Exchange report - Student at KI
Home university: University of Auckland
Study programme: Bioentrepreneurship (Master's)
Exchange programme: INK
Semester: Spring semester 2014/2015

Pre-departure

Already when I started university more than five years ago I knew that I wanted to study at least one semester abroad. Since the opportunity for exchange studies did not occur during my bachelor, my last chance would be during the master's. So when my Master's program in Bioentrepreneurship offered the possibility to travel to Auckland, New Zealand, the last semester to write the thesis over there I just knew this was the possibility that never would come back. 

The collaboration between my program at Karolinska Institutet and a similar program named Master of BioScience Enterprise at Auckland University is rather new. One student from the Bioenterprensurship program the year before wrote her thesis there last year, so me and two other students were the second group to travel to Auckland through this collaboration. Therefore, when planning the semester abroad I had to figure out a lot of things by myself. The application process took place about a year before departure and the international coordinators at Karolinska Institutet helped out a lot in the beginning with getting in touch with key people at Auckland University. However, due to time difference and organizational changes in Auckland there was sometimes quite difficult to get in touch. In the end, everything went out well, but suggestions for future students going abroad is to early establish a contact and also clearly define what needs to be done by you and what Auckland University instead is in charge of. 

A few key things to think about beforehand: 
  1. Visa: to travel to New Zealand a visa application needs to be send to the nearest office (in my case in London) for approval. The application time took about 2 weeks, but it is possible that it can take about a month. A contact person from Auckland University helped me out with writing the application and necessary information, e.g. you need to book you flight(s) before applying for the visa. Other documents that are necessary is an invitation letter from Auckland University, a certificate of registration at Karolinska Institutet, a letter from Karolinska Institutet and an official transcript of finished courses. I applied for a specific working visa as a student or trainee for 6 months. More information about the visa application can be found at: www.immigration.govt.nz 
  2. Flight: I selected flight dates according to the swedish semester and flew out around 24th of January and back 12th of June. Thereby I missed the presentations and graduation ceremony at Karolinska Institutet in May-June, however, I think it is more interesting to take the time when you over there and travel around the country and instead present after summer. I booked the tickets about 4 months before through Kilroy and flew with Finnair. Total prize was about 12 000 SEK with a stop in Helsinki and Hong Kong. 
  3. Accommodation: I applied and stayed at university housing (Unilodge), which is very central but quite expensive (approx. 7000 SEK/month for a studio and shared kitchen). The application opens up a few months before next semester, and you have to apply online. Other ways of finding housing is through Trademe (www.trademe.co.nz), which is a similar website as Blocket. Here you can find for example a room in an apartment or house for a cheaper prize, but normally not that central. However, compared to Sweden it is at least the same prizes as in Stockholm or higher. 
  4. Insurance: Karolinska Institutet offers and insurance through Kammarkollegiet that approximately cover 2 weeks before and after your internship/ thesis writing. It is good to know that if you go to another country, the insurance is not covered by this. 



Arrival and registration

I arrived a few days before I started at the company where I wrote my thesis. Since I wanted to stick to the Swedish timeline for the master's thesis, I tried to have the same deadlines in New Zealand. Meaning started in the end of January and submitted first full thesis in the beginning of May. 

Upon arrival at Auckland airport I got picked up by the director of BioScience Enterprise, otherwise there are a few different options such as cab, shuttle and airport bus. I would suggest to go with the airport bus, which takes about 1 hour for 16 NZD (currently about 95 SEK). The bus stops at different places in the city and last stop is the central station Britomart, which is just about 10 minutes walking distance from Unilodge. Since I arrived during the summer break it was very calm at the university housing. I scheduled a time for meeting someone in the reception before arrival and he gave me the keys and showed me the room. It is quite a small room/study with a bed, desk and chair, tv, wardrobe(s) and a pentry. You also get your own bathroom. If instead preferring having your own kitchen, you can get this through paying a bit more. As I wrote earlier the total cost per month for a studio was about 7000 SEK, which I think is quite expensive for such a small room. However, it is central, you meet other students easy and you also get a gym card at the university for free (the university is just 5 minutes from UniLodge). 

The transport system around Auckland is not that good, so I suggest that you either buy a car if living a bit outside the city or try to get to know people that have a car. For using the public transport the best thing is to by a AT-HOP card and load it with money. Normally I carpooled with someone from the company (since the company was based outside the city). Compared to the public transport, which took about 1.5 hour one way, going by car only took 20 minutes. 

The semester after summer break starts in mid February, when most of the students are moving in. In the end of February and beginning of March the university is arranging O'week, which is an introduction week and a good opportunity to meet other students. However, since I was mostly based at the company I did not participate in that many activities during this week. 

You should also get you university ID-card, which you for example use for borrowing books in the library, printing documents or getting access to the gym. The gym is quite big and arrange several different classes to participate in, everything from football to spinning. 

I also early on opened up a bank account and bought a sim-card (Vodafone is the one I recommened). The bank account can take some time to open, so the best thing is to arrange a time at one of the nearest bank offices as soon as possible. 

Economy

New Zealand is not a cheap county to travel to. In comparison with Sweden it is similar or even a bit more expensive. Below follow some key expenses before and during the exchange. 

Before departure:
  1. Flight: about 12 000 SEK
  2. Visa application: about 1500 SEK
  3. Insurance: if you will travel to another country you might need to buy a secondary insurance. I did not do this since I did not travel outside New Zealand during my time over there. 

During the exchange:
  1. Accommodation: about 7000 SEK/month. You need to pay for the whole semester (about 5 months).  I got the possibility to change the weeks since I moved in before the semester started. This is not always the case since they are quite strict with the weeks you are allowed to stay there, e.g. if moving in during the summer break you might need to pay extra for this. My suggestion is that if you are interested staying at university housing and not exactly during the semester schedule talk with them beforehand to avoid extra costs. 
  2. Public transport: One way with the bus or train could cost about 5 NZD, meaning it can easily be up to 100-150 NZD/month if using the public transport quite often. It might be possible to get a student discount through the university, but in my case it did not get approved since I dit not study any courses at the university. Also to keep the costs down a suggestion would be to carpooling if the company you are working for is based far away. 
  3. Food: buying food at supermarkets is similar or even a bit more expensive than in Sweden. The closest one to Unilodge is Countdown, which is not the cheapest one (similar to Hemköp in Sweden). You also have a few vegetables/fruit markets during the weekends, which could be a way to find cheeper food and keeping the costs down. Eating out is cheaper or similar to Sweden deepening on if going to a normal or more fancy restaurant. 

Acommendation

The accommodation in Auckland area is expensive in general. As earlier mentioned I payed about 7000 SEK monthly for a central studio with a pentry, but no real kitchen. The studio was okay, but quite small. If I would have done a similar exchange trip again I might had looked for a room somewhere else for a bit cheaper and also get the possibility to easier get to know people from New Zealand. 

Unilodge has both bigger apartments, studies and deluxe studios (which offers a real kitchen). The common kitchen was quite small and dirty, but okay for most students I guess. The studio was furnished, but you had to buy your own blanket, pillow and other necessary things for cooking that was not there from the beginning. For doing this a good suggestion is to visit the Warehouse close to Britomart. It costs 3NZD per machine to do the laundry and you can exchange coins at the reception. The reception in the building is open daily and there is always also the possibility to call someone if needed. More information about university housing can be found at: http://www.accommodation.auckland.ac.nz/en.html

 

Studies in general

Since I wrote my thesis in Auckland through a collaboration with a generic pharmaceutical company, Douglas Pharmaceuticals, I was mainly based at the company and not at the university. The few times I was at the university was when I had scheduled a time with my academic supervisor or when I needed some environmental changes during the thesis writhing, e.g. studying a day at the library instead. I had three supervisors during the thesis project. The academic supervisor in New Zealand helped me with progressing the work on place and discussing important matters, in general we met at weekly basis. My industry supervisor helped me with the topic of my thesis and also to identify and get in touch with appropriate people for interviews. My last supervisor was my academic supervisor at Karolinska Institutet, we Skyped a few times and she mainly helped my with sticking to the Karolinska Institutet guideline. 

Douglas Pharmaceuticals is a family-owned generic pharmaceutical company with about 400-500 employees. It has both filials in Auckland and in Fiji, and is one of the biggest life science companies in New Zealand. I was a part of the New Product Development team, a department with about 50 employees and the director of the department was my industry supervisor. I got my own desk, introduction to the company and it was quite easy to get to know other employees during lunches and afternoon tea for example. It was an open landscape office which even made it easier to get to know people as new. It is quite an international company with employees from several countries, many from Asia, which also makes it easy to feel as a part of the team. 

A few times I was invited to the BioScience Enterprise Friday forum(s) where they invited interesting people from the industry. It was also a way to get to know other students that studied or where alumni on the BioScienece Enterprise program. Also a similar committee as Näringslivsutskottet at Medicinska Föreningen, named Chiasma, where very active and arranged a few events which were very popular. It was a lot of fun to attend these evens to get to broaden the network and also to get to know more about the life science industry in New Zealand. 

Courses during the exchange period

Courses corresponding to semester 4 at KI
The master thesis course is a 30 credits course and conducted during the last semester on the Bioentrepreneurship program. Each student at the program chose a topic of interest linked to Bioentrepreneurship and life science. Most students are conducting a thesis in collaboration with a life science company. As I wrote earlier I conducted my thesis in collaboration with Douglas Pharmaceuticals. The contact person from BioScience Enterprise tried to help me to find an appropriate company. However, the process was quite slow and in the end I instead got the contact details to my supervisor at Douglas Pharmaceuticals myself and emailed and arranged the details for the collaboration. I suggest that future students also early on try to identify interesting companies and if not getting more contact details from Auckland University try to approach and arrange the collaboration themselves. 

My supervisor at Douglas Pharmaceuticals suggested a few topics for me to write about. After some thinking I decided to write about drug repurposing, since the company was moving from only being a generic company to also conduct drug repurposing projects. In the end, the most important is to choose a topic with an academic profile, but also in favor of the company.

Since a part of my thesis was to interview stakeholders I had to apply for an ethical approval. This is different to the swedish system, so if thinking of conducting interviews during the thesis you should early on contact the program in Auckland for preparing an ethical application. I had to wait about 6 weeks before I got the approval, and since the thesis writing is quite time restricted you must plan this ahead for being able to finish in time according to the swedish schedule. You should also try to start writing as early as possible, to avoid having too much in the end, which can be a very stressful period. 

Language and Culture

New Zealand is a rather small country with approximately 4,5 million inhabitants. Most people either have a british connection due to when the british empire colonized New Zealand 200 years ago, or a part of the native people named Maori. However, when visiting Auckland or some of the other bigger cities such as Wellington, the capital, or Christchurch there are also a lot of people from asian countries or the pacific islands. I got the impression of Auckland being quite an international city. Since most people are speaking English, there were few language barriers. However, the New Zealand accent of English can be rather difficult to understand sometimes since they use a lot of slang words and talk quite fast. A few times I thought it was very difficult to understand the English, especially if talking with people from the countryside. 

I think the New Zealand society and the people living there reminds a lot about Sweden. I did not experience any big cultural differences, and most people enjoy outdoor activities and nature during weekends, as many people in Sweden and the nordic countries enjoy as well. Most people were open-minded and very friendly and invited me several times to their homes. 

Leisure time and social activities

Auckland is the biggest city in New Zealand and the central point for business and industry. It is a nice city to live in, however, I think the main thing of traveling to New Zealand is the life outside the cities with an extraordinary nature. You should at least travel a few weeks before leaving the country, and when you have time during the weekends. You can find anything from great beaches, rain forests, big mountains and volcanos, geysers, thermal baths etc. For being such a small country almost everything can be found with just a few hours car drive from one stop to another. My main experience was when I did the tongariro crossing, which is a day walk over a few volcanos with an amazing view. Other examples of amazing adventures is the glowworm caves in Waitomo, hot water beach, skydiving or hiking a few ones of the great walks. A easy way traveling around is to either book a bus ticket, e.g. through inter bus or naked bus, or hire a car if you are a few people traveling together. If you also need a car in the city it could also be a good idea do buy a car for half a year. There are also different student clubs, and I joined the one with international students. They arrange a few trips each semester as well as pizza nights or just hanging out a friday night. For example we did a day trip to Rangitoto (a volcano island outside Auckland) and a weekend trip Waitakere Ranges National Park. Since I was living in university housing it was very easy to find people to do something with on your spare time. The best thing is to find the different Facebook groups to find out whats on currently. 

Summary

The exchange has been great experience and something that I will always remember. If someone would give me the same opportunity again I would definitely go. So if you are thinking about going to go to New Zealand, just go, because this might be the chance that never comes back. 

Even if I knew two other people traveling to New Zealand through the same exchange, I did most of the things by my own which I learnt a lot from. Everything from being a part of an industry organisation in another country, to fix necessary things on place and getting to know people from different countries. I hope that the choice of studying abroad will have a positive effect on my future career since we are living in a global world where most companies are working internationally. To get an insight in another culture and both working and getting to know people with other backgrounds have only enriched my life. I have learnt a lot and also how people from other cultures might reflect and think in different situations, which is a good thing to understand when working on an international market.