Studio visit to Uppsala
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Why is Stockholm a top choice for students?
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Hello everybody, and welcome to this new blog post! Today, we are going to talk about why Stockholm is a great city for international students. The admission results are just behind the corner, so why not start to wonder about what’s life like for an international student here?
In my opinion, Stockholm is one of the most beautiful and vibrant cities in Europe, with a lot to offer to students who come here – it is not a coincidence that many choose to stay! From the stunning architecture to the rich cultural history, there are many reasons why Stockholm is an excellent choice for international students. Let’s explore them together!
Safety
Stockholm is a very safe city. Sweden is known for its low crime rate, and Stockholm is no exception. This means that you can feel secure and at ease while studying and exploring the city, without worrying about pickpocketers or other dangers. Moreover, everyone around is super kind and willing to help, making you feel safe and welcome!
Dynamism
Another reason why I love Stockholm is its dynamism and how this goes hand in hand with the Swedish lifestyle. On the one hand, Stockholm is a “fast” city: there is great public transportation, the roads are full of people in the weekend and the city is full of activities and things to do. On the other hand, this is contrasted by the calm of the Swedes, who tend to value a slower rhythm and seem to take life more easily than what you see in other high-paced cities, like Milan or London. The city has many museums, galleries and theaters, as well as a vibrant music and arts scene (have you checked my previous post on Stockholm’s music scene?). There is always something to see and do and, as a student, you can often get discounts on tickets and events.
At the same time, Stockholm is a very international city. English is widely spoken, and many Swedes are fluent in it – it is super easy to walk in the streets and hear more English than Swedish, even in shops. This makes it easy for international students to communicate and socialize with locals and other international students, with the opportunity to meet tons of people from all over the world and explore their cultures very easily. I love this, it’s super enriching!
Nature
Whether you are fond of outdoor activities or not, the fact that Stockholm is surrounded by nature can be anything but a bad thing. The city is built on 14 islands, and it is full of many beautiful parks and nature reserves to explore (all easy to reach with public transportation). You could even take a boat trip around the archipelago and enjoy the stunning scenery without having to pay anything extra, since boats are included in you SL card (you can read this post on public transport in Stockholm to have more information).
Its incredible position and the capillary presence of nature also means that the air and the skies tend to be very clean, with very little pollution compared to other European cities. This is also due to the importance that Sweden gives to sustainability and environmental issues, and is reflected in the city’s excellent transport system (mostly based on biofuel or electrified vehicles, powered by renewable energy).
In conclusion, Stockholm is a fantastic city for international students. It is safe, environmentally conscious, international, great for outdoor activities, and has a vibrant cultural scene. Overall, this balance gives you a very high quality of life as a student, and I’m sure that this will make your stay in Sweden the most exciting time of your life!
If you’re still wondering what it’s like to live here, I would suggest you Maryna’s post on her favourite places in Stockholm and Raygo’s post on the cost of living in Stockholm: I’m sure you will find them both super interesting!
That is all for today, and have a nice week!
// Lorenzo
My favourite places in Stockholm – in spring!
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Hey there! I will share some gems I love visiting in Stockholm and where I go to recharge! Stockholm has many lovely places or, as I call them, hidden gems…!
The capital city consists of 14 islands and is located where Lake Mälaren flows into the Baltic Sea. The city has so much to offer, from cosy and narrow old streets, green islands, artsy metro stations, multinational kitchens serving amazing foods and much more! Every place is unique, and some experiences such as tasting Lebanese or Indian dishes or visiting a Japanese garden are just the tip of the iceberg…! The city is full of history and stories and let me tell you some!
Bergius botanic garden
A small oasis in Bergius’s botanic garden is a tropical gateway! This place can be reached within 15 minutes of KTH!
Here, you can find vast greenhouses accommodating many tropical and native plants! This greenery is available to visit all year round. Also, there are mountain-shaped rockeries along the park’s waterfront, a Swedish twist in the gardens! The greenhouse with giant lilies creates an atmosphere and a feeling you are deep in the jungle…Those lilies are spreading and taking over the space!
Visiting the Japanese garden feels like travelling to the east. Designed as a small “garden within the garden” and shielded by the forest surrounding it, the Japanese pond is a natural spot for contemplation and rest. Stepping stones and simple bridges crossing the pond make you appreciate the landscape and the small details! You could find more information about the gardens on their website.
Cafes in Södermalm
Meeting friends in a cosy cafe and enjoying a weekend could become your reality too! Imagine observing people strolling through the big windows and sipping a hot latte while sitting in a decorated café.
Changing the location and studying in a café is as easy as it sounds! Many cafes offer access to charging devices, strong Wi-fi and snacks with coffee that won’t break your budget!
Stockholm has many options for vegans and vegetarians. You will find quite a few vegan cafes and restaurants here! It’s common to see people enjoy an oat latte, and the cafes offer many more options! It’s super delicious. Also worth mentioning is that Swedish supermarkets usually have special sections for vegans and vegetarians!
Some places are dog friendly – that is a great reason to go there since I am addicted to dogs and need to pet them to feel better…
Wandering around Stockholm
Personally, I enjoy wandering around the city without a destination and discovering new corners or unexplored territory. This makes me feel like a tourist again! Or should I say an explorer? I really wanted to share with you this building I discovered, where you could enter and see through to the other side! Can you spot a street a few levels down?!
Free admission museums
Stockholm has many free-entry museums to offer! I would really recommend seeing the art installations at the Bonniers Konsthall. I recently visited an exhibition where the artist tried to draw attention to consumerism and nature. The museum also has a shop and a small cosy café for a coffee or two..!
City Library
My getaway place in Stockholm is the city library, located very centrally. You can escape here from the city’s noise and grab a book! This building has recently been renovated, and the architecture fills me with joy! The library offers various spaces, so I am convinced you will find your corner, either overlooking the park or the main hall, where you can feel a sense of togetherness. This is also an opportunity to meet people of other ages! The elderly here are so chatty and have many stories to tell!
I hope you enjoyed reading this, and if you like music, you could peek into Lorenzo’s post about concerts! Also, Raygo shared his highlights of the day here!
Have a great week!
//Martyna
Singing out loud – Stockholm’s music scene
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Hello everybody, and welcome to this new blog post! Today, we are going to talk about Stockholm’s music scene. Personally, I love listening to live music – and I really value the many opportunities that the city has to offer in this regard!
Concerts
I have been to three concerts since I’ve moved to Stockholm. The first one was held in the beautiful Eric Ericsonhallen – a super scenic historical building lit by candles – and it was a string quartet performing the most famous songs from Studio Ghibli’s movies. being a huge fan of Miyazaki’s work, I definitely couldn’t miss it! Plus, it was a nice deal: this 90-minute concert only cost me 240 SEK.
Later, I went to a metal concert in Annexet, a small structure that is part of the (much bigger) Avicii Arena, where most of the bigger concerts are held. I loved it! Metal is my favourite genre, and it was nice to see some headbanging even in a calm city like Stockholm!
This concert was way bigger than the previous one: three bands played for a total of four hours of loud music. However, I found the price to be more than fine: 450 SEK for the concert, plus 50 SEK for a drink and another 50 SEK for the guarded wardrobe.
Lastly, a couple of days ago I went to the Melodifestivalen in the Friends Arena. This is one of the most important music events in Sweden, as the winner of the festival gets to represent the country at the 2023 Eurovision Song Contest. It was super fun: 30.000 people were in the arena and we got the chance to see many different Swedish artists playing live! The price of the ticket was around 350 SEK – but it could have been lower if only we had reserved a little bit more in advance.
Gigs, pubs and music cafés
As you can imagine, concerts aren’t the only way to listen to live music here. In Stockholm, there are a ton of clubs, bars and pubs where you can listen to all kinds of music: from jazz to hard rock, as well as popular pop music – perfect for a karaoke night – and local artists. In general, you either pay for the entrance or the entrance is free but you have to order something, be it a drink or a complete meal. I’d guess that the budget for such an evening could lie anywhere between 100 and 300 SEK, depending on the place and what you order.
In this case, I really enjoy the “surprise effect”: just choose a place and go in, without knowing anything about who’s playing on that night. It can be really funny and make you discover some genres or bands you wouldn’t have listened to otherwise!
In conclusion, if you love live music, Stockholm is definitely a good place for you to stay. Besides, Sweden gave birth to some important artists like Abba or Avicii – meaning that the country actually has a lot of that “live music culture” that many of us love!
Thank you very much for reading today’s post. Don’t remember to check out the second part of Martyna’s super interesting series “Coffee with graduates”, as well as Raygo’s last post on a day in his life – I’m sure you’ll find them both really interesting as I did!
I’ll see you in the next post! Have a nice weekend.
// Lorenzo
Highlights of my day – Raygo
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Hi guys, it is Raygo with you again today! After Lorenzo and Martyna shared their highlights of the day and the week in their previous posts, now it is my turn to talk about mine!
I started the day with an ice-skating session with my friends in the morning. After breakfast at my accommodation, I headed to the nearest public ice skating rink from the school campus with my friends. As spring is coming soon, it is best to seize the moment and enjoy this charming and popular winter activity here in Sweden. Luckily, as it was a weekday morning, the place was not crowded as usual.
As an amateur in ice skating, I was truly surprised by the skills of my friends, who also recently picked up ice skating since coming to Sweden. And I am more into Skiing, and you may check that out in my previous post introducing winter sports in Sweden!
After having fun on the ice and lunch, I had my seminar course in the afternoon. Apart from the studio course Martyna had discussed in her post, we also had to attend a seminar course each semester for every architecture student. This semester I chose the “Stockholm Walkabout”, a course introducing walking as a way to experience architecture and the city.
This week we had the task to invent a “play script” while walking in Södermalm, the island in the south of Stockholm. My group used a deck of playing cards to make a game for the walk (whenever we encountered a turn, we would pull a card out of the deck, and the patterns being drawn decided where we should go). It was an interesting experiment, especially when we had to perform the task in the snow. And I also got to visit somewhere I had never been to since coming to Stockholm!
After the class, It was around 4 pm, and it was high time for a very typical Swedish afternoon activity – fika! I went to the cafe I often go to with my friends, as it only takes 3 minutes from the main campus. The place is ideal for chilling out as it has a double-height glass window open to the street, which allows the cosy afternoon sunlight to shine into the interior.
We ordered Semla (Out of surprise that they still have Semla available in March! You may check out the tasting video featuring us digital ambassadors to learn more about this special pastry in Sweden) and coffee. I always enjoy the fika time as it is an excellent opportunity to catch up with friends and take a break from the school works.
So these are some highlights of my day and the week! The weather has been perfect in Stockholm, and we get to see some spectacular celestial events here! Remember to check Lorenzo’s post to learn more about them and Martyna’s interview series with our fellow graduates to learn about the opportunities after graduating from KTH. I will see you all next time!
//Raygo
What happens after KTH? Coffee with graduates. Part 2
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Hey there! This post continues my previous one about graduates and their stories about landing a job! I will share stories of my friends who got their jobs in Stockholm, and they love it here!
The story of Leon
To start with, Leon and I lived in the same building last year, and we used to go hiking around Stockholm! Leon is from Germany. Today, he is working in one of the biggest companies in Sweden! So, Leon arrived at KTH with the Erasmus programme for 1 year! During his final semester of exchange studies here, he was enrolled in Transport and Geoinformation Technology master’s degree courses at KTH. One of the courses, “A GIS Project”, cooperated with “Sweco”- one of the biggest companies in Sweden! “That’s how I first got to know them and vice versa.”- said Leon.
After the course, he stayed in contact, and once he graduated, he applied for a job there! Leon went through the normal application process – via their website. He had a total of three interviews – all online and all of them when he was already back home in Germany. “Sweco wanted me, I decided to take the offer, and a month later, I found myself back in Stockholm working as a GIS/Geodata Consultant for Sweco’s Digital Services Division”. And I haven’t regretted it since!”- Leon
The story of Aniss
“My name is Aniss, and I am a PhD student in Machine Learning at KTH Royal Institute of Technology. I did my master’s degree project at the Robotics Perception and Learning Division of KTH in Machine Learning and Topological Data Analysis. It went great, and I really enjoyed doing the research! My main supervisor of the master’s degree project, a postdoc at that time, recommended me to the professor head of the group, now my main supervisor for the PhD! But it was not at all that straightforward! Let me tell you why.
I knew for many years that I wanted to do a PhD, mostly because I wanted to have a job closely related to science and innovation, to do research or Research & Development! So, yes, I was very motivated to do a PhD because I still want to learn, acquire further knowledge, contribute to creating knowledge, and “dig deeper” into a topic. On one side, I strive to get a better general overview of a field; on the other, I choose a particular topic and become a specialist in that particular topic, do science and invent!
After my master’s degree project, I knew I wanted to do a PhD, but it was not clear a PhD in what exactly and where. I wanted to continue in mathematics and computer science. Still, I was also very interested in the medical field, so initially, I was unsure if I should stay in this group focused on robotics and machine learning. The professor was very understanding and offered me the opportunity to work as a research engineer so that I have more time to decide and we could see if I fit in her research group. I told her about my interest in the medical field, and she agreed to collaborate with medical researchers at the end of my PhD. As she said, the idea is first to build tools in machine learning, and then I can apply them. Moreover, during my research engineering position, I was involved in a Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCI) project, and the professor told me that I could still work on that during my PhD! Although working on BCI might not be medical, the skills and knowledge developed there can still be easily related to the medical field later, for example, via neurorehabilitation. In summary, I could use mathematics and computer science to develop new methods in machine learning, and the door to medical applications was opened! These were significant factors for me to want to stay in this group for the PhD!
Before making my decision, I wanted to be sure about a few things: I discussed with some people from the medical field, such as one of my previous internship supervisors, an Engineer and a Medical Doctor. He confirmed that he also thinks that it is better to do a PhD in a technical topic, like machine learning for me, to really understand the topic and then apply it to the medical field, rather than doing a PhD in medical engineering, where you would use machine learning without a deep understanding of it.
There was also another very important factor: the other PhD students. I enjoyed working with them, exchanging ideas, and having in-depth discussions about our topics during my master’s degree project and research engineering position. They are very friendly, skilled and all intelligent! So it was great knowing I could work in such a pleasant environment and discuss science daily with my pairs. In addition, I am being supervised by the professor, ex-postdocs and more senior PhDs! So all the conditions were met to be really motivated to do my PhD in this group!
So then, I officially applied on the KTH website around September 2021, and after the selection process, I was accepted and started my PhD in mid-February 2022.
If you ask me: why Stockholm? First, there is a massive difference in salary between doing a PhD in Nordic countries or Germany, Netherlands, or Switzerland… versus doing a PhD in other parts of Europe like France, Italy, Spain, or Portugal. I felt like we are more respected as doctoral researchers here, and this difference in salary is, I think, one of the main reasons why you find many PhD students here from these countries. If you rely on your PhD salary, it is much more comfortable to do an academic PhD in Stockholm than in Paris, for example… In Sweden, you are better paid and considered an employee of the University, but also as a student, so you have student discounts and can live in student housing which is not that expensive.
Regarding Stockholm in particular, I think it is an amazing city. You don’t really feel that you are in a capital city since there are many green spaces, and the quality of life is very high. Also, there is an amazing international environment of researchers worldwide, mainly where I work at KTH!
Finally, I think in Stockholm, the startup ecosystem is excellent: you can access several incubators depending on your university, so this is also something to keep in mind for someone interested in entrepreneurship! In particular, KTH Innovation is doing a great job here!
For those interested in doing a PhD, my advice would be: to make sure that you are interested in the topic, that you fit in the lab, and that you know what to expect since a PhD is very interesting, but it is also a lot of work.
Lastly, getting accepted for a PhD is less complicated if you have already worked with the research group, so they would already know how you work! A good idea can be to do your master’s degree project in a lab where you would like to do your PhD!”
I hope their stories will inspire you and help you make the right decisions when choosing where to study! If you are interested in PhD at KTH, you could read about it in this post! Also, check this post to see why you should choose KTH for your doctoral education!
Have a nice week!
//Martyna