Student blogs

In just a week, I’ll officially be done with the first year of my bachelor’s studies—and I can hardly believe how fast the time has flown. It’s been an incredible year here in Stockholm. I know I talk so positively about my experience that it might sound exaggerated, as if I’m being paid to say all this—but truly, I’ve loved it here!

There are so many reasons why: this year has been full of new experiences, new friendships, exploring a new city and culture, fun nights out, all-day study sessions, trips to Uppsala, arts and crafts at SNNC, late-night saunas at MF, working at the bar, organizing events, and attending them too.

Studying the Bachelor’s Programme in Biomedicine at KI has given me far more than just academic knowledge and lab skills. By getting involved in student life and the many organizations across Stockholm, I’ve learned so many different skills and met so many new people.

So here’s a blog summing up all that I’ve been up to during this year! It’s quite a long read, so here’s a timeline of what I’ll talk about!

The timeline of my year (and all I’ll cover in this blog)

Intro week: from strangers to my now closest friends

Intro week I’d argue was the most exciting part of the year. Everything is new- the people, the university, the city, the student traditions, I loved it. There are a lot of activities organized by the welcoming committee packed in one week. I found it a great way to get to meet people even outside of your course and just have fun before studies begin. It’s crazy now looking back that the people I met and began to hang out with during this intro period have now become some of my closest friends. Interested in knowing more of what to expect from intro week? I suggest you have a read of my blog: Recap of intro week at KI.

Nights out all over Stockholm (including a few trips to Uppsala)

…And I was worried that studying at KI and in Stockholm would be at the cost of a student life…I was wrong. All you have to do is find like-minded people who love to have fun. Whenever possible, we were out- regardless of if it was a spontaneous outing in the middle of the week, or a planned trip to Uppsala. I you want to be convinced you’ll have an amazing time in Stockholm, here’s a livestream that tells you nearly everything you can expect from student life: Student Life at Karolinska Institutet: Unions, Social Life & Volunteering Explained | Livestream

SNNC 2024

I happen to be a big fan of the Students’ Nobel NightCap because I think its insane that hundreds of students from four different universities in Stockholm work together to create a massive, exclusive afterparty to conclude the Nobel week. From designing all the decor elements that transform rooms completely, then organizing all the food, beverages, entertainment, finance, safety…etc. It’s a lot of work, but also a lot of fun, and you get to make some great new friends. Here’s a link to my blog on SNNC: Behind the scenes of the Student Nobel NightCap if you want to get a better picture of what exactly it is! I talk a bit about it in the student-life livestream too, also giving information about how to become part of the team!

Bonding with the second year bachelor’s students

This is something I had hoped for when I was moving to Stockholm, worried that I might not end up bonding with any of my classmates. (That’s a stupid fear.) Nevertheless I’m glad we got to bond not just with our course group, but also with the second year students in our program. They were so welcoming and were really helpful- often checking in on us, giving advice, till eventually we started hanging out too. So, big shoutout to them, we’ll miss them as most of them go on exchange in their last semester next year. 🙁

Slowly working my way to becoming a PrU member

TEDx KI, organizing the KI research project fair, and attending Synapse events

This is to show that there’s also plenty more academic organizations you can be part of. These were all great learning experiences. I was part of TEDx KI as an assistant to the executive producer and got to be backstage, take care of the stage setup, and hype up the hosts (one of which happened to be Joseba, a digital ambassador.)

The KI research project fair is a fair organized to bridge the gap between research groups at KI and students within the field of biomedical science. I know that at least two of my friends have now secured internships for next year thanks to having met the researchers at this fair. 

Although I wasn’t part of synapse this year, I attended two of their events. Synapse is a non-profit student led organization that creates events that are meant to bridge industry and research. It was interesting to get to hear presentations from people working in venture capital, in clinical trials, or working on their own startups. Their events definitely help students learn about all the different career opportunities within industry. Its great for networking too since you’re also able to talk to the speakers after their presentations. 

Learning Swedish at SFI

Although everyone does speak English, I’ve been trying to learn Swedish since I came here to integrate better. I started with an intro course that’s paid for by KI, and then continued my studies at my local SFI (Svenska för invandrare which translates to Swedish for Immigrants.) These courses are free for immigrants and I found them very good and useful. They provide learning material, and lessons are twice a week- would recommend if learning Swedish is something you’re interested in.

Valborg

Valborg (Walpurgis Night) is a big celebration in Sweden, celebrated on April 30th to welcome spring. In Uppsala the city becomes flooded with students who disperse themselves over parks and enjoy the day. Starting with champagne breakfast early in the morning, to watching the boat races, (a few other Swedish traditions in between like the throwing of your graduation hat that looks like a sailors hat), to dancing around the big fire…or in our case a search for a corridor-fest. It was very fun to celebrate!

Quarnevalen: Volunteering at an after-party in an abandoned shopping mall

The title sort of says it all. This was an afterparty hosted for those that participated in boat building and a boat race in this years Quarnevalen. Quarnevalen is basically a “water festival?” (not too familiar with it) with the main focus being boat building. Groups of students from different student unions in Stockholm each build a boat. As far as I understood it, the party I worked at is a big party hosted every four years, with the fourth year called: Squavlp- which is an even bigger party. It is always in a secret location that the boat builders have to find through a riddle. They had live music, several bars, and good food- in a literal abandoned shopping mall. It was definitely a very unique experience and I’m really happy I got to participate!

SNNC…again

I liked it so much (despite it being very stressful in December) that I am participating in it again but with a slightly bigger role. Last winter I was in charge of the design and decor of one room, this time I’m in charge of the decor in all rooms. We’ve already met with the team and have had several meetings together to get to know each other. It’s been a lot of fun already and will continue to be a lot of fun…and more work in the weeks approaching the big party.

Biobollen 2025!

This might have to be a blog on its own but put simply: Biobollen is a gathering of students from biomedicine programs all over Sweden (this year hosted at KI) where students compete in Brännboll (kind of like baseball) and have two sittnings to get to know each other. Although we had poor weather conditions on the field, (…and KI’s team was far from winning) it was fun and a great way to bond with students from other unis in Sweden.

What courses we’ve completed during this time…and how we’ve studied for exams

• Introduction to biomedicine
• Organic chemistry
• Developmental and stem cell biology (I wrote a blog about this course: Course insight!)
• Biochemistry
• Genetics, genomics and functional Genomics
• Chemical biology

My personal favorite course was controversially a tie between organic chemistry and chemical biology. Turns out I really liked the chemistry parts of the course and enjoyed the last course because I found it more applicable to the real world of drug development. 

How do we study? Well, oftentimes we end up somehow so busy during the course that all of a sudden we realize there’s less than two weeks left till our exam. And when there’s only a few days left we find ourselves taking over the KI library, booking study rooms all day if necessary. It ends up being quite fun, we write on the boards, run to different study rooms for help, get each other to take breaks and quick runs to the nearby store for snacks. For our last exam we even explored different libraries, KTH’s library for example is also very pretty.

The year isn’t over yet! Here’s what I’m still looking forward to: 

Summer internship at the KI Summer School in Medical Research

I will be working under my supervisor Johannes Blom, whose research group works with prevention and screening of colorectal cancer. After the many lab practicals we’ve had during the year I’ve begun to learn I’m not too much of a wet-lab person. So, the project I’ll be working on is data based… I’m saving the details for another blog at the end of the summer school! If you’re interested in learning more about what the summer school is check out KI’s page: KI Summer School in Medical Research.

Midsommar

Again this is a really big celebration in Sweden marking the summer solstice and I’m excited to get to spend it at one of my Swedish friends’ summer house down south. 

Welcoming new students in August 2025!

After enjoying some time off back home with family, I’ll be returning to Stockholm to present my research project and then be a “fadder” for intro week, taking care of a fresh group of students and giving them a warm welcome to KI!

It’s been quite a busy year… and I’m already thinking about how to make my next year busier!