Since I haven't had any contact persons in Stockholm, or people I knew it was difficult to find a good accomodation. At the end I found a nice couple through friends from friends. They charged me an average amount of housing costs, which was about 400€ per month. It was a nice experience to live with this swedish couple and therefore to have a good inside in the swedish culture. On the other hand living with other students could have been also a nice experience.
I got the chance to go abroad for one semester. As I experienced before, going abroad is a great possibility to broaden your horizone. Therefore, I was happy to join a program at one of our (Maastricht University) partner Universities. The Karolinska Institutet was my first choice. I wanted to go there because of its good reputation. Furthermore, they offered to be an exchange in the Global Health Master, in which I had an particular interest.
The preperation was mainly filling in forms from my University and KI, but furthermore it was not required to provide certain certificates or something else. Everything was going well, I just got my timetable for dutch lessons, the introduction days and the classes quite late.
3GB000 : GH-Global Health
The Global Health Introduction course was very broad. The topics of the lectures seemed not to have a central theme. But this course as well was very interesting for me.
3GB014 : GH-Health Policy, Management and Economics
I also liked this course a lot. I enjoyed the class, especially when we worked in groups and presented different financing systems in diverse countries.
3GB001 : GH-Research Methodology
I was surprised how much statistics and methodology this course covered. Almost everything I learned in my Bachelors came back in a very compromised but clear way.
3GB016 : GH-Infectious Diseases - a challenge to global health: Clinical, social and preventive aspects (GH)
The Infectious Diseases course was my favorite one. In comparison to the other topic that course gave more medical and biological insides. Furthermore, we had a lot of examples and group work during that course. Further, the coordinator of this course was very enthusiastic and driven.
I was very pleased with my stay in Stockholm. Everything went well and the studyprogramme was very interesting. However, Global friends could have interact earlier, but I think they were just about to start with their activity last year.
I participated in a Swedish language course offered by Studiefrämjandet, starting during the introduction days. Unfortunately I haven't learned a lot since our language teacher was often absent from class en was not very enthusiastic in teaching.
Later on I participated in a language course organized by Global friends, which was very helpful and interesting. Swedish students from KI gave lessons once in a week. The groups were smaller and the students more willing to teach you everything you could need in Stockholm.
Compared to Maastricht University, I experienced a very different learning system. We often had classes from 9 to 4pm which was exhausting sometimes. On the other hand we had a lot of external speakers during the lectures which was really refreshing and gave us a broad view on the topics we discussed.