During my stay at Leiden University I took several courses. Immunology, Infectious agents and immunity and Physiology are taught in blocks with an exam at the end of each course just like at KI. These courses I had together with the dutch students and were the ones I considered main courses. I also had Communication in Science, a parallel course with the dutch students spanning the whole year, and I also had courses specific for exchange students like Applied Electrophysiology and Basic Academic and Scientific Training. These courses also spanned my whole stay there and added quite some workload to the already full study calendar. However, because the number of students taking the course is quite small we were able to do things like have an ECG taken and performing interviews with PhD students, as well as get a more personal feedback on our progress.
The normal courses were taught with lectures, but the main focus was on workgroups. For these it is necessary to read or work through chapters in the book by yourself and answer questions that will then be discussed. Especially in the Immunology course this was very intense and more often than not it was simply not possible to work through the pages needed for the next workgroup. This was nothing to worry about too much though, because everyone else had the same problem and even the dutch students that did not have the extra courses often did not manage. It is important to mention, that studying EVERY DAY was therefore a must, especially in the beginning of the course, where the basic concepts are taught.
The medical faculty is quite big and most of the lectures were held in the hospital building. Sadly there are very few studying places available and these would then be in the hallway of the hospital with people walking by. There is a nice medical library, which has some spots and hidden behind the library also computer rooms. For booking group rooms and more comfortable studying I recommend going to the main library close to the botanical garden.
The books were the same prices as the books are in Sweden, and I only bought the Immunology book Parham, since we could bring it in the exam. The other books I did not buy, since I would not have had time to read them and the books were too detailed and not as close to the curriculum. I also did not bring any books from Sweden.
Exams differed from what I experienced at Karolinska. The first exam was an open book exam, meaning you are allowed to bring the book to the exam. This was new to me, but they even arranged extra tutoring for us to teach us useful techniques. Going to the tutor lessons was one of the main contributing factors to passing the exam for me. The Physiology exams were pure multiple choice exams, which required a different kind of learning than for usual exams, but definitely not less studying!
The relationship between the students and the teachers was more distant than in Sweden and the teaching style slightly more authoriarian than at KI. It was more of a professionally based distance, and interactions were quite low. However they were understanding in most cases, and nice and helpful if asked. The Basic Academic and Scientific writing teacher stood out especially, because he was genuinely interested in us and wanted to make our experience in the Netherlands as good as possible.