I arrived 9 days before the university started. In the week before the real courses started, there was an introduction week which was really interesting and handy. I did an intensive language course (3 days) for free to learn a bit of Swedish. This was really useful for the rest of my stay and it is also nice to meet new people who are also new in Stockholm. The last two days of the introduction week were introduction days of the university with a lot of information about the university, studying here and other activities that the student association organises. This was a really nice week to meet new people and get to know the university. 

I also signed up for a buddy program, a buddy is a student that already knows the city and university. It was really handy to meet her and to have someone to ask questions about basic things in Sweden. 

KI housing

KI has a really nice accommodation system, but I’ve heard that you have to sign up early. I directly applied for a student room after I got my letter of acceptance. I applied for student housing in Solna (Strix) and I got a place in a corridor with 11 other international students. Strix is located in Solna, which is a 25 minute walk from the Solna campus or 20 minutes by bus. Most of the students in KI corridors are international students and that makes it really nice to live here. My room was pretty big (16 m²), was fully furnished and I had my own bathroom.  I had to share the kitchen with the 11 other students which was fine and it was never really busy in the kitchen. The kitches has all the stuff you need, so I didn't have to buy a lot of things myself!

If you want to take a look at KI housing: https://www.kihousing.se/

I participated in the buddy system and became member of MF, the study association of KI. Global Friends, the international organisation of MF, organises a lot of nice activities for international and exchange students. For example I went on a cruise to Helsinki and there were tours on Gamla Stan. Participating in these kind of events, was an easy way to meet other people and explore the city and student life in Stockholm. You can also easily participate in sport teams, choirs or committees. There was a helpful event in the beginning of the semester where all the committees and organisations were present. You could ask them question and also sign up for some committees and organisations.

When I was younger, I always thought about living abroad and how that would be. When I had to choose an university, I chose one where there were many possibilites to go abroad. My home university (in Leiden, the Netherlands) has a special exchange program for students from the second year of the bachelor to go to Karolinska. Every year a group of 10 students goes to Sweden for 1 semester and there are also students of Karolinska coming to the Netherlands. This was the first option to study abroad and I really wanted to do that. My main reasons to go on exchange were the possibility to live in another city for 6 months, meet new international people and learn about another country and culture. Another reason was the opportunity to explore a new university and see how it all works there. 

Because 10 students of my year were going to KI and this exchange already exists for a few years, a lot of things were also organised for us which made it all a bit easier. We also didn't have to choose courses, because we were just going to follow the courses of the second year of Biomedicine. 

I made a list of things I had to organise myself, like housing and insurance, but also signing up for the introduction week and finding out if you need specific vaccinations. I would really recommend to other exchange students to make such a list, because a lot of small things have to be organised. I also got a list of KI of things I had to do before I arrived, that was really handy!

I have participated in an intensive Swedish course during the introduction days. I was in the beginner group, so we really started with the basics, like greeting and counting. I think these 3 days were really useful to get to know the language a bit and also learn some things about the culture, because the teacher also told a lot about the Swedish traditions and what you should not do in Sweden ;) 

Biomedicine bachelor 

At my home university, the education is a combination of some lectures and a lot of seminars. Here at KI, most of the information is given during lectures and I didn't have a lot of seminars. I also didn't have to read a lot myself, everything you needed to know for the exam was told in the lectures. Almost in every course, we had to write at least 1 project of lab report. That was different than at my home university, but I also liked this system although I would have liked to get some more assignments and seminars to practice. 

In a normal week, we had every morning 3/4 hours of lectures and sometimes lectures or lab in the afternoon. You can easily ask teachers questions during or after lectures and everything is really informal. They always like to answer your questions!