Studying at Lund University
Original post by SoonToBeExpat
I'm also doing a BSc in physical geography, except at a Swedish university. We've done an enormous amount of computational mathematics - spending an entire 3 months of statistics methodology alone. Then again, the program is a pure natural science one - not a hint of human geography or politics. Our last modual was Ecosystem analysis and modeling - lots and lots of mathematics. We'll be doing 5months of GIS this coming semester which we've been advised to look over more mathematics before the start of the course.
Hello there, do you mind sharing the uni, is it Lund? I have been accepted for bachelors, but just like OP, not the best at maths, physics etc (it's been years since I studied and I forgot most of it). I am literally deciding right now whether I should go for it. Would you mind sharing your experiences and what it's like to study there? I would be so grateful!!
(edited 9 months ago)
Original post by segu94
Hello there, do you mind sharing the uni, is it Lund? I have been accepted, but just like OP, not the best at maths, physics etc. I am literally deciding right now whether I should go for it. Would you mind sharing your experiences and what it's like to study there? I would be so grateful!!
Indeed it is Lund! Congratulations on your acceptance! If the course you're enrolled in is the Physical Geography & Ecosystem Science BSc then I study the same thing. From start to finish it has been an amazing experience and I would recommend it to anyone with any interest in the subject!
On technical level, I got in with a merit score of 16.14 from the reserve list, which is quite low - so if you've got higher than this you're off to a good start. I was never the best at maths, only scraping a C at AS maths in a set of exams I didn't sit because it was 2020. That said, I'm two years into the course and have done quite well. If you have a genuine interest in the subject, you will be fine - some courses are harder than others, but if you're motivated with a willingness to learn then you will get through. The support available from the lectures is second to none - the university has an open door policy so if you have struggles in grasping a particular concept, it is possible to just knock on their office door or send an email and they will always be keen to assist! You also get at least 5 attempts to retake exams, but hopefully you won't ever need to. There's usually plenty of practical experience either in field work or other assignments which help to secure concepts relevant to the exam at the end of a modual. I would not worry honestly, if you've been accepted then you meet the entry criteria and have the base technical know-how expected - the rest will be taught to you and there will be plenty of opportunity to get to grips with new mathematical concepts
I honestly can't find any fault or criticism of the university, based on my experience in my program - it has been amazing and I can guarantee you will have a great time should you choose to take on the course! 😁
(edited 9 months ago)
Original post by SoonToBeExpat
Indeed it is Lund! Congratulations on your acceptance! If the course you're enrolled in is the Physical Geography & Ecosystem Science BSc then I study the same thing. From start to finish it has been an amazing experience and I would recommend it to anyone with any interest in the subject!
On technical level, I got in with a merit score of 16.14 from the reserve list, which is quite low - so if you've got higher than this you're off to a good start. I was never the best at maths, only scraping a C at AS maths in a set of exams I didn't sit because it was 2020. That said, I'm two years into the course and have done quite well. If you have a genuine interest in the subject, you will be fine - some courses are harder than others, but if you're motivated with a willingness to learn then you will get through. The support available from the lectures is second to none - the university has an open door policy so if you have struggles in grasping a particular concept, it is possible to just knock on their office door or send an email and they will always be keen to assist! You also get at least 5 attempts to retake exams, but hopefully you won't ever need to. There's usually plenty of practical experience either in field work or other assignments which help to secure concepts relevant to the exam at the end of a modual. I would not worry honestly, if you've been accepted then you meet the entry criteria and have the base technical know-how expected - the rest will be taught to you and there will be plenty of opportunity to get to grips with new mathematical concepts
I honestly can't find any fault or criticism of the university, based on my experience in my program - it has been amazing and I can guarantee you will have a great time should you choose to take on the course! 😁
On technical level, I got in with a merit score of 16.14 from the reserve list, which is quite low - so if you've got higher than this you're off to a good start. I was never the best at maths, only scraping a C at AS maths in a set of exams I didn't sit because it was 2020. That said, I'm two years into the course and have done quite well. If you have a genuine interest in the subject, you will be fine - some courses are harder than others, but if you're motivated with a willingness to learn then you will get through. The support available from the lectures is second to none - the university has an open door policy so if you have struggles in grasping a particular concept, it is possible to just knock on their office door or send an email and they will always be keen to assist! You also get at least 5 attempts to retake exams, but hopefully you won't ever need to. There's usually plenty of practical experience either in field work or other assignments which help to secure concepts relevant to the exam at the end of a modual. I would not worry honestly, if you've been accepted then you meet the entry criteria and have the base technical know-how expected - the rest will be taught to you and there will be plenty of opportunity to get to grips with new mathematical concepts
I honestly can't find any fault or criticism of the university, based on my experience in my program - it has been amazing and I can guarantee you will have a great time should you choose to take on the course! 😁
Thanks a lot for your elaborate answer! It really helps. Yes, it is the course I applied for. Do you mind answering some of the other questions I have?😁 What about chemistry and physics, would you say it is hard, or do you get to learn things you need as you go? And with maths, would you recommend I prepare with specific things before I start, or can I also learn as I go?
And regarding the fieldwork, can you tell me what it's like?
How many people are there in total in the course?
With lectures, is it usually Monday to Friday morning to 4-5pm? What would you say the workload is, and how much do you study after lectures, how often do you have to write essays etc? How much of free time do you get normally?
Thanks a ton again for the support!!
(edited 9 months ago)
Yes of course!
Regarding the chemistry requirement... up to this point I've not experienced much chemistry at all. The requirement for the course is equivalent to a GCSE in chemistry... you'll mostly draw upon 'common sense' base knowledge of the subject, such as when you cover stuff like chemical weathering and perhaps some ecology. Physics on the other hand will be more challenging. You'll cover subjects such as fluid dynamics and eddy covariance in some detail, as well as thermodynamics just to name a few. That said, you will get taught the theory in lectures before getting plenty of practice in various exercises/assignments/group seminars, which will prepare you very well for when the exam comes along for whatever modal you're taking.
As for mathematics, a lot of it plays into the physics but otherwise you'll encounter statistics - this will be taught to a "base" level relevant for a scientific bachelors degree... i.e. Should you need to go on to do more complicated statistics, you'll have the ability to read some papers on statistical theory and be able to understand what is what. Again, plenty of practice is given but this is probably something you can reasonably learn beforehand to a good extent. I'd also recommend you have a look at each course page within the program and having a flick read of the literature before the start of the first two courses (NGEA01 & NGEA07).
Fieldwork... You're in luck because we do alot! Every course, with exception to Basic and Advance GIS, will have at least 2 days of practical fieldwork, excluding preparation time for fieldwork. In the first course alone, you'll spend several day either traveling across Skåne or doing the same thing but with camping in Blekinge county! In the ecology course (NGEA04), we spent a week on the island of Öland gathering data for a field project which we designed - you'll do something similar. There is a little less field experience in the second year but in the 3rd year, you'll spend a few weeks somewhere abroad. The last few years have gone to Uganda, Portugal (due to the pandemic) and Rwanda. All good fun! Something to bare in mind is the first semester of the 3rd year is set up so that students can elect courses, either at another department at Lund or a university abroad on exchange. You can always take fieldwork intensive courses then. Some students in the past have taken practical courses offered by SLU Alnarp right beside Lund, others went to wicked and wild places like the University Centre in Svalbard (incidentally I'm going there next semester!). Lund has over 680 partner universities, so the opportunities here are immense.
Lectures and teaching structure... Every ECTS credit is supposed to have a study time of 25-30 hours. The timetable is laid out in a way where you're supposed to be doing week's full-time 'study' (40 hours) - equal to 1.5 higher education credit (hp). Each semester is 20 weeks long, where you will do two 15 credit courses. My personal experience has been that I've gone to the Geocentrum buildings every day in some capacity. Most days of the week there will be something in-person timetabled, such as a lecture, or seminar. Sometimes the timetable will have "Assignment work XYZ" assigned where it's individual studies. BUT, all courses are timetabled so that theoretically you don't need to spend your time outside the working week on studies. And I can attest that most weeks, I have my weekends largely to my self, particularly in my second year. However, everyone's experience is different and down to their own personal work ethic. Bare in mind, assignments such as scientific report writing (you will very rarely, if ever write an essay paper) may be a slow and tiresome task at the start of your first year, but will get much quicker with practice. On average, you will start either 08:00 or 10:00 for a lecture (or two) which each last 2 hours, with breaks every 45m-1h. There may then be an assignment scheduled for the afternoon, or the inverse of this! I cant give you an estimate for an average time I left Geocentrum but you can probably stop the academic work at 15:00 if you've been efficient. My one advice is NEVER EVER miss a lecture. They may not be mandatory to attend, and some may be partial repeats of things taught in previous subjects... but those students who fall behind are those who don't attend the lectures. One last thing of note; in Sweden and much of Scandinavia, they have an 'academic quarter' - Where something may be timetabled to start at e.g. 10:00, it will in reality begin at 10:15 (unless explicitly stated otherwise e.g. catching a bus for a field trip or an assignment hand-in deadline). It comes in useful at times! For my intake, we are about 20 - 25 people. Some people may come in and out as exchange students. But with those sorts of numbers, you can almost form friendships with the lecturers as a class and the teaching can become somewhat personalised! And of course you're always together as a class so everyone becomes very good friends!
Hopefully this has been of some help and perhaps you feel a bit more encouraged to come to Lund! And please do feel free to ask more questions if any come to mind!
Regarding the chemistry requirement... up to this point I've not experienced much chemistry at all. The requirement for the course is equivalent to a GCSE in chemistry... you'll mostly draw upon 'common sense' base knowledge of the subject, such as when you cover stuff like chemical weathering and perhaps some ecology. Physics on the other hand will be more challenging. You'll cover subjects such as fluid dynamics and eddy covariance in some detail, as well as thermodynamics just to name a few. That said, you will get taught the theory in lectures before getting plenty of practice in various exercises/assignments/group seminars, which will prepare you very well for when the exam comes along for whatever modal you're taking.
As for mathematics, a lot of it plays into the physics but otherwise you'll encounter statistics - this will be taught to a "base" level relevant for a scientific bachelors degree... i.e. Should you need to go on to do more complicated statistics, you'll have the ability to read some papers on statistical theory and be able to understand what is what. Again, plenty of practice is given but this is probably something you can reasonably learn beforehand to a good extent. I'd also recommend you have a look at each course page within the program and having a flick read of the literature before the start of the first two courses (NGEA01 & NGEA07).
Fieldwork... You're in luck because we do alot! Every course, with exception to Basic and Advance GIS, will have at least 2 days of practical fieldwork, excluding preparation time for fieldwork. In the first course alone, you'll spend several day either traveling across Skåne or doing the same thing but with camping in Blekinge county! In the ecology course (NGEA04), we spent a week on the island of Öland gathering data for a field project which we designed - you'll do something similar. There is a little less field experience in the second year but in the 3rd year, you'll spend a few weeks somewhere abroad. The last few years have gone to Uganda, Portugal (due to the pandemic) and Rwanda. All good fun! Something to bare in mind is the first semester of the 3rd year is set up so that students can elect courses, either at another department at Lund or a university abroad on exchange. You can always take fieldwork intensive courses then. Some students in the past have taken practical courses offered by SLU Alnarp right beside Lund, others went to wicked and wild places like the University Centre in Svalbard (incidentally I'm going there next semester!). Lund has over 680 partner universities, so the opportunities here are immense.
Lectures and teaching structure... Every ECTS credit is supposed to have a study time of 25-30 hours. The timetable is laid out in a way where you're supposed to be doing week's full-time 'study' (40 hours) - equal to 1.5 higher education credit (hp). Each semester is 20 weeks long, where you will do two 15 credit courses. My personal experience has been that I've gone to the Geocentrum buildings every day in some capacity. Most days of the week there will be something in-person timetabled, such as a lecture, or seminar. Sometimes the timetable will have "Assignment work XYZ" assigned where it's individual studies. BUT, all courses are timetabled so that theoretically you don't need to spend your time outside the working week on studies. And I can attest that most weeks, I have my weekends largely to my self, particularly in my second year. However, everyone's experience is different and down to their own personal work ethic. Bare in mind, assignments such as scientific report writing (you will very rarely, if ever write an essay paper) may be a slow and tiresome task at the start of your first year, but will get much quicker with practice. On average, you will start either 08:00 or 10:00 for a lecture (or two) which each last 2 hours, with breaks every 45m-1h. There may then be an assignment scheduled for the afternoon, or the inverse of this! I cant give you an estimate for an average time I left Geocentrum but you can probably stop the academic work at 15:00 if you've been efficient. My one advice is NEVER EVER miss a lecture. They may not be mandatory to attend, and some may be partial repeats of things taught in previous subjects... but those students who fall behind are those who don't attend the lectures. One last thing of note; in Sweden and much of Scandinavia, they have an 'academic quarter' - Where something may be timetabled to start at e.g. 10:00, it will in reality begin at 10:15 (unless explicitly stated otherwise e.g. catching a bus for a field trip or an assignment hand-in deadline). It comes in useful at times! For my intake, we are about 20 - 25 people. Some people may come in and out as exchange students. But with those sorts of numbers, you can almost form friendships with the lecturers as a class and the teaching can become somewhat personalised! And of course you're always together as a class so everyone becomes very good friends!
Hopefully this has been of some help and perhaps you feel a bit more encouraged to come to Lund! And please do feel free to ask more questions if any come to mind!
(edited 9 months ago)
Original post by SoonToBeExpat
Thanks a lot for tagging me! I couldn't view the responses and didn't have the option to contact you. You're so amazing for this!
And also thanks a lot for your response and answering my questions!!
@segu94 You are most welcome! Let me know if any more questions come to mind or if you choose to go to Lund! In any case I wish you all the best!
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