Time to sum up…

It took exactly 6 months since I had posted first time on this blog. I have just written my last exam and before I leave Oslo I want to say thank you and goodbye to You, my reader.

This 6 months was extremely amazing time that I will remember for the rest of my life. I met wonderful people, visited gorgeous places and experienced a fantastic time here, in Norway. For sure I will keep in touch with my friends found here and for sure I will come back sooner then I expect. Well, answering for the question if Norway is the best to live, there is no clear answer. I personally believe that the best place to live wherever I am, because my happiness depends mainly on me. In case of Norway I am sure that with respect of social life, health care system and education benefits this country is absolutely the best place to live for Norwegians, who really love their king and their country.

Furthermore, the claim of UNDP that Norway is the best country to live depends on the instrument they used – HDI index. This index has been criticized on a number of grounds, including:

-       failure to include any ecological considerations (which of course not worsen Norway’s position),

-       focusing exclusively on national performance and ranking, and not paying much attention to development from a global perspective,

-       having inappropriate treatment of income

-       lacking year-to-year comparability,

-       assessing development differently in different groups of countries,

-       it is redundant measure that adds little to the value of the individual measures composing it i.e. means to provide legitimacy to arbitrary weighting of a few aspects of social development,

-       the scores on each of the three included in the HDI (GDP per capita, life expectancy, and education) are bounded between 0 and 1 and they are equally weighted,

-       it should embrace both material and moral development, e.g. a high suicide rate would bring the index down.

Some economists claim that human development reports “have lost touch with their original vision and the index fails to capture the essence of the world it seeks to portray”. Bryan Caplan argues, “Scandinavia comes out on top according to the HDI because the HDI is basically a measure of how Scandinavian your country is”.

Indroduction and Oslo arrival

In the coldest week Norway has experienced for years, with degrees down to minus 28 degrees of Celsius, I have arrived to Sandefjord Torp airport at nearly 9 a.m. January 4th and ubiquitous darkness hugged snow-covered Norwegian ground. The first question came to my mind at that moment was: why have I chosen Norway as my Erasmus destination?

The answer is simple. I have chosen one of the best business school in Europe situated in Oslo, it is very well funded programme and everyone speaks English here. Each year, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) produces the Human Development Report, which ranks the countries of the world according to such factors as income, education and life expectancy. In 2009 UNDP ranked Norway as the best country in the world to live in, for the ninth year in a row (UNDP statistics). Meanwhile, my country is placed 41st.

The purpose of this blog is to verify the claim that Norway is the best place to live with my Erasmus adventure description as a background. I do hope this blog will not offend anybody and I do hope you will enjoy reading as much as I enjoying my experience here. I am only going to share my feelings and considerations with you, so I encourage you to comment my posts, which will be well regarded. Furthermore, I do hope to carry out some kind of discussion, which will provide better conclusions.