Long time no see!
I have been having my hands full this spring and summer. That’s why I haven’t had the time to post at all lately.
Here’s a quick update for you out there, I have spent all summer working, and this semester (Autumn 2016) will be spent abroad! I’m currently attending an exchange semester in Oslo, at the bachelor level. I have been here almost two months and so far it has been so much fun! Both to meet a lot of new and exiting people from all over the world, and I have made so many new friends. As well as attending a higher quality university than the one in my home town!
In preparation of this, I have been working a lot. Both with my studies as the spring semester finished up, but also with my working situation. I got work during the summer, but this started a little too early, so it overlapped quite a lot with my studies AND my part-time work. (So happy that situation has passed, and that I made it without getting burned out as F…)
This also required me to simplify thing relating to my investing/personal finance. I have sold off a lot of my stocks, not because I don’t think they are good investments, but because I don’t have time to be as active as I want with my investments. Therefore I had to sell all my international investment, keeping the Swedish investment companies. I have also set up automatic investments in two different global index funds (Länsförsäkringar and SPP), and two different emerging market index funds (also Länsförsäkringar and SPP). Both are low-cost passive index funds.
I am also breaking up with one of my two internet brokers 😥 . But for simplicity I prefer to have everything in one place. I am still far below the level of Deposit Insurance so that is not an issue here, but when that becomes an issue I am not reluctant to go back to having two brokerages.
That said, coming back to the topic of my education. I have seriously considered taking a standard Bachelor+Master instead of the very Swedish/Nordic Civilekonom (4 year programme)+5th year master. This means I have to really apply myself next semester to clean up the courses I did not pass, as well as writing the bachelor thesis. Since I aim towards an international career, the Civilekonom-degree is not very recognized outside of the Nordic, so I think it is more preferable to get a standard 3-year bachelor from my current university (not the worst, but not a good one) and aim for a master at a more well-renowned university (hopefully SSE (HHS)). Also because I would prefer living somewhere other than my home city, one year less in that place is something I would like.
Here in Oslo I have also got my eyes open for the possibility for a career in management consulting. Pros are variety, analytical, travel, interesting. Cons are hard work, long hours, non-entrepreneurial… I’ll definitely think about it, perhaps try to get an internship to see what it’s like.
Well folks, I think that’s all for now. This ended up being quite a personal update kind of post, but I will update my portfolio page as well! It also became longer than anticipated! I’m off to my new hobby and way of exercising, Muay Thai.
Stay safe out there, invest wisely, and have a great day!
-Samuraimannen
ValueTeddy 