Reflections on Stockholm Summer School
By Lewis McCann
The Stockholm Summer School is a great programme, and I would recommend it to anyone who has a keen interest in both the law and travel. The course I studied in Stockholm was Intellectual Property Law and Fashion. It was incredibly interesting to see how this area of law impacts brands that we see daily, and how common it is for disputes to arise! The campus at Stockholm University is lovely. It is a large, open-plan campus with modern accommodation, plenty of green space and even their own horses! It also boasts its own metro station, which is incredibly useful for getting to and from the city centre. Being part of the programme also meant that we were given free transport, which was a nice touch.
The aforementioned metro includes some beautiful underground stations, quite unlike any other metro I have ever seen! The old town in Stockholm includes buildings of all different colours, along with a rich history that we were able to learn about from a tour provided on the programme. The programme also included a visit to the Center for Justice in Stockholm. A highlight of the programme for me, this organisation provided us with an insight into what they do, and how they have committed their careers into making a real difference into people’s lives, specifically those who have had their human rights infringed. After our discussions with them, we obviously stopped for fika! If you do not know what fika is, you will find out very quickly if you chose to study in Stockholm!
Stockholm University also provided us with various other forms of entertainment. We ate pizza and played Kubb at one of the lovely green spaces on campus. Kubb is a traditional Swedish game where you attempt to knock over small wooden blocks with batons. It was great fun! We were also treated with a visit to Gröna Lund amusement park, which is located in the heart of Stockholm. The Fritt Fall, which drops you from a height of 80 metres, provides for great views of the city, but it is not for the faint hearted!
Away from university life, Stockholm is a great city to explore. Built on an archipelago, there are an array of beautiful islands in and around Stockholm to explore. My friends and I chose to do this on a boat tour, and also kayaking. We also used the public boat to visit Vaxholm, which was a beautiful little island not too far from the city centre. Stockholm also offers a multitude of great museums, my favourite of which was the Vasa Museum. The Vasa was a ship that sunk near Stockholm on it’s maiden voyage in 1628, and you can see it in all it’s glory in this museum! There is also the open-air museum, Skansen, which contains lots of individual museums that can be explored, as well as an array of wildlife exhibits. If you’re an ABBA fan, there is also an ABBA museum!
Overall, it was a great programme to be a part of, both academically and socially. I would highly recommend to anyone!
