November 20, 2022
Student life - academic, social and cultural
Linköping University is mainly known for its rich student life. A multitude of sections and associations create this student-friendly atmosphere with lots of events happening all year round. But it’s not only about social activities! There are many more things such as educational organisations or interest-specific associations that can help you grow professionally or bring people with the same interest together. Thus, even if you’re a bookworm and introvert perhaps you may be interested in that. It all has some structure in it that may seem to be a bit overwhelming for newcomers. So let’s go through that briefly and see what all LiU has to offer aside from your programme.
Student unions
There are 3 student unions that represent all 4 faculties. We have:
Student unions are responsible for making students’ voices heard. They work on issues related to education, work environment, and social issues. So for example, they make sure that the premises you study at are adequate and functional. Also, they make sure that decisions taken by the university are in the best interest of students. Additionally to that, they own a company called Kårservice that manages student union buildings which provide services affordable to students. What it essentially means is that you can grab a coffee or study in the student union buildings during the day while at night you may join a pub or a quiz night or a party (weekends). But the difference you will see between student places and other places in the city is the student-friendly pricing in the first one. There are five of these buildings: Kårallen (campus Valla), Örat (campus US), Kollektivet (Linköping downtown), Ryds Herrgård (Linköping Ryd), and Trappan Norrköping. Each of these places is distinct, it has its own popular activities so you need to check them out individually on Facebook or Instagram. Also, Kårallen has a large space outside which during the academic year is filled with students (the picture below shows only a part of it and of course in the summer 😉 )
Sections
Each programme at LiU, whether Swedish or international, belongs to a section. And each section belongs to its respective union. In my case, my programme, Experimental and Medical Biosciences belongs to the BioMed section and this section belongs to Consensus. The role of the section is to represent the programme to the student union. One such case is if you have any ideas for improvements or comments you can talk to the representatives from your section and they will forward them further. Or for instance, if your programme has some problems with examinations like you feel it wasn’t the right level you can also present this issue to your student union and they will investigate that. However, this isn’t the only role of the section. It kind of works the other way around, they should also inform you about important issues coming from the student unions. On top of that, each section has some representatives for certain things like social affairs, sports or similar. They are there to organise activities to bring together people from the same programme. Also, each section has a festeri (party committee) which, of course, organises parties. However, bare in mind that those parties are most likely for other students as well (not only your section).
Even if you’re an international student you still belong to a section. It may not be obvious to you as some sections have stronger connections with international students while some don’t particularly involve internationals in their agenda. Nevertheless, you can always reach out to them if you have some education-related issues or would like to meet the Swedish counterpart of your programme.
If you’re an exchange student it may be a bit trickier to know what section you belong to because your courses might be from different programmes but most likely your section will be the one that is most related to your programme. For instance, if you study computer sciences and you come here for a semester but take courses from other programmes I would probably assume, you belong to section D, anyway. But that might be very individual so perhaps don’t take it for granted.
And where did section D come from… you may be wondering. Well, here is a list of all sections at LiU so if you want to check your programme and your section go there and find out! Also, there is a street at each campus where you can find logos of the sections and associations active on that campus! It’s re-painted every year. Here is a picture from campus Valla just before re-painting.
Student associations
There are multiple student associations and you can find them (most likely) all listed here according to themes. You will find there information about LUST-approved associations but that’s not very important for you, it’s rather important for the association. What it essentially means is that is approved by the student unions (it follows their rules for association) and in exchange, the association receives some perks.
Throughout my time here at LiU, I have encountered quite a few organisations and I was part of two. Associations cover various themes from film, music and entertainment through sports and social to study-related circles. Unfortunately, for some (or more) you need Swedish but not all!
Educational organisations
LiU iGEM is the organisation that takes part in the international competition in synthetic biology. You become a member sometime during spring, you work only a few hours per week until the end of the school year and then you work full-time for the whole summer on a project that you, as a group, have chosen. When the academic year starts, you again go back to part-time work and you finish your journey with the Giant Jamboree which is an extremely cool event with teams from many different countries. I was part of iGEM 2021 (we mainly worked with cyanobacteria shown in the picture) and it was a wonderful learning experience. I chose to be part of the mathematical modelling, laboratory and coding team and I have learnt much more than I expected. The best part of it was that we worked on the project that we have chosen from the very beginning and we shaped it as we wanted (of course, we had the help of our supervisors) but we had to intellectually own the project. Actually, as part of it, we even went to Gotland to conduct interviews with farmers as part of our human practice (connection of our idea with the real world).
As an engineer (but not only), you may be interested in the LiU Formula Student racing team. They also participate in competition however, the objective is so different from my iGEM team 🙂 They develop a race car – it sounds super cool to me! I have met a few students that have been part of it and they always said only good things about this organisation. Actually, those students were not only from engineering backgrounds but also economics or HR. So if you’re interested in it could be worth a shot!
Associations for social affairs
I mean, even in those organisations I mentioned above you will mingle with people but their main objective is a bit different. When it comes to social affairs for international students I definitely must mention International Students Association (ISA) and Erasmus Student Network (ESN). Those two associations work closely with each other and they always organise a warm welcome for newly arrived international students. I was the chairman of ISA for two years and I can honestly say that it was one of the best decisions made in Sweden. I have learnt so much, developed my soft skills, met so many incredible people (some of them I can call my close friends now) and experienced so many things that I would have never done if it wasn’t for ISA. If you look at the Northern Lights photo from my previous post, I saw these Lights during my ISA trip – it was definitely worth it 😀 Hahaha I could go on and on about ISA… But in summary, these organisations are surely your go-to if you want to meet people from around the world in your free time as they organise various events throughout the year. If you want to be part of the board and organise it for others, they have a recruitment process announced on their Facebook and Instagram pages sometime in spring and/or autumn.
Hobby associations
Well… here the list will go on and on 🙂 I will not list all of them here because that would take a lot of space but this page lists probably all of them. You can search it based on the category and I’m sure you’ll find something for yourself. Those associations I describe below definitely do not require Swedish but they’re not the only ones you can join as an English speaker. When I was in ISA, we collaborated with some of them and for example, Navitas (sustainability), Linslusen (photos) or Växteriet (plants) were very English-friendly. But you can find also a variety of other associations such as jogging, swimming or skiing associations. There are a few choirs, dancing associations and orchestra. There are also some associations for stock market, investments and many, many more!
If you want to become a part of something, go through the list I linked already and don’t hesitate to apply or just join their activities! Also, please note that I listed only examples, there are more organisations in each category. Let’s finish this journey through LiU’s student life, with an interesting fact that I have encountered a few times which is also a tip for you. Even though something might be promoted only in Swedish, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s only for Swedish students. So you know… it never hurts to ask 😉
Tack! (“Thank you!” in Swedish)
/Alexandra, Experimental and Medical Biosciences
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