Welcome to University of Helsinki

Every once in a while the hard working back office people of the UH student services go out to the world in attempts of attracting foreign students to come to Finland and our university. My turn was in early May when I had the honor of attending student mobility fair at the University of Melbourne, Australia.

The dreadful memories of a night of horror due to a bad sushi faded away the very minute when the first student arrived at the fair.  Soon, the place was packed with smiling Australian mates. University of Helsinki stand was strategically located right next to the entrance so no student could possibly have entered the building without having me feed them with info on study opportunities at UH together with some Finnish chocolate. Fortunately, many of them actually seemed to be interested in my promotion mantra and even challenged me with some great questions. Especially students in arts and natural sciences seemed to stay at my stand a little longer than the duration of my monologue. One young lady even revealed to be a Finland fan.  This, of course, deeply warmed the heart of a dusty back office official whose wonderful days in Melbourne had converted her a big fan of the land down under.

The top two questions Aussie students asked me were about the weather and the language. They wanted to know whether it was ok to come and study in Finland without knowing any Finnish language or possessing any winter clothes. For the first question the answer is a definite yes, for the latter one I suggest googling  “winter in Finland” and making a judgment of your own.

For the Aussies, Finland is actually a pretty cheap place to live in. Housing costs maybe a half of what the students in Melbourne pay and there is no tuition fee except for the summer school (www.helsinki.fi/summerschool). The one thing  that Aussies and other foreign students however ought to be aware of is that they should not count on finding a part time job during their studies in Finland. There are some jobs for non-Finnish speaking people particularly in the restaurant field but for most foreign students, restaurants stand for a place to spend the money rather than earn it.

Whether it is for a semester or duration of an entire master’s program, coming to Finland is surely worth the investment. Where else in the world can you enjoy the Nordic culture, meet the Slavic culture and taste chocolate with salmiakki*? Come to Finland and enjoy it all!

Jelena Santalainen
from the UH International Exchange Services

*salty chemical fix us Finns call “candy”

The Orientation Handbook for International Students 2012-2013 has now been published as a PDF in the university WebPages! The guidebook contains a lot of practical information that will help you get started with your student life and to navigate through daily life. You will probably find answers to many of the questions you might have in the guidebook. Just browse through the table of contents and you will see what the Orientation Handbook has to offer!

The printed version of the Orientation Handbook will be available at the university Welcome Fair 30.8.-1.9.2012.

Have you already received a housing offer from Hoas? Worried about the fact that you have not been admitted to the University of Helsinki yet?

Hoas has started making housing offers. If you have received an offer, please follow the advice given by Hoas and pay the housing deposit of 500 euros before the deadline listed in the Housing offer. It’s the only way to make sure that you’ll have secured housing. To confirm the offer sent to you by Hoas, you should also sign and scan the tenancy agreement & scan the receipt of the paid deposit, and send them to Hoas.

Most incoming exchange students have not yet received acceptance from the University of Helsinki, so try to be patient (even though it can be difficult to wait, we know). Acceptance information should be available in mid- to late June at the latest.

What happens if you are not accepted to the University of Helsinki, but have already paid your housing deposit? In that case, Hoas is able to cancel your Housing agreement without any costs an you’ll receive the entire deposit back from Hoas.

Any questions? Please feel free to ask them here, and we’ll do our best to answer.

Kind regards,
Raisa from the International Exchange Services

P.S. When do you know that you have been accepted to the University of Helsinki? You will receive an Acceptance Letter by e-mail, sent by your host faculty… Read more about it here.

Photo by Eeva Anundi

When I received my acceptance letter for the Master’s Degree Programme in European Studies last April, all I knew was that I’m going to study political history in an international and multidisciplinary programme in Helsinki. Now, a year later, I am one of the student representatives in our programme’s steering group. How did this happen and what does it actually mean?

The Master’s Degree Program for European Studies (MES), coordinated by the Network of European Studies (NES), is a quite new programme, only the second generation of MES students will be graduating this year. Therefore, it is constantly developing and changing and needs a little more attention than programmes with a longer history. For overseeing its development, MES has a steering group, including representatives from the network, from all study fields combined in the programme, and also two MES students. A combination of a lucky chance and the fact that I have always been an active student made me end up as one of the latter.

The role of the student representatives is to be the connecting link between the programme and our fellow students. Apart from participating the steering group meetings, our main actual responsibility is to collect student feedback twice a year. I believe that when the feedback is collected by students, it is a lot more advantageous, because while conducting the questionnaires, we can take into account the issues that the steering group needs answers and opinions about, but also the matters we as students believe need to be discussed. Therefore, the steering group will get a more clear picture what the students think. Also, this way even the minor worries come out, because it is always easier to complain to the fellow students than to the teachers 🙂

In addition, we are responsible for finding tutors for the next year students amongst our cohort. I believe it is a nice way of doing it – for the students, by the students. It is also great to know that the steering group trusts our opinion to select the best people.

This kind of flexibility and student involvement is one of the great advantages of the MES programme – things that are not functioning can be changed more easily and student’s opinions are taken into account. Including students to the work of the steering group gives us a feeling that it really matters what we have to say.

For me, being a student representative is exciting on the one hand because I can actually do something to make the programme better for future generations, on the other hand, it is interesting to see this side of the university and how a study programme is actually made. Especially when coming from a foreign country, this kind of experience can make the connection between the student and the university much stronger.

Pilleriin Lillemets
Student in the Master’s Degree Program for European Studies (MES)