Student blogs

Just one of the many water views in Stockholm

Wanting to go back into academia (It’s never too late!) and then choosing Nutrition-

Wow, it actually seems so long ago since I was there sitting in my house pondering about life and the future, oh and of course applying to Karolinska Institutet (KI). After arriving back in the UK from travelling and living abroad, I was working in the restaurant that I had previously been a chef at. This time however I was pub supervisor and had the thought of pursuing a career in restaurant management (who knows maybe one day I will).

After some consideration I realised that I wanted a job in academia and the associated lifestyle, rather than that of hospitality; which involved working weekends, late nights and sometimes over 50hrs a week. I started to think about what subject I would be interested in and realised that I am very passionate about the food that we eat, keeping physically active and biology. Thus nutrition was my choice.

Why KI?

I started to research the Universities where I could go in order to complete a Master’s and made my picks based on the quality/content of the course and the location (which is important for me). I found KI to be of particular interest and they provide a range of Global Master’s programmes . Some of the reasons for this is because:

• It is abroad and in a country that I had wanted to live in
• It has a great reputation for research and provides high quality education
• The modules of the programme look interesting
• The programme includes teaching you on how to think scientifically and critically evaluate
• It is a 1 year Master’s programme
• It’s in Stockholm which is beautiful
• And yes the course is in English (lucky me)

KI’s nutrition programme seemed somewhat different to the others that were offered by other Universities, for me it has more of an emphasis on how to think like a scientist, critique evidence and combine knowledge from different areas of nutrition rather than writing down facts about nutrition physiology and then being assessed in the traditional exam format.

The Application:

Writing the statement of intent made me consider why I really wanted to pursue a career in nutrition and what career objectives I had of my own. I had to think about which areas of nutrition I would like to go into and really think about the overall purpose and relevance that nutrition has in our society. I realised that I wanted to make an impact on the quality of peoples lives and try to tackle some of the global nutritional health problems present in the World today.

The application is not just an opportunity to state why you want to study but also a way to show what kind of person you are through work experience or extracurricular activities that you have completed. I included extracurricular activities such as: working in an after school club, participating in a chef’s competition at school and captaining the squash team at the University of Stirling.

View over the city; would you not want to come here?

I made my application around December/January time and heard back a few months later. I hope that many of you applying to KI have a smooth application process and will have the opportunity to study here! To those applying Lycka Till (good luck in Swedish)!!

Any questions, don’t hesitate to contact me- callum.morison.regan@stud.ki.se