lover I'm sure i'd pick up lots of words just from reading. Thanks for the idea! If nothing comes of this Daycare, then I may well ask about trying at the library next, and then have a think about where I'd like to go from there - I'd love to try some work experience in a veterinary clinic too (having done some in the UK), but I suspect that's pretty hard to do! (As you said though, will work for it!) And yeah.. I appreciate the fact the system is flawed from an 'employing' point of view... We actually have a heart surgeon in our SFI group right now, heh, and he's having the same issues you did jobwise - his qualifications don't mean an awful lot in a new country and he'd have to re-study. If you don't mind me asking, what're you doing now? Did you find gainful employment?

Cheers guys.

[soultraveler3]

I'm actually a huge bookworm as well and spend quite a bit of time at the library.

When I had praktik there though I couldn't just sit around and read. They had me up in the offices putting plastic covers on books or reorganizing the film section etc. The one good thing about it was that there English language section was an absolute mess so I was allowed to rearrange things there and even get some new books in.

It was boring because I was there to learn Swedish, but was almost always given jobs where there was no chance to speak with other employees or people visiting the library. During lunch and their many long breaks people hardly talked to each other either. It was a weird place to work.

I only have a part-time job now teaching hemspråk, which might be a good option for you since you have a degree. You don't need formal training as a teacher, but they did ask if I had been to uni so that may be important. It's not much money at all, but it's something to do and allows me to contribute a bit to the household.

It'd be nice to go back to school, but I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up. Did pharmacy because it paid really well back in the states. Maybe a dietitian or pastry chef? A combo of both and opening a little fika place might be nice.

You mentioned wanting to contribute and I totally understand that, it's been the absolute hardest part personally. Having to depend on someone else financially is horrible and can really mess with your sense of self-worth, but when that gets you down just remember that your sambo, hubby, whatever is just happy that you're here. You just have to keep your head up and try to find things that make you happy until you get settled which can take years.

[Spuds MacKenzie]

@grapefruit Getting paid for praktik is pretty rare. Of all the people in my SFI class there is just one person who gets a small stipend for her praktik...in a child daycare center.

[grapefruit]

I guess I'm one of the lucky ones!

I don't get much.. 2.2k a month for four hours a day per week, but heck, I'm happy with that after reading all these comments! Maybe the law has changed or something, since when I asked in SFI, pretty much everyone who was doing the praktik, work or language, was being paid roughly the same as I'm getting.

The people at the daycare are really nice and friendly.. very chatty and welcoming. Their English is also passable, so anything I don't understand in Swedish, they can explain! They also appreciate I'm there for the språk, and make a point of chatting to me in Swedish - a bit intimidating, but definitely useful! I feel a bit redundant sometimes when the kids ask me something (they're 1-4 years..) and i don't understand them, but hopefully time will adjust that!

These are the emails I exchanged with my contact, for future ref of anyone who might use the search function.

"Hej,

En arbetspraktik via Arbetsförmedlingen innebär att man får aktivitetsstöd. De som har a-kassa får motsvarande ersättning och de som inte har a-kassa får 223 kr/dag. Jag vill bara påpeka att eftersom du har arbetspraktik på 50% så blir ersättningen 223 kr/2."

Cheers for all the advice and such, guys. I actually really like the people and the work thus far, so here's hoping they end up liking me enough to keep me on as an actual worker, rather than a cheap monkey!