Exchange report - incoming students
Home university: Universiteit Leiden
Study programme: Biomedicine
Exchange programme: Erasmus
Semester: Autumn semester 2010/2011
Name: Marloes Bosselaar
Email address: marloes.bosselaar@hotmail.com

Arrival and registration

Everything is new when you arrive in a new country, a new city and a new university. In the beginning Global Friends wasn't able to pick us up to get the keys, so we had to ask some friends who where already in Sweden to pick up our keys. The welcoming dinner and especially the Solvik weekend where one of the best experiences of my exchange. In this way, I got to know a lot of other international students and made friends. Although I would have liked to have an introduction day a bit earlier to get to know other international students.

The introduction day at KI was very informative. I remember the people from the health centre were there, but I didn't sign anything for them and I haven't ever been there.

Acommendation

The housing was very good! The procedure to get an appartment at Pax was very easy, I almost didn't do anything for it. The rooms had a lot of space and I was very pleased with my own bathroom. Also the kitchen was very big and I had more than enough space for all my food to store. I have to get used to my small room back home! The costs were also good for the space I got.
Mitt rum på Akamwesi Hostel

Leisure time and social activities

I really liked the activities that Global friends organised. In this way I got to know a lot of international people and this is one of the reasons I liked my stay that much! I would have liked to have an activity much earlier in the semester (one of the first days). I didn't make many swedish friends.

Fiskare på Lake Nabugabo

Pre-departure

A lot to think about when you're going on an exchange, but fortunately everything was arranged quite well so I knew what to do and where to go.

Courses during the exchange period

BIOX05 : BACH - Infection and Immunity
The immunology lectures were very good and interesting. The lectures of virology can be improved. The planning of the experiments was very bad and sometimes we had to wait for a very long time, or come to the lab for just 10 minutes or so.
BIOX06 : BACH - Integrative Physiology
I liked the idea of having different subjects every week. But we were very dependent on the lecturer if we understood everything or that we had to read a lot in the books ourselves. I think it can be good to give the students some questions and answers afterwards so they know better what is important.

Summary

I've had a really good time in Stockholm at KI. I'm really happy I made the choice to come to Sweden. I learned a lot, on social and academic level and I made some friends from all over the world. I'm gonna miss it!
Jättesköldpadda, ca 200 år gammal.

Language and Culture

I did participate in a language course, once a week for 10 weeks. In the beginning it was quite interesting, but later on it became very boring. The levels of the students in the class were very different so some found it too difficult while some found it too easy. I think it would be better if some homework will be given, because in that way you learn the best. But I wasn't really motivated to learn swedisch because I didn't go on with the swedisch students in my class that much, and 5 months is way too short to learn a language. Also, all swedisch people can talk englisch very well.

Studies in general

In Sweden, there are much more lectures compared to more seminars back in Holland. It was different, and sometimes itwas more difficult to get to know the most important things because we never had to answer questions like we do in seminars back home. Because we had so many lectures, I was a little bit disappointed by the lecturers, because some of them couldn't give a presentation very well. They weren't very enthousiastic themselves.