Exchange report - incoming students
Home university: Universität Wien
Study programme: Public Health Sciences (Master's)
Exchange programme: Erasmus
Semester: Autumn semester 2009/2010

Arrival and registration

I arrived in Stockholm in the afternoon and met one of the Global Friends organisation at the central station. There I got my keys for the room and was brought to the student accomodation. This was very helpful because I think otherwise it would have been very exhausting collecting the keys and finding the right apartment with the heavy luggage all by myself.

The introduction day was very nice. There were a lot of interesting and helpful lectures and I get to know other exchange students. I was a little bit confused by all those cards and fees (KI card, student union fee etc.) but in the end I found my way through the queues.

Acommendation

I applied for a student accommodation via UAC. It was very easy and I didn´t have to wait and search very long for a room.

During my stay at KI I lived in PAX 3. The size and furniture of the room was quite ok but almost all kitchens and bathrooms were under construction and so it was very noisy and dusty all of the time. Besides that I had to use the kitchen on the other corridor and this was very annoying because you had to store all the cooking stuff and food in your room and bring everything to the other kitchen. Sometimes it was very crowded as well (because of the douple occupancy) and I had no chance to prepare my meal.

Moreover I heard that there were problems with vermins in this student accommodation. I met some people who had bedbugs in their rooms - this was the most negative impression I got from the housing in Stockholm.
Fortunately I didn´t had any problems by myself.

Leisure time and social activities

There were a lot of social programmes taking place during my stay in Sweden but I didn´t participate.
I got to know some Swedish people; with some I´m still in contact from time to time  but most of my new friends are from other countries.

Pre-departure

It was always my desire - since I started my studies - studying abroad.
First of all to study in a foreign language, then to get to know how other universities in Europe are structured and to meet other people and cultures.
I chose KI because I knew that there were a lot of experts working in the field of public health and I wanted to learn from them. In my home country this area is quite new so I thought it would be a good idea to go to Sweden where this field is more advanced - and it was a good idea in fact.

Every information I got from KI was very well structured, detailed and coherent. In the beginning - I guess - it´s a little bit troublesome filling in all the required documents, choosing the right courses and sending all the documents by email or mail , but there were always people answering my emails very quickly and carefully. Also the information I got from my university was very good and my responsible coordinator was reliable all the time.

Courses during the exchange period

FN1X03 : PHN - Health Promotion in Nutrition and Physical Activity
......................................excellent teachers and lecturers ......................................well structured .....................................too much workload .....................................too many group assignments .....................................too less credits for the course (for this workload) .....................................no breaks between big assignments and exams
F2XX09 : PHN - Public Health Surveillance in Europe
excellent teachers and lecturers well structured good balance between individual and group assignments very good excursions during the course
FPHN01 : PHN - Global Nutrition
excellent teachers and lecturers well structured good balance between individual and group assignments very good practical lectures during the course

Summary

In general I´m very pleased.
But maybe it would be better if there is some breathing pause between the courses.
During my courses I didn´t had a lot of rest between and during the courses and therefore I wasn´t able to 
see a lot of Sweden or taking part in social programmes organised by Global Friends or Student Union.

Language and Culture

I participated in a Swedish language course at Studiefrämjandet. 

We were just 4-6 people and our teacher was very nice. 

Sometimes I got the impression that some of the other participants didn´t want to learn the language so we had to repeat everything more than once. But our teacher was very patient. I think if there would be more people it would be more fun - maybe to merge courses in case of small classes.

Moreover I think it´s not necessary to buy the course book because the time frame is too short to work very intensely.

It would be better to hand out some copies and pay for it extra.

Studies in general

I got very good impressions of the Swedish study environment. Everything was clear from the beginning and if there were some obscurities all teachers were very helpful. The relationship between student and teacher was very amicable. This was very pleasant and a very nice way to communicate. In my home country the relationship between teachers and students is more strict and distant; resulting from different hierarchical structures of cultures (I guess).

In my home country we´re used to work by ourselves most of the time; at KI I had to do a lot of groupwork and group assignments - this was the greatest difference and it was a great challenge to adjust to these new circumstances.
For me it would be easier having more individual assignments because in group work you have to discuss not only the content of the assignment but also a lot of organisational things and this takes a lot of time and is very exhausting as well.