After 2.5 years of living in Sweden, I was ready for a new challenge. The semester abroad was one of the main reasons why I decided to study at Karolinska Institutet, and it had been my plan all along to do my thesis project at Imperial (I had been thinking about doing my whole Bachelor there but decided against it for personal reasons). Imperial College London is one of the top universities for medicine worldwide and located in one of the greatest cities in the world, so I was beyond excited for this opportunity.
I got the nomination to go on exchange right at the beginning of the pandemic so, naturally, planning was put on hold for a couple months. The organisation was a little tricky as the responsible person at Imperial hat taken a year off but after initial difficulties, I found the administrative side of Imperial very helpful. They were very experienced with Erasmus exchanges and answered emails promptly.
I applied to a variety of labs and had interviews with a couple PIs before making my decision. I had a really good relationship with my PI from the very beginning and we were able to quickly get all the documents together. Although Imperial only takes in students in the Life Science Department, I ended up working at a lab at the Faculty of Medicine. However, I am not sure if I would recommend this as there was a lot of resistance from both Imperial and KI about this decision.
Moving to England in the midst of a pandemic and a week after finalisation of Brexit brought a lot of challenges. As an EU citizen, I was not required to apply for a visa but instead got granted “short-term study entry clearance” as the course was under 6 months. The COVID restrictions turned out more difficult, as the UK had shut down a couple weeks before the moving date. There was a lot of back and forth and mental stress about whether to move or not but thankfully, everything worked out smoothly in the end. I had all the required documents to be exempted from the entry ban and had to quarantine the regular 10 days.