Studera utomlands

In my last post, I talked about how “difficult” and “stressful” are the travel plans and all the arrangements that you have to make, but we all know that finding a supervisor can be at least as stressful. I will dedicate this post on finding a (suitable) supervisor and I will also share some tips on how to be sure that the entire process goes as smoothly as possible.

What does “you were offered a place at” mean?

One of the most important things that you need to understand from the beginning is whether the agreement between Karolinska Institutet and the host university is with the full university or just a department. Unfortunately, not knowing this can lead to some inconvenience and annoying situations. Most of the time (from what I know and heard around), they were sorted out well (in the favor of the student), but it usually meant additional stress and wasted time. I personally recommend that, after you were offered your spot, to double check how the agreement works. Sometimes, it can also be arranged that, even if the agreement is with one department, you can go and do your master project in another department. But, as I mentioned, the sooner you find out about this, the easier it will be to assess your situation and start writing the emails accordingly.

How to find a supervisor

Emails, emails, emails…the never-ending story. Do you wish that you could just knock at someone’s door and talk to them face to face and, all of a sudden, you would have found yourself a supervisor after spending only 30 minutes of your time? Me too. But it is not that simple. My advice to you is to firstly check what are the interests of each research group at your host university/department and rank them according to your personal interests. After you have done that, it is time to start writing the emails. The biggest problem will occur after writing the emails, which is the time it takes to get a reply. There is no golden rule on how much you should wait for a reply, but keep in mind that you are an outsider and even though you write the email from your Karolinska Instituteta student address, some people might be busy and not respond to you right away. I would recommend you wait for at least one week for a reply but not more than 4 weeks until you move on to writing another email/series of emails to other potential supervisors.

Extra tips

When it comes to supervisors, every one of them is different and they have different styles on how they approach exchange students and master projects. Talking to them live, for the first time, might be scary because, for most of the cases, that is the moment when you get to know your project and when they properly assess you and see if you are a good fit for their research group. Most of us experienced online classes either because of the pandemic or because some online classes were part of our programme so, at least, you should be comfortable with a meeting on “Zoom” (the reason why I mention “Zoom” and not other platforms is because, as Karolinska Institutet students, you have access to the license and thus you can schedule meetings without considering the time limit). Here are some thoughts about how to deal with the first meeting without any worries:

• Prepare in advance a list of all your internships/practical experiences with the methods or the instruments that you used. This will help you during the dialogue because, due to some stress, you might forget parts of your previous experience.

• Read more (maybe one article or two) about the group so that you will have a better understanding of the research they are doing and thus be more confident when you talk to the potential supervisor.

• Think about a possible project that would fit, broadly, both your needs (according to the instructions given by your programme) and the research group’s interests. This will give you an advantage in the discussion and will show that you can fit in the group.

I wish you good luck in finding a suitable supervisor and I am more than happy to address other questions that you might have.