Student blogs

The Toxicology Master’s at Karolinska Institutet turned 50! Did you know that that makes it one of the oldest toxicology programmes in the world?

Really, what a lucky time to be a student! We got to join the celebration, which consisted of an afternoon seminar followed by dinner and entertainment. And some of us even volunteered to help with organizing the day, both with entertainment and practicalities.

I believe I can speak for all my peers when I say that we really felt the tox community, got inspired for the future and, most importantly, had lots of fun!

Community

The atmosphere throughout the whole day was amazing. It sounds cheesy, but there really was a sense of community that came simply from knowing that everyone shares the interest in toxicology and has been shaped by experiences and learnings from the master’s programme.

A slide show with photos from the past 50 years showed that we’ve all made (or will have made, by the end of our studies) similar memories during our time in the master’s. There were photos of everything from ordinary days, like students in class rooms, group work and presentations, to study trips to different countries, different institutions, agencies, companies, and of course plenty of celebrations: anniversaries, graduations and all that comes up. The only real difference in the photos was the 50 year span that made some of them look like straight out of a documentary about the 80s, 90s, 2000s. It seems like traveling back in time only changes haircuts of students and interior design of classrooms, but not the spirit of the toxicology programme.

Inspiration

At the seminar in Aula Medica, a handful of alumni presented their careers and reflections on their time and learnings from the master’s. And also later, when catching up with some other alumni, it was so interesting to hear how (and what!) they are doing now. Everyone I talked with had taken different paths; pharma, regulations, environment… just to name a few.

By the way, if you too want to be inspired by alumni, I recommend you to keep an eye on my blog in the near future. There are some pretty interesting alumni interviews on the way…

Fun

What would a celebration be without entertainment? I won’t be able to list all, see the photos below for some examples:

Something else that you can’t see in the photos is that there was also a lot of music throughout the evening, both live performances as well as a DJ – one of our classmates!

Looking forward to the next 50 years!

To everyone who made this wonderful celebration happen, and to everyone who makes and has made this programme so celebration-worthy in the first place: Thank you! I’m really proud and honoured to be a toxicology student at KI, and this anniversary reminded me of that.

Thanks for the party, and thanks for reading. I’m looking forward to the next 50 years of the programme!

(photo credits to all above: Linnea Thimm, Sofie Hemström)