The state of the Oslo-student
Photo: Multiconsult. From the left, Anja Valseth, Jørgen Lingaas and Marianne Rye Beck.
On behalf of the municipality of Oslo, Multiconsult and A-Lab have conducted a survey and report about the state of the Oslo student. The report ”Oslo Studenten” was unveiled at the city hall on April 7th. The city wants to be a better city for students, and a plan is in the works to point out goals and measures to make this happen. As part of this effort, we were tapped to provide insight into how the Oslo students are doing.
Students make about 12% of the inhabitants in Oslo, and they are spread across several universities and campuses here. They are a diverse group and issues and solutions regarding them should reflect this. The work we and Multiconsult did, consisted of a survey, focus group interviews and a forum where students could voice their opinions.
Oslo differs from the other student cities, like Trondheim and Bergen, where the student environment is more close-knit and more pronounced. There are several reasons why. Students who chose Oslo over the other cities, mainly cited scholarly content, better career opportunities and the social scene as important reasons to why they picked Oslo. Being close to family and friends were also strong factors favoring Oslo.
For the Oslo students, the most important priority is to attain a degree, emerge in scholarly endeavors and to build a professional network. The least important factors are partying, engagement in student-run extracurricular activities like unions and volunteer work. There were some differentiations between the groups, like the BI students prioritized professional networking more than the students at UIO.
As architects and urbanists, we were curious to how they would view Oslo as a city for students. The findings varied. Many reported that this is a city with a lot of opportunities, but expensive. In terms of safety, the international students felt safe in the city, while students from out of town, felt less safe. There was little differentiation between the genders.
At A-lab we have for a while worked with student housing. To be able to get in-depth knowledge about how students are living means a lot. The majority lives in private accommodation. Those who co-lives reported to have the most enjoyment, while those who lived with strangers or in student-housing experienced less enjoyment. This is due to the lack of common spaces. Related to the housing issue is high costs and cramped living spaces. The housing situation also differs geographically. The students’ residences would follow the vicinity of their school campuses. This is an interesting finding.
We also investigated mobility. It turns out that the locations the students seek out, are not ran by SiO (student organization) or campus facilities, but rather spread across the city. The mobility pattern varies, but for the most part they are pedestrians, and they take the metro and tram. The students at VID however differed as they have a longer commute and opted for driving to school.
Attaining information through different methods allowed us to know more in-depth of what the students like and what makes them not thrive, with this solid base of knowledge, the municipality can better work out measures and policies that would benefit the students better. Students are a valued group in the city, they are our insurance for the future, but they are also a group that are really good at using the city’s amenities like the parks and libraries. They are complex as in they are vulnerable due to economic hardship, but resilient urban dwellers. We believe this is a group city planning should be more conscious of.
The team responsible for the report was our own Marianne Rye Beck, from Multiconsult Anja Valseth and Jørgen Lingaas.