•  Arrival instructions were straightforward and everything was set up before my actual arrival.

• From UAC, I was offered a big and nice newly-renovated room in the southern suburbs. On the one hand, it took me 1 hour to go to Solna each morning and 1 hour back. On the other hand, it is well known that the living situation in Stockholm is very difficult due to an accommodation shortage. To conclude, I was glad of being offered an accommodation (even if it was far out) instead of having to look on the privat market when being new in the city/country.

Therefore, I recommend everyone planning to come here to look for university accommodation as early as possible.

• As I had the chance to live in UAC housing, I met lots of different guest researchers and exchange students from all over the world. In addition, there were many international people in my lab. Therefore, my daily life was multi-cultural.

• Nevertheless, I also had the chance to get to know Swedish people and the Swedish culture, be it in the lab or just because of living in the capital of Sweden.

The purpose of my stay at KI was finishing my master´s programme in Molecular Medicine through a lab project.

• At the very beginning of my master´s course at TCD, I got informed that it forms part of an exchange programme for biomedical students between 8 European universities. This allows students to go abroad in order to take part in educational programmes such as a practical project. So, it offered a great opportunity for me to do the regular final part of my master´s and, at the same time, stepping out of my home institution in order to gain as much experience as possible. Additionally, from previous stays abroad, I was aware how much they had already broadened my horizon.

• Therefore, I applied for the exchange programme in order to go to KI. Selecting KI as the exchange university was due to its great reputation, specifically because of the expertise in the field I applied to. Additionally, I had never been to Sweden before, which made KI even more of interest for me. 

• As this biomedical exchange programme was very specific, I had a direct coordinator from both my home university and the exchange university plus the international coordinators from both universities, which all helped a lot in order to make the exchange application and the actual stay as easy as possible. For me, there were no further requirements than would have been when staying in Ireland except for filling out the application forms, booking a flight and getting to know KI and Stockholm.

• The decision of applying for the lab project abroad at KI was the best decision I could have made for myself half a year ago. The atmosphere in a university that puts its whole emphasis on human biology and related subjects is just amazing. Being part of this community was impressive and motivating. Therefore, it was an honour to contribute for several months. 

This exchange would not have been possible without the support of many people both from TCD and KI. Therefore, I want to express my sincere gratitude to everyone that contributed to the great experience I was able to make at KI.

• As my exchange was only for a shorter time period and as the Swedish language courses involved several hours per week, I finally decided not to take part. Instead, I bought a Swedish language book in order to study the language on the long way to work.

• My study experiences were those of the lab project. The lab itself was very international and the working atmosphere quite relaxed without losing any focus onto the work. This finally made it a productive and enjoyable stay. 

• The relationship between KI supervisor and student seemed to be very effective: on the one hand, the student can seek for guidance and clearly benefit from the experience of the supervisor. On the other hand, the student is given a good amount of responsibility in order to conduct the lab work on his or her own.