Unfortunately I missed the introduction day but I got an appointment with the erasmus coordinator, who explained me everything I needed to know. I found the arrival arrangements quite good, I had to go around a bit in order to set up a few things, but this gave me also the chance to start looking around and getting familiar with the place.

I stayed in a student house (Pax), found through the UAC without problems. When I first got in my room I was a bit scared. I arrived in the afternoon, it was january so it was dark as it was night. It was cold and snowy. I also didn't find the place right away but it took me a while. I found the room quite nice and bigger than I expected, but cold because the radiators were off. But everything went fine in a few time. I wasn't alone. A girl from Italy came with me so I could share the first impressions. I think that the cost was a bit high but soon I found out that in Stockholm everything was more expensive than what I was used to. Also, I got a vey little amount of money from my home university, which didn't even cover the cost of the rent.

I participated to some social activities but, due to my every daywork in the lab I had just a few time in the evenings and during the weekends. I can suggest to do more beach volley tournaments, kayak trips and so on organized by students and to use the facebook website for this. Anyway I think that a good effort is made to help students feeling welcome and sort of at home. I made a few swedish friends, but most of all they were international students.

I chose to go on exchange because I needed a fresh new start, a period that was only for me, in order to face life by myself, grow and learn from this experience. I chose to go abroad to meet new people, different cultures, languages and see how's the world outside my small town, outside my country. I chose KI because from what I had heard it is a very good and prestigious institution, where I could learn a lot. I chose Sweden, first, because I knew it was a great country and that we've got a lot to learn from this society.
I found the information given pretty exhaustive and the people in charge to help exchange students going through all the documents really helpful and friendly. I think that, instead, my home university wasn't as clear and helpful as KI.
I didn't require to be vaccinated or anything.

I can say it was just a great experience. Sweden really took my heart and I wish to come back someday, hopefully soon, because I have the feeling that I'm not done with Stockholm yet. I haven't any relevant issue or complaint. There are differences between italian and swedish societies, as it's normal, and I love both for many reasons. I think that KI is doing a great job encouraging foreigner people to go and work there. This is the right direction to go because different, motivated and brilliant people from all over the world can make Sweden even richer, from every point of view.

I attended a Swedish course for a few times but I quit because I was unhappy with it. I really wanted to learn some Swedish although I didn't have the chance to speak it in my lab (all the people were from other countries). We changed teacher twice and sometimes there wasn't even the course. Once we hadn't been informed in time. There wasn't a coherent program which could start from the basis, for people who didn't know the language at all. The teachers made the effort to get our attention but they spoke only in Swedish from the beginning and they were going too fast. I couldn't even follow the lesson, so I quit.
I was happy, though, about the possibility we had to attend this course and to have the book all for free, but unfortunately it didn't match my expectations.

I wasn't attending courses, but working in a lab for my thesis project. From what I saw, I think that the supervisor/student relationship is very constructive. I loved the indipendence they accorded to me and the possibility I had to follow and work on my own project. All the people were very helpful but they left me the time and space to learn by myself. I had the feeling they trusted me. I saw a good attention to practice education besides the theory and I think it is a fundamental step of everyone's education. I was impressed by the organization. Everything was close to perfection and there was a good collaboration among people. I think that the tendency Swedish people have to define the responsibilities for everything, to write labels for everything and to organize in detail everything really helped things work, although sometimes I thought they were a bit exaggerated. In Italy doesn't work like that. There are a few people that do all the work, while the other just think they have the right to work less(and they can't be fired so easily). The responsibilities are not splitted among people because it is thought it's not necessary, but sometimes I think it is.
I saw people making efforts to reach their goals without getting across anyone and I think this is positive, although sometime I felt like there were very competent and brilliant people who couldn't work at 100% in order to keep the balance in the work team. In my country, if you're good, you can go high, although often this is difficult because of higher and not vey clean interests.
What I learned, indeed, was the tolerance and, moreover, the respect for people. In Sweden you can feel equality and you can feel that they have true respect for people.