University of Helsinki
Dear New students,
I can never forget the excitement that kept me up all night when I received the admission letter from University of Helsinki on 1st May, 2012. How I pictured what my student life would be, what my classmates and teachers would look like, how I could survive the Finnish winter, where I would be living… Now two and a half years have passed within a blink; I graduated from my master’s programme last December, and then moved away from Finland this January to start my new career in the UK. Being away from Finland makes me reflect on my time there. Constantly I am considering what were the most meaningful experiences I had at the University of Helsinki, and how differently I would perform if given a second chance to live my student life. I have summarized my thoughts below, hopefully it will give you some insights into planning your own student life, especially at this beginning moment when you are equally excited and lost.
The most meaningful experience I’ve had at the University of Helsinki
1. Being an international student ambassador at the University of Helsinki. Student ambassadors are students from different levels of studies, different disciplines, nationalities, talents and personal interests. However, it is the same passion to popularize our university, the same faith in the bright future of our university, and the same desire to provide better services to our potential students that unite us as a team. Working with these young passionate talents was indeed a pleasure. Moreover, I also forged great friendships with some of them.
If you are interested in applying to be an international student ambassador, follow this link: https://blogs.helsinki.fi/welcometouh/2014/11/17/interested-in-becoming-a-student-ambassador-for-the-year-2015/.
2. Being enrolled in the mentorship programme organized by my faculty (Behavioral Sciences). This mentorship programme was originally designed in Finnish. I learnt it by translating an email, then I contacted the sender asking if they would offer me a mentor that speaks English. Several days later, I got a positive reply. My mentor was a senior partner of a leading Finnish company of business consultants. Not only did I learn the Finnish company culture and labor market, but also how to prepare for life after university. My mentorship experience was an absolute plus to my student experience.
For those who are not from faculty of Behavioral Sciences, good news is that, Career Services also organizes mentorship progammes in English for international students.
3. Participating in the international seminars, conferences and events. Being a student in such a great University provides us with numerous chances to interact with word-class scholars in our study area. The information can be received from the programme coordinator, the student union newsletter, the university webpage news board, etc. Beside the academic events, the commercial and cultural events are equally interesting. One meaningful event in which I participated was volunteering for SLUSH 2014. Perhaps SLUSH is the biggest stage in Finland to meetup with startups, tech talents, top-tier international investors, executives and media entrepreneurs, political leaders, business tycoons etc. You can meet the Finnish Prime Minister, the Vice-Premier of China, the CTO of Alibaba group, the CEOs of Skype, Rovio, Supercell etc. By seizing the right opportunity, you can talk to them face-to-face and even take a photo with them, as I did! Since the entry tickets for this 2-day event is expensive for students, by applying to volunteer you can get in for free. Thousands of volunteers are needed in these 2 days. You only need to volunteer from half to a whole day, then you can participate all other activities.
The planning of this year’s event started in January and the registration for the tickets opens on 15th April. This year SLUSH is held at Messukeskus on 11-12.11.2015. The online volunteer application opens on their website http://www.slush.org/ on 01.07.2015. So mark your calendar now for these days!
4. Discovering mysterious Lapland and magical aurora by joining the student trip in Timetravels (https://www.timetravels.fi/). I tugged Santa’s beard (sorry just for testing), jumped into the ice-coated lake, swam in the Arctic Ocean, experienced the husky safari, snowmobile safari, and reindeer sledge, built an igloo house, learnt the techniques of surviving in a polar region. All these experiences were so fantastic and unique.
5. Organizing my friend’s wedding. Yes, I did it, although I was shocked when I received my friend’s email from China that told me he and his fiancée would like to celebrate their marriage by travelling across Europe. He wanted me to arrange a wedding ceremony for them in a church, by finding them a church, a pastor, a photographer and someone to shoot the video. For such an important project, the most challenging parts were the time and budget constraints. Believe it or not, I arranged everything within one month with a budget of less than 200 euros, half of which was spent purchasing the wedding flowers. This was the most challenging event I ever organized and I definitely would not want to do it again. But it is rewarding to play such an important role in someone’s life and seeing the happiness and blessing of a new couple.
6. Enjoying solitude. No matter how sociable you are, Finland will teach you the skills of enjoying solitude. Being alone eventually helped me to inspect my inner self, to do the things I had avoided by claiming I was too busy. I picked up my painting brushes, after many years, and practiced it on a regular basis. I became immersed in nature, listening to the snow-dancing in winter and melting in spring, catching the mid-night sunbeams in summer and the falling leaves in autumn.
How differently I would perform if given a second chance to my student life
1. I would have taken learning a new language more seriously, no matter if it was Finnish, Swedish or French etc. The Language Center offers the holistic options of well-structured courses. As an art student, being multilingual sometimes benefits us more than the major we are studying. Finnish or Swedish can significantly improve employability in Finland, even if it’s only for part-time jobs.
2. Choose the topic of my master’s thesis wisely. First of all, I am proud of my master’s thesis, my topic, my supervisor, and my final result. A couple of days ago I was contacted by a book publisher, who showed interest in my thesis topic and asked if I’d like to publish it as a book. I still have doubts about my topic because I did not find the right balance between my personal interests and the projects my professor is running. In other words, I chose this topic totally out of my personal interests. I truly appreciate the efforts and guidance my supervisor had given, however, due to the lack of existing materials, I had to spend much more effort in collecting data and choosing methods of data analysis. Other classmates, who chose their topic from the professors’ running projects, received more support from their supervisors and even from other researchers. They also had more accessibility to data. Students are more likely to be chosen as the PhD candidate if their master’s thesis is part of a professor’s current project.
3. Exchange an academic year or semester abroad. We are already lucky enough to enjoy the high quality education at this top university without worrying about tuition fees (you can’t imagine how much I am envied by the international students here in the UK because of this!). But the equally exciting news is that international students can also apply for exchange studies abroad by applying for exchange grants (https://university.helsinki.fi/en/studying/how-to-apply/exchange-studies). Not all the international students in Europe enjoy such a benefit, e.g. some universities in France only support EU students in terms of exchanges.
The general advice for our dear new students: be active, active and more active! A meaningful life in University of Helsinki can be guaranteed.
Text and picture: MA Qian, International Student Ambassador