SwedenInTouch

Back to KI from exchange in Toronto

Si Chen — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 13:59:04 GMT

I’m back! Back to Sweden, back on swedenintouch.se and back to my blog!

So, in the last semester I was not active here, since I went on exchange to the University of Toronto (Canada) through the exchange programme at Karolinska Institutet. During the second year of the Biomedicine Master’s programme, we got the chance to get away (again, for me) and I, luckily, received a placement for the University of Toronto.

Honestly, I never thought I would end up in Canada for one semester during my studies in Sweden. Life is just full of surprises! It is great that KI even offers international students to go on exchange. After all, the world is becoming more globalized and students should be encouraged to experience different cultures, get to know more places, make new personal experiences and broaden their horizons to develop their personalities. And those are exactly the reasons why I chose to go on exchange.

The application was quite simple. It included writing a motivation letter, a CV and handing them in with an online application form. The decision was made based upon grades, the motivation letter and extracurricular/social activities. KI has a lot of partner universities around the globe, including Paris, Heidelberg, Göttingen, Edinburgh, Sydney, Singapore,… So, there were plenty of options to choose from. I chose Toronto, since I was interested in stem cell research and Toronto is known to be excellent in this field. Moreover, I wanted to get further away (after all, Sweden is not that much different from Germany, where I came from).

During my exchange at University of Toronto I took two courses and worked on a stem cells project. The courses were held in the style of seminars, with only 12 students that were supervised by 2 professors. Thus, mentoring by the professors was very intense. The project I did was highly interesting and involved the development of lung cells from skin cells of patients. The research quality at the University of Toronto is excellent and I really learned a lot.

The University of Toronto is a huge university (with 70 000 students!) and is very different from KI. There are many activities to join at the university, and the campus is like a small town with all the available services. There are thousands of clubs (sports clubs, social clubs, political clubs and many more), freely accessible athletic centers with gyms, tracks for running, swimming pools, squash courts etc., a university-own theatre and many more. You could never get bored and I really enjoyed having the opportunity to join so many different activities, especially in the light of the fact that it was very easy to get to know people through these activities.

Furthermore, Toronto, as the largest city in Canada, bears many interesting things to discover. Below you can the beautiful skyline of Toronto (shot from the Toronto Islands, a popular place to go in the summer). Toronto is very multi-cultural and diverse with festivals, cuisines and people from all over the world which makes it a very exciting city. Different parts of the city (or so-called neighborhoods) all have their special style, so you feel like in a different city depending on which district you are in.

During my stay I also got to explore Canadian nature a little bit. I undertook trips to the Niagara Falls and a provincial park close to Toronto. There are a lot of forests and lakes around Toronto. Especially during the fall when all the maple trees turn into a plethora of colors it becomes very beautiful.

Overall, I really enjoyed getting to know the North American university life, Canada and making new friends from all over the world.

Back at KI I have now to get my courses accredited, once I get my grades from the University of Toronto. My project was examined at KI (I had to hand in a report and give a presentation on the project), so there was no problem for getting that accredited.

Denmark for Christmas

Will Miller — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 17:24:30 GMT

Hej Everyone!

My last post talked a bit about my Christmas experience here in Sweden with a close friend of mine and her family. This was actually on Christmas Eve, which is when it seems most Europeans celebrate Christmas by opening gifts and enjoying a fine meal in the evening.

For Christmas Day, the 25th of December, I went on a trip to Copenhagen, Denmark with my friend Frank. We stayed there for 5 days and managed to visit a large number of notable sites and enjoy some Danish traditions and food. Below are some photos with some descriptions.

The photo below is a photo of my first genuinely Danish-made pastries. Needless to say, they were quite tasty.

The next photo is a HDR of the Rosenborg Castle in Copenhagen. It is located on a beautiful landscaping and the day was perfect for photography.

The picture below is of the infamous Mermaid statue in Copenhagen. Apparently the tourist "thing to do" is to go and see this statue. The photo is also HDR.

Below is a photo of barren trees on a path in a park near Rosenborg Castle. This is also a HDR photo.

The next 5 photos were taken at Tivoli Gardens--the park opened on August 15, 1843 and is the second oldest amusement park in the world. They had a temporary exhibit about the history of the famous Titanic cruise ship. In addition, our time at Tivoli Gardens was even highlighted by my enjoyment of a huge stick of pink cotton candy (they didn't have "blue-flavor"). The park was breathtaking by day, and at night-time the park came alive in a completely different way. Tivoli is definitely a must-visit location when in Copenhagen.

The next picture is of the Copenhagen City Hall--a beautiful building.

This next photo is particularly interesting. Before I explain, first look at the price listed in the lower right-hand corner. Look again--yes, it says 16596 euros. This photo was taken in a store called Royal Copenhagen. They make some of the worlds finest hand-made porcelain. What you see in the picture below was completely hand-made and hand-painted. Whether this justifies the cost... that's another issue. Regardless, it is a work of art. Check out the company at http://www.royalcopenhagen.com/.

The next picture was taken on a bridge crossing over a canal in Copenhagen. It was about 7 degrees Celsius outside--and on the water, even colder.

The next photo is peculiar. It is a picture of a glove (my glove, in fact). During my months in Stockholm I have noticed countless gloves seemingly abandoned by their owners. However, upon further thought, I think I know what's going on here. First, let us consider a few facts:

1. It's cold.
2. Gloves keep hands warm.
3. People have iPhones or touch screen phones.
4. Gloves inhibit finger coordination.

With all this in mind, I should also note that 90% of the gloves I see on the ground are either outside of the subway stations or near building entrances. I also notice that many people will check their phone when entering or leaving buildings (or the subway stations). Thus, I suspect that people remove one glove to be able to pull their phone out of their pocket, and also to then be able to touch the screen and use the phone... next thing they know, they're short one glove.

I swore this would never happen to me... so, of course, while walking around the freezing weather taking photos, I noticed that I was missing a glove. I traced my steps and found my glove sitting on a large dock where we had walked 15 minutes earlier. The photo shows the glove as I found it (and likely as I dropped it).

One of the museums we went to had a fantastic coin collection... oddly enough, they had a real Nobel Prize medal available for viewing.

The next photo is significant to me. I grew up playing with Legos, and I still get excited about them when I walk into toy stores. Legos were invented in Denmark, and while we were in Copenhagen, we made sure to visit a Lego store. They had a Lego model of a restaurant called Nyhavn 17. We actually went and dined at Nyhavn 17 on one of the nights during our stay--quite good food.

The next photo is interesting. If you look out the window, you might guess our train is on a bridge, and you would be correct. It is the Öresund Bridge, and it is the longest combined road-rail bridge in Europe. It runs between Copenhagen, Denmark and Malmö, Sweden.

As some of y'all may know, trains are not a major form of transportation in the US. Accordingly, I was pretty excited to be going on a 6 hour train ride. The next picture just demonstrates what kind of cabin we sat in on the way back to Sweden.

I like watches--a lot. I have seen ads and read quite a bit about Skagen watches before arriving in Europe, and upon seeing a Skagen store in Denmark (it is a Danish brand), I had to have a photo in front of it. See below.

As silly as this might sound, one of my goals while in Denmark was to eat what Americans call a Danish. I actually struggled to figure this out in most of the bakeries, but I finally managed on my last day in Denmark. Let me explain. Clearly, these pastries are not called Danishes in the Danish language--or in their bakeries. Enter Wikipedia article about Danishes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danish_(pastry)). I'll save you the time and just tell you that these delicious pastries are also called Spandauers. Armed with this new terminology, I was able to achieve my goal :)

Traveling aside, let me address a concern that some applicants to Karolinska Institutet's global masters programs have had--regarding age of most students in class. While most of the students are in their 20s, there are actually a number of students in my global health program that are over 30... and some that are over 40. If you are truly passionate about the field or area of the masters program, I would encourage you to discount your age as a reason for applying. Karolinska Institutet is an excellent institution to study at--go for it!

As always, I welcome your comments and ideas for future posts! Please feel free to drop me a message and let me know if you have any questions about Karolinska Institutet or the master programs here.

http://www.swedenintouch.se/Will-Miller/Blog/

Did you go to CHARM today?

Tingting Li — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 23:11:29 GMT

I didn't know what Charm was until today!! It’s too very great!

When you see this, Charm is not far away!

It's really a big day for Chalmers student. You can always find a good reason to go there: for internship? for summer job? for foreign opportunities? or just for free lunch and small gifts. Anyway, it's a good place to see almost all the big companies in Sweden and have face-to-face opportunities.
Before, I only know that on Charm, we don't have lectures. I thought maybe it was for rememorizing some big events or people who has made great contribution to Chalmers. However, about one week ago, I received an email about the invitation for Charm. Also, you can find this book almost everywhere in Chalmers. The book has simple descriptions of all the companies that will come on Charm, and what they offer, where they will show up.
As all together, it's approximately 170 companies, this book really helps a lot for guiding you to your target company.

The bible for Charm

In this book, for example, you can find IKEA: Show up at A/V building, they offer thesis, internship, summer jobs.

Below are the pictures from Charm:

The Student Union building first floor

SKF, on the Second floor of Student Union building

Interesting dialog with Volvo and Tetra, from the crowed seat, we can see they are really truely the most popular ones.

Even the upstairs is full !! What impressed me most was the suggestions they gave us : Be curious! Believe in yourself! Be social nerds!

In A/V building.

Tomorrow is the second and final day for Charm. I should tell those who missed it today: You have no reason to miss it tomorrow!! Go and have a look, you will find something you want.

A charming day at CHARM !!!

Mukul Lagu — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 14:50:26 GMT

Today was the first day of CHARM, for people who don’t know what CHARM is, it’s an annual two day career fair held at Chalmers. It is Scandinavia’s largest career fair and thus a great opportunity for students to meet the future employers and for companies to present themselves to young, talented students. It is being held for more than 35 years and this year around 180 companies participated in the events.

Today I attended a really witty but interesting lunch seminar held by Volvo and Tetra pack, two very well-known Swedish companies. Couple of executives from both the companies had really fascinating dialogue about what the companies are doing now, where the future is and what qualities they are looking in students that suit them well. Both the companies agreed that future is in renewable resources, sustainable development and mostly in BRIC nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China) which is very good news for me by the way J. They also introduced a special description “A social nerd” a nerd in technology who knows how to be social in global organization, pretty interesting.

Different companies offered different kinds of opportunities like summer jobs, master thesis, internships, trainee programs and so on. Personally I was more interested in finding out job opportunities after my masters Is finished. There are so many options to choose from, so many companies doing so many interesting things. Key here is to be yourself, have a confident discussion with company representatives, ask lots of questions about how is to work with the company and get further contact information so that you can send your CV or apply online. This process is bit different than India where companies come to campus to take interviews and hand-in offer letters on the same day. But still it is much more effective because a student get a chance to know what kind of work he will be doing, so that he can be extremely sure before applying for the interviews.

Other than the serious stuff of getting jobs and projects one can actually enjoy getting different goodies, participate in different quiz events and just have some funJ. I didn’t miss the chance to visit the Volvo tent outside student union building with the biggest truck on display. It was a monstrous machineJ.

Anyways, I had couple of really interesting chats with some companies and I have got couple of contacts that I can get into touch later. Plus there are so many trainee programs open for application. Hope for the best!!!

International masters applications rise despite high fees

Sokrates Nifakos — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 02:03:27 GMT

Applicants for international masters programmes in Sweden for 2012-13 are up 24% over last year, at 31,223. But this is significantly lower than before Sweden introduced tuition fees for students from outside the European Economic Area.

In 2010, 132,000 students applied for more than 500 masters programmes.

Swedish universities now have three strategic objectives: to broaden the number and quality of applicants from Europe who do not have to pay tuition fees; to compete globally for tuition fee-eligible students; and to recruit more Swedish students to the programmes.

One in four applicants for international masters studies in 2012 do not have to pay tuition fees.

The number who had paid the application fee by this week's deadline has increased to 6,182 from 5,061 last year, or 22%. In addition, 834 have paid application fees for single courses, an increase of 14%. Altogether 6,157 have applied for international courses, an increase of 7%.

It is not clear how many international students will be offered a study place, how many will pay the first instalment of the tuition fees by the first deadline of 15 June, how many have applied on the condition that they get a grant either from the Swedish government or a higher education institution to which they have applied, and above all how many will take up their place in August 2012.

Lund University in the south of Sweden has received most applicants with 11,160 (a 23% increase on 2011-12), followed by Stockholm University (6,444, up 30%), KTH-Royal Technological University, Stockholm (5,304, up 3.3%), Chalmers Technological University (4,355, up 7.8%), and Linköping University (4,355, up 34.7%). The Karolinska Institutet received a 50% increase in applications.

Lund had the most sought-after masters programme, in international marketing and brand management, with 992 applicants, while its masters in international development and management received 719 applications. Of the 20 most popular international masters programmes, Lund has nine.

Data on applicants nationality is not yet available. Early figures from the main sought-after institutions indicate significant changes in the countries of origin of the applicants.

But at Lund, UK students increased by 30%, US students by 20%, Australia by 75%, Denmark by 56%, Greece by 48% and The Netherlands by 26% over the previous year. Countries with a significant drop in the number of applicants include Pakistan (-42%), Bangladesh (-34%); Ethiopia (-41%), Nigeria (-42%) and Rwanda (-44%).

However some other countries in Africa and Asia show a strong increase, such as Thailand (up 271%), Indonesia (up 196%), Zambia (up 123%) and Egypt (up 126%).

Niklas Tranæus, project manager for Study Destination Sweden at the Swedish Institute, told University World News: “It is clear that international recruitment efforts have had an effect. Up until now Swedish higher education institutions have spent very little resources on international marketing and recruitment.

"Increasing one’s visibility in the global education market takes time and Sweden is far from a well-known study destination, so the effect should be even more notable in a few years time.”

At Stockholm University, where applications for international masters students are up 30% at 6,444, students from the UK are in the majority with 388 applicants, followed by Germany (374), China (276), Bangladesh (238), US (234) and Ethiopia (228).

Some 4,664 tuition fee-paying students have applied to Stockholm, compared with 3,015 last year (a 55% increase). The majority come from China, Bangladesh, the US and Ethiopia.

In 2011, approximately 5,000 students from outside European Economic Area were offered a study place in Sweden, of whom 1,360 paid the first instalment of the fee, and subsequently took up the place they had paid for.

Stockholm Rector Kåre Bremer believes the increase in international applications is the result of an extensive marketing campaign at several universities abroad, in particular in China and the US. Most applicants are from the UK, Germany, China, Bangladesh and the US, in that order. The most popular studies are in economics.

“We have the potential to receive more applications and accept more international students, but the major problem is now the lack of student housing,” he wrote on his blog. “It is regrettable that international students who want to come to Stockholm have to decline the offer for a study, or even have to return home, due to the lack of available study rooms”.

Daniel Guhr, head of Illuminate Consulting Group, has advised several Swedish universities on their strategies to attract international tuition fee-paying students.

He told University World News that the increase, though encouraging, needed to be seen in the context of a sharp drop in applications from non-EEA countries in 2010-11 and the fact that only 10% of that much-diminished pool eventually enrolled in Swedish universities.

Guhr said Swedish universities should seek more international alliances, focusing on ties to industry to offer internships and job placements, opening up new recruiting channels through agents or pathways programmes, and engaging with social media.

“It is noteworthy that universities which made an effort to actively recruit and which invested in marketing activities have done disproportionally well. This includes large universities such as Lund, but also a small school such as the Jönköping International Business School,” he said.

“The rise of application numbers highlights that the argument that Swedish tuition fees are prohibitively high has been misguided. Tuition fees of course impact application numbers, but not to the extent often claimed,” he said.

Guhr believes the next few years are likely to produce changed mobility patterns. For example, the rise in applications from the UK is mirrored by a rise in applications to Dutch (English language) programmes and to well-funded US higher education institutions.

Similarly, Greek students who might have chosen the US or UK in the past can also be expected to apply to tuition-free degree programmes across Europe in larger numbers, he said.

Only 820 of the more than 31,000 applicants to more than 500 Swedish international masters programmes for 2012-13 are Swedish citizens, which means that there is a great potential also for local recruitment.

Jan Petter Myklebust05 February 2012

http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20120203160454119

Charm!

Ivana Komatina — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 14:07:10 GMT

Short notifications and I, again!

I was at my place for couple of days now and completely out of touch with the student life, so imagine my shock when the first thing I did today was walking on a red carpet — at Chalmers.

It means only one thing — it is time for CHARM again. These are morning pics when nobody is there, but I should have the crowd on camera tomorrow, when they officially open the event.

If you are new at Chalmers, it is yet another committee. This time they are in charge of connecting students with the possible employers and also providing us with an awesome brochure where you can find listed all the companies that are interesting in working with young researchers and so on.

Btw, thanks to Arieni for unintentional reminder that "links" work here and I don't have to copy/paste every web address I want to show you.

So, see you tomorrow at the Student Union building or at the A-huset. If not for anything else, just to take freebies - I love it :)

/Ivana

International bootcamp - Ahmedabad, India (3)

Ting YAU — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 13:53:29 GMT

Follow our entire day-day international bootcamp experience in India in http://trendspottinginindia.wordpress.com !

Or if you’re too lazy to click in, at least you should read my blog there! There it is! Me writing about one of the weekend adventures in India! Enjoy!

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After spending one hectic week in Ahmedabad trendspotting and exploring this exotic city and India, Sunday could have been the best time for us SSES students to take some rest and be prepared for the next week. But today it was no ordinary Sunday. My fellow students Kendra, Elis, Emma, Philip and I, along with our Training Coordinator Kristín, took on an exciting trip outside the city Ahmedabad.
Six of us rented a driver and a car for the day. Our first destination, after about an hour ride, was the Adalaj step well. It was built more than five hundred years ago. Fine sculptures and designs of the step well had of course captured my eyes, but the heritages that we were about to visit after this are what I would call magnificent.

The “Rani ki vav” step well

The “Rani ki vav” step well in Patan was our second destination. It was built around a thousand years ago and has a tremendous 64m * 20 m * 27m dimensions. The entire step well is carved with different forms of gods as a dedication to the supreme god Vishnu in the Vaishnavite tradition of Hinduism and is still very well preserved. I felt like travelling in the time capsule by simply witnessing such a majestic piece of art and devotion.
It was three in the afternoon after the “Rani ki vav” step well and we realized that “maybe” it was time for lunch… so we told the driver to take us to somewhere we could have food, our message was however somehow misc-ommunicated (which was not surprising anymore after spending one week in Ahmedabad…) and the driver drove us to our final destination – the Modhera Sun Temple directly.

The Modhera Sun Temple

A glimmer of hope shone through as we saw a restaurant located right next to the entrance of the temple, but we ended up with merely a cup of chai (Indian milk tea) after blindly waiting for 15 minutes realizing they did not serve food anymore (again, another “miscommunication”).
Carrying an empty stomach, we then headed to the sun temple. It was also built around a thousand years ago as a symbol for Anahilvad Patan to restore valor and power against its invasions from Mahmud Ghazni. I had a very strong feeling about the place since I went to a mini-version of it before in a theme park called “wonders of the world” in China and I never thought I could have the chance to see the “authentic” one someday in the future but I just did! It was such a relief to just be there and I guess it was a good place for meditation too!
It was already six in the evening when we decided to head back so eventually in the entirely trip we had not had a proper meal except some snacks and fruit on our way… It was no easy Sunday but it was definitely one of those days you can tell stories about to your family and friends!

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At the end, I would really like to thank SSES for giving me such an incredible opportunity to broaden my horizon and develop myself! Apart from international bootcamps, SSES at times also provides workshops about different interesting aspects in business and entrepreneurial knowledge. So if you are from one of the SSES’s member schools (KI, KTH, SSE, SU and Konstfack) pleeease stay tuned to the SSES website: www(dot)sses(dot)se!

International bootcamp - Ahmedabad, India (2)

Ting YAU — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 13:41:58 GMT

So this part will focus on “play hard”, I will also include some random but very interesting things I found in Ahmedabad!

The first thing I am mentioning is the taxi there. After 27 long hours of travelling by flight, me and 5 other SSES students finally arrived Ahmedabad. We called a cab to take us from the airport to the hotel we stayed. We found that they have a very “interesting” way of putting your luggage: they simply put your suitcases on top of the car without tying them up or anything!

And we spent all the time in the cab worrying about suitcases falling off…

After we arrived at the hotel, we decided to go out and have our first decent Indian meal! So we walked to one of the fanciest restaurants in town. I’d have to say my most memorable moment was the things that I saw in that 15 minutes walk. The traffic on the road was ridiculously chaotic, you could hear drivers blowing horns all the time and it was absolutely without a system, we saw some very close-to-accidents happening in only 15 minutes walking on the street. Well the astonishing part was, I saw probably more than 100 homeless people (hopos) sleeping on the street. There wasn’t only men, but also families and babes spending their nights on the street. The ironic thing was that we were about to dine in a restaurant with an amount we paid enough for them to support themselves for at least a week. And from what I observed there were also a lot of Indians rich enough to effort dinning in the restaurant. There is obviously a huge societal gap in terms of poverty and social welfare system (well, there isn’t really any…) in the city. It led me to a lot of thinking later that night and to be honest I wasn’t really enjoying my first meal in India that much because of this…

Hmm, lets change to a more positive tone! Since the day we arrived was the Kite festival weekend. It is a festival where Indians celebrate the end of winter, so most of the Indians would gather and fly kites. Since some of our fellow students came to Ahmedabad before us, they met some locals there who later invited us to their neighborhood and fly kites together! The next day we arrived, we went to a rooftop of one of the locals’ house and were almost overwhelmed by their hospitality! Since we were the only foreigners there, we soon became the center of attention and more and more Indians came to the rooftop to take photos with us! It was an amazing experience since I felt like we completed mingled with the locals and saw very closely how they celebrated one of their most important festivals!

Everyone was fying kite! (Not a lot of people in the photo since they all went to our rooftop!)

The locals waving us goodbye!

The next thing I want to share is the scenes that we saw on the streets in Ahmedabad, it is the first city I have seen so far where it has integrated farms, animals and traffic so perfectly together! You often see cows standing in the middle of the street blocking the road, well, sometimes goats and dogs, what about camels and elephants? They all happen in Ahmedabad!

Cows in the middle of the street is apparently daily and no big deal for Indians

What about elephant... Why not?

One challenge we all SSES students had in India was the hygienic problems and the food. The food was simply spicy from breakfast to dinner to snacks! And even though we all were extra meticulous about the hygiene, most of our fellow students went down one by one… including me! I fell sick and had a fever during the 5th and 6th day of our trip. During those days I simply just stayed in the hotel and called in room service for food. When the only thing I wanted to have was fruits, I ordered something called “fruit chaat” hoping it is going to be a platter of fruits – I was too naïve, it was fruits dipped in spicy curry sauce… The ironic part was that during the second week, all our SSES students were basically yearning for non spicy non Indian food…

Despite all those, I really enjoyed every bit of my trip in India and I can definitely foresee my footstep in India again in the future!

International bootcamp - Ahmedabad, India (1)

Ting YAU — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 12:25:49 GMT

So fellas finally I came back from India! Can’t believe the 16 days there just went so fast… I think “work hard, play hard” has pretty much summed up what my journey was about. But of course it’s actually much more content there than those four words! So I will divide my India trips into two parts: “work hard” and “play hard”.

“work hard”
Since I have kinda mentioned this bootcamp in my other blogs already, I am just going to introduce it again in brief. It is basically a two-week course co-organised by the Stockholm School of Entrepreneurship (SSE) in Sweden and the National Institute of Design (NID) in India with a focus on forecasting future trends in India. This year the topic is “the future of authenticity” and we are to work in teams and create future scenarios in 10, 20 and 50 years around the topic.

My team chose 50 years since it’s obviously the most challenging timeframe among the rest where everything is imaginarily possible! Every team is composed of a well mix of Indians and international students and so is mine! During the first two days, we attended workshops given by lecturers from both NID and SSE in order to brainstorm our ideas about authenticity and different frameworks that we were about to use for constructing future scenarios.

From the third day on, we officially kick started our first assignment – go out, explore, and trendspot! It was definitely one of the funest parts of the course since we got to explore every aspect in the local culture in Ahmedabad in India. The trenspotting, in parallel with other future forecasting workshops, went for 3 days. After that we presented our findings to the case and faculty: we spotted 105 potential trends!!

We then spent most of our time working in the classroom during the second week. With all the potential trends we got, the next step was to categorize them one by one in an impact-possibility matrix to allow us to reflect on the most intriguing trends. Another scenario building tool we used later on was the future wheel, this is where we relied on we previous results and started to set our imagination free in order to “construct” the future!

The construction process of our future wheel and scenario matrix...

Carrying all the results we gathered, our other challenge would be how to present them? We were required to make a short trailer of “our futures”. Since none of us was really expert in video editing, we felt most daunting at that very last step. After rounds and rounds of trial and error, at the end we still managed to put together an interesting clip! All the results from different groups were then exhibited during the very last day of our school!

How we got down to our "future" trailer...

The exhibition board and my team!

Future forecasting is indeed a very exciting topic; it is the idea of thinking one step ahead of others that intrigues me most! I also enjoyed every much working with the locals and other international students, different cultural preferences were obvious but it was undoubtedly a fun part understanding each other and compromising with different thoughts and ideas. The experience only encouraged me more to pursue an international career in the future! =D

The entire class plus the faculty after some cultural immersion actiities that were held during the first week!

What do Swedes do when it is minus 25 degrees?

Sarah Berglind — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 10:40:45 GMT

Be outside and enjoy the wonderful countryside, of course!

This week saw the annual Runn Winter Week taking place in ca minus 20 degrees. Runn is our local lake located between Falun and Borlänge and was the scene for numerous winter activities. Experience these from the warmth of your office/home - http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=rl-ADD1Z3gM#!

Chilly greetings from Dalarna and Sweden!

on my way to ecuador

Olivia Biermann — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 09:28:42 GMT

“And where are you going, Miss?” the stewardess asked me as I entered the plane at Arlanda Airport this morning. “I’m going to Quito.” “Oh! Wow! That’s going to be a long journey. Are you going there for holidays?”

So I am on my way to Quito in Ecuador. In fact, this journey is part of my studies as I will carry out a small study for my master thesis “over there”. I wanted to post something about my plans way earlier, but I thought I should do that as soon as it feels more real. It doesn’t at all feel real yet! I’m sitting in Amsterdam now and checking the departure tables for Panama City from where the next flight will leave to Quito. That is crazy! I’m feeling a little upside-down, downside-up – I really can’t wait, but it was also very sad to leave my loved ones in Stockholm and to say goodbye one more time to my family and friends at home in Germany.

Ecuador kind of just happened. When I was looking for a topic and a supervisor for my master thesis I contacted two researchers from the “health systems and policy” research group as this was the area I was most interested in. One of them told me about the different projects he was presently working on. He asked me about specific topics I was curious about and we had an interesting talk. I was about to leave is office when he asked me, if I knew any Spanish because an idea had suddenly come up to his mind. When I said that I did, he told me about this research project that was currently going on in a rural area called Esmeraldas in north-western Ecuador. He told me about a non-governmental organization that had been working there for about ten years now. The organization was running a health center providing a marginalized population in different rainforest villages with health care services. He himself was working together with the founder of the organization as the co-supervisor of his PhD thesis. As I showed interest in getting to know more about the NGO and its projects, he promised to check out the possibilities for me getting involved. There were! It took some more weeks until we had found a suitable research question and until I decided to go for this project. I will keep on posting you on that. I want to tell you about the research question, the country and about what’s all happening on the other side. I will be there until the beginning of April.

I love airports - especially Schiphol in Amsterdam. People are going to extremely many places all over the world and there are announcements every ten seconds. The airport’s Starbucks coffee is as expensive as the coffee in a normal café in Stockholm. That should make Stockholm think.

Semla is coming !!

Arieni Lestari Putri — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 23:49:01 GMT

Hej hej, hur mor du?

It's February alreadyyyyy...

For some people, February means the real winter is coming. But for me, February means.........................SEMLA is coming \m/

What is Semla?

Semla (or fastiagsbulle in Swedish is a traditional pastry in Scandinavian countries and including Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia. It has a various form depend on the country.

Historically, Semla is associated with Lent or Shrove Monday or Shrove Tuesday. Originally it eaten only on Shrove Tuesday, as the last festive before Lent. However, as the time passed, the Swedes stopped associated Semla with Lent nor Shrove Monday / Tuesday.

[picture taken from: here]

Today, the Swedish Semla consists of a cardamom spiced wheat bun which has its top cut off and insides scooped out, and is then filled with a mix of the scooped-out bread crumbs, milk and almond paste, topped with whipped cream. The cut-off top serves as a lid and is dusted with powdered sugar.

The oldest version of Semla was a plain bread bun, eaten in a bowl of warm milk. In Swedish is known as hetvägg. Today, it is often eaten on its own, with coffee or tea, especially in fika time. But some people still eat it in a bowl of hot milk, like my landlord always did :)

I already try both of ways. I used to have Semla eaten on its own during my fika time with coffee or tea. But if you felt colder and hungry, Semlas eaten in a bowl of hot milk is really a good choice..!!

In Sweden now, Semlas are available in shops and bakeries everyday from shortly after Christmast until easter. But if you see on Swedish calender, you will find Semla Day (or Fettisdagen in Swedish, which if you translated in English it would be Fat Tuesday :p). It is not a regular same date for every year, but for this year, we'll have it on 21 February. And on that day, you should eat Semla, so don't miss it !! :)

This is my first Semla for 2012, yaaaayyyy !!!

Smaklig måltid..!! This is how we say bon appetit in Swedish :)

-Arieni-

Up close and personal with SPSS

Ioana Vlad — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 22:41:50 GMT

Hej hej! Last time, I promised some info about my current course, named Basic Epidemiology and Statistics. It is a rather short one (just 2.5 weeks) but I dare anyone to tell me they really like statistics, no matter how short a contact they have with it. Unfortunately, it has that special something that makes people (me) resent it.

I took statistics for a year during my undergraduate studies, so I had at least heard before about most of what we covered in this course. The thing about statistics, though, it that it gets rusty really quickly if it’s not used. I definitely needed a refresher, and was happy to get one from a really dedicated teacher. He is always insisting on what he calls “deep understanding” of “statistic thinking”. The course was organised in a way that promoted just that: the lectures in the mornings were followed by practical sessions; there is no exam, the evaluation was continuous, but not really stressful. Thus, we got to actually work with SPSS and test our understanding of statistic concepts, which I thought was extremely useful.

Sure, whenever I will have to use SPSS again (presumably during my master thesis) I will need another refresher course if enough time passes by without me using the application I have now installed on my computer (courtesy of KI library). But as of right now, SPSS doesn’t seem such an unsolvable mystery to me. I’m not dreading to get, as the titles states, up close and personal with SPSS, for instance.

Köttbullar dinner

Experience Lund — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 18:05:40 GMT

We all know eating out in Sweden is really expensive. As a student money is sometimes scarce, we all know that problem ;-) So why not cook something by yourself? Invite some friends and make your own Swedish sittning! We, for example, cooked a typical Swedish dinner last week: Köttbullar (Swedish meatballs) with mashed potatoes, brown sauce and lingonberry jam.

And we can definitely recommend it, it tasted fantastic despite a little bit of too much pepper in the meatballs ;-) This can of course be avoided if you buy prepared Köttbullar which you find everywhere in the supermarket. But we feel that these often taste ‘old’ and dull. So try your own ones, as it’s so fast, easy and cheap to make them yourself and they taste so much better. The recipe is out of a Swedish cooking book from my landlord, so it’s truly Swedish. Here is the translation:

http://www.experience-lund.com/post/16973935605/lund-koettbullar-dinner

An update on 2nd year 2nd semester student life at KI

Kathleen Ma — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 10:58:58 GMT

Hello!

I know I know... it's been a while since I've blogged about my courses or student life or life in general. The reason for that is because I've virtually had no social life since the last time I blogged. So today I'll talk about my non-social life.

If you are a prospective public health masters student and would like to know about how the last semester of my masters program (public health epidemiology) is like, I can tell you about it, or at least tell you how it is so far. From now until May, I will be (and have been) concentrating on my thesis.

After my week of statistics ended, I've been cleaning the data that I'll be using for my project. This has taken much longer than I expected--probably because I'm learning along the way and need to ask someone who's familiar with the data to explain what certain variables mean because many times the variables can be quite cryptic when you're just staring at it in spreadsheet form. Thankfully, I have had a lot of help and guidance from the people working at MEB (The Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics). And just to clarify, my study program is within the Department of Public Health Sciences, but I'm working on my thesis at the MEB.

Now I'm doing some descriptive analyses and logistic regression models using the statistics program, SPSS. However, I have come to realize that many people at KI and particularly at MEB don't use SPSS, mostly because they don't condone it. Why? I'm really not sure. One of the reasons could be because SPSS doesn't document syntax unless you tell it to with the "paste" option. But I don't know why you wouldn't document your syntax. It's so much easier to run the syntax than to click click click all over again. Another reason is probably because SPSS can't work with extremely large datasets (like register data). Perhaps there are other reasons that have to do with its statistical handling abilities, but I am not the person to be getting into that! Anyway, that is why I'm starting to learn SAS now. I think it'd be a good idea for me or anyone researching at KI to learn SAS. If you want help in SPSS, you're going to have a hard time finding someone to help you with it--but if you need help in SAS, there's an entire floor of biostaticians bursting with SAS knowledge. At least here at MEB.

So that's what I've been up to!

Once I'm further along with my project and once the weather starts to get warmer (by at least 20 deg C preferably), I'll emerge from my 2nd-year-2nd-semester-hermit-life and socialize like a normal person :)