Humans of KI - Malin Sandell

AUTHOR: MATILDE OVIEDO

Malin Sandell is the Student Counsellor for 6 different programmes at KI - we met her for an interview to get to know the person behind all these emails a bit better.

If you are a student at KI, you most likely had an email exchange with Malin Sandell. Malin is not just the Student Counsellor for 6 different programmes at KI – she is also the first point of contact for students who struggle with stress, harassments, discrimination, mental health/illness or other problems related to your studies.

Malin has been working for about 6 years as student advisor; first at KTH and now for a year at KI. Since her studies in ethnology, Malin has been interested in people and especially students. She says that what draws her to students is “their different stories, cultures and experiences”.

“I think it's always difficult as an international student to come to another country because there's so many small details that I, as a national, take for granted and just know, but as an international you have to learn everything from scratch”.

Her mission is to be the bridge, the smoothing hand between all the different customs and life here at KI.

Her job was never easy but, of course, it has not been made easier by the pandemic. Before, students could interact with their classmates during lectures and seminars and could therefore help each other out; the online format has taken away this support system, and left many of these students vulnerable to loneliness. She explained that most of her students now complain that they feel alien to Sweden, and feel like they don’t live or participate in society.

“I can't imagine what it must be like not to know anyone, in a country I know very little about, staring at a computer screen in my room alone”.

Many students have now turned to her for more help. In addition to providing advice on Swedish life, Malin has now also taken it upon herself to interact with the students, to have fika or take a walk. She is at her happiest doing these walks, so it is her favourite part of the job - but she feels KI could make more of an effort. Malin’s current project is to make internationals more of a priority for the university; with more seminars for incoming students, longer and ‘funner’ introduction weeks - and perhaps introducing a physical space that can serve as a hangout place as well as a place for questions and advice.

“Internationals are a great resource for research and investigation that KI is so invested in, so it makes sense to give them attention as well”.

This is where Malin calls for help. Because the pandemic has taken a toll on the amount of physical actives; she is constantly searching for ideas and contributions that students can think of to make the university more inclusive for international students.

CHECK OUT the Medicor Magazine for the full experience!