On the life of a Finnish person in his 20s

Reddit user needs_moar_yolo, answering the question “What are adults in their 20s typically doing in your country?”

People graduate high school or vocational school at about 18.5 years old. Most men go to army for 6 or 12 months, and those women who graduated from high school start their studies at universities or polytechnics. Others start working. After military service, men go through the same thing at 19-20 years old.
Most people move out after graduating high school to either go study or work, but men usually live with their parents until they’ve finished their military service.

People are really independent, so it’s considered weird and pathetic to stay at home after turning ~19. We don’t have dorms at universities, so people rent an apartment either alone, with their SO or with a random stranger and hope for the best. A lot of students work part-time to get some extra money in addition to the government allowance.

Life at ~20 years old is pretty normal. Those who work, work ~40 hours a week and get wasted on fridays and saturdays. Student life is very irregular and unstable, sometimes it means not getting any sleep due to stress and sometimes just drinking every day and not worrying about a thing. Popular pastimes include drinking, sports and staying at home alone since it’s too damn cold to go out and who wants to see other people anyway…

In my experience, some people don’t stay in contact with their parents that much after leaving home, while others visit their families every week. I believe there are some regional differences in that, but families are not considered that important at least where I live in. Or maybe it’s just me. As for starting a family of their own, well, those who didn’t go to high school can settle down much earlier than those studying for longer, so most people will graduate from uni/polytechnic first and then buy an apartment and get babies. Although, a lot of people will live with their SO during their whole student life, but they rarely get children before graduating.