I was very eager to go on exchange from the very begininning of my biomedicine studies. It was so obvious to me that I wanted to go live in another country so the desicion to leave for a semester was very easy. I looked up different options and started to think where I wanted to go and for what it was that I wanted from the exchange. After some time I realised that the most important thing for me, at this point, was to experience something very different and go somewhere as far as possible as it may not be possible in the future. Australia became the number one option and after doing some more research a australian universities it was only up to choosing the city where I wanted to go. KI offered several universities across the country, but for me Brisbane became number one based on its location (warm around the entire year, close to amazing nature ans beach, short flying distance from Sydney, Cairns and Melbourne). It was very easy to find an interesting research project and supervisor, it was only to send a few emails and after a week I had the peoject. I recommend to skype with your supervisor beforehand and I recommend to find a lab from the university campus because this gives more of an student feeling and this will also be where your friends most likely are having lunch. The semester started in february so I had all January free - I took this opportunity to travel to Bali for a month and even the flights ended up being cheaper this way. All together the flight from Stockholm-Bali-Brisbane was around 5000 SEK. The student visa was very easy to get, no need to send any documents apart from the insurance paper from kammarkollegiet. After sending in the online application the visa arrived within a few days. It is a good idea to start around 6 months - 1 year before your exchange to apply for scholarships. Also good to make sure you have the most inportant vaccinations. It was suprisingly stressful with all the preparations and it was frustrating sometimes - but trust me it is totally woth it!
I arrived to Brisbane around 2 weeks before starting in the lab. I had not looked into any housing at all before my arrival and was not very worried about it. I happily moved into the YHA hostel and booked myself a few nights. I don't think it is meaningful to start running around the city to find a house during the first days, it was nice to getting to know the city, sort out sim card (optis prepaid is cheapest and works fine), sorting out australian bank account (common wealth). I remember being very tired during these first days and maybe too stressed with the housing issue. This was not much advertised anywhere but the university actually has a very big and helpful housing office where they will you shared houses with usually other exchange students. I highly recommend this option, nice and simple and it was the best thing to share a house with other students. The lab started during the introduction week at QUT, however my superivisor was flexible and I was allowed to participate in all the activities. I think it was a very important week in terms of finding friends. QUT arranged a lot of events for us in the beginning and it was all very exciting and new! I think it takes around 3 weeks for things to calm down and gettting to know the place and feel like home. Before that it can be stressful and you may feel homesick, however Brisbane is such a wonderful place that I don't remember anyone missing home at any point!
It is not a myth that Australia is an expensive country. However, so is every Scandinavian country. The biggest difference was the rent, prepare to pay around 6000-8000 SEK/ month for a room in a shared house. Otherwise, the food and drink prices were pretty much the same. In Brisbane everything is quite closely located so you might not need to ever use the local trafic. A good idea is to buy a bike from gumtree. What makes an exchange quite pricy is when you want to explore the new country and travel around. The visa costs around 5000 SEK.
As described in the departure section, I highly recommend seeking help from the QUT Housing office once you are here. Book a few nights in a hostel and then without rushing have a look at the different houses and areas. Sometimes the housing office arranged bus tours with a lot of students to look for rooms. From areas I recommend Highgate Hill, Westend, CBD and East Brisbane. It's good to have a walking/cycle distance to the city and uni, makes life easier. I sharef a house with 6 people and after time these people became like a family to me. We made everything together and arranged some houseparties.
I did my project in a lab located in an institution outside the campus area. It was a very motivated and ambitious environment. In the beginning it was a big shock to start working in a lab independently and as I was not very familiar with my topic either, it was a lot to take in. However I got into it very quickly. It is important to ask help whenever you need it and another thing is good to remember that the project might change a lot along during the time - but this is nothing to worry about. I was attending lab meeting twice a week and got the chance to present my results a few times at the meetings which gave me a lot of confidence for the final presentation in Stockholm.
Courses corresponding to semester 6 at KI
I did my project work and no courses. It might have been interesting to do both and I think at QUT it was possible to combine. However, in Australian universities there a lot of assignments at certain times so this might be difficult to manage with the lab.
Studying in English will not be a problem after studying the biomedicine program at KI. There were some language courses for foreign students but I don't think they will be necessary. However, qut does offer academic writing courses for research students.
QUT and QUT exchange buddies arranged a lot of activites during the entire semester. In the beginning, I participated in these a lot but after finding your group of friends it was easier to arrange things yourself. Australia is an incredible country and every weekend was an adventure. During the semester we travelled to Fiji, Sydney, Cairns, Melbourne, Noosa, Byron Bay, Gold Coast, Stradbroke Island, Darwin and many other smaller places.
This was, no doubt, one of the best times of my life so far and would definitely recommend Brisbane and QUT for everyone! Don't hesitate to go, even it takes time and organising, it will be worth it.