Exchange report - incoming students
Home university: Università di Bologna
Study programme: Psychology
Exchange programme: Erasmus
Semester: Spring semester 2016/2017
Name: Arianna Capitanio
Email address: arianna.capitanio@studio.unibo.it

Arrival and registration

At KI every person I met was really kind and ready to help.
Before my arrival I was provided with a campus' map, information about pubblic transport, about travel card etc.
At the introduction day thay explained something about both Sweden and its culture and about KI. There were some students' associations which helped exchange students in getting familiar with Sweden and KI, thanks to organized tours of Stockholm and KI campus.

Acommendation

I asked for a room in a students house at KI housing. Ki also provided me information about how to apply for a room to KI housing. As a defect I must say that the confirmation of the room arrived really late, but the room was really nice and provided with everything necessary, like bed, desk, chair, pillow etc.

The rent was fair, considering that I had my private bathroom and that the rent included electricity, heat, water etc... The kitchen was shared with other 9 students, but there were rules about cleaning, and every student has got his/her own space in fridge, freezer, cupboard etc.

Leisure time and social activities

I partecipate to the introduction day and to some guided tour of Stockholm and KI campus in january (at the beginning of my period in sweden), organized by the global friends, but not to other activities.
In my class I was surrounded by swedish students, therefore I had the opportunity to see swedish culture in my everyday life.

Pre-departure

I choose to go on exchange bacuse I wanted to meet new cultures and know new people and to develop a more international point of view.
I chose KI because I knew it is a really important university in the field of medicin and science, and that in Sweden the approch for psychology is completely different from the approch we have in Italy. In Italy psychology is seen as a pre-path to psychotherapy, that explain behaviour in term of forces internal to the subject but put no attention on the brain's function, while at Ki they stressed a lot the importance of neuroscience and cognitive functions as drivers of behaviour.
Ki gave to my home univeristy the possibility to choose among different courses, helded in both sweden or english. I had to bring no more certificates than the ones written of the KI webpage in the section exchange studies, which is really well explained.

Courses during the exchange period

2PS029 : Cognitive Processes
This course started with a statistic part, explained really well by the teacher. The examination was composed of several open questions and was well-built. This part was in english. The cognitive part was composed of different topic, and for each topic there was a different teacher. All the lessons were in english, because some of the teachers were not swedish. For each theorical lesson there was a practical seminar or demonstration later. About the cognitive examination, it was composed by 10 big open questions of 4 point each, and I think this method of examination is quite unfair (because there were a lot of topic in the course, but only some of them were present in the examination, some topic were completely excluded). At the end, we were divided in groups and have to conduct our own experiment to report in a research, referring also to previoulsy literature on that topic. Also this part was in english. In general, the quality of the teaching was really high and relevant with my program.
2PS003 : Social Psychology
One big limitation of this course was that it was not completely in english. The part number 3, about the psychological interview, was in swedish, and even if I was provided english literature, for me was really difficolt to study and to pass the examination, because it was oral and practice (and I did not have the opportunity to practice, because oral practice was in swedish). The social psychology part (part number 1) was expained in english. The teaching was really high and the topic was relevant to my program. The examination of this part was composed by several open questions, and all the topic were present on the examination. The last part of the course required us to write two papers and to do a group work. At the end the group organized a presentation of their project, but unfortunately also parts of this presentation were in swedish.

Summary

In general, my period at Ki was amazing and I could feel the distance between KI's teaching and my home university's teaching. The level of KI is really high, students are encouraged in interaction during lessons and the theorical part is alwasy followed by a practical part.

Language and Culture

My courses were supposed to be in english, but unfortunately some parts were hold in swedish. I think that, as every students and also the teacher, can speak fluently english, it would have been better to have all my courses in english, as it was written on the web site of KI.

Studies in general

The relationship between students and teacher really surprised me, because it is really informal. During lesson students could ask questions, make suggestions, the lessons were based on interaction. The teacher left space for group works and projects. My international coordinator was always ready to help me with the document about my exchange program.

At KI, as a difference from my home university, I noticed that theorical lessons are not everything, but that there is a lot of practice, seminars and demonstration. I did some group works, I had to write some papers and to present some my ideas and projects, which encouraged interaction and active role in the class. And finally, referring to my subject, psychology, at KI the point of view is really scientific, the teacher always said something about previously researches and focus on neuroscience, always explaining and referring to brain function, while in Italy we focus more on psychotherapy.