Experience Report University of Helsinki.
ANR:
Name:
E-mail:
Exchange Semester:
Academic Year:
Host university:
Country:
378497
Manon van Nijnatten
m.vannijnatten@tilburguniversity.edu
Fall, 2014
2014/2015
University of Helsinki
Finland
In the fall of 2014 my big exchange adventure began. I left the 26th of August to go to Helsinki,
Finland. Here I spend 4 months studying at the University of Helsinki, making new friends and
travelling. The university or other organisations do not arrange for you to be picked up from the
airport, so I took a cab to my new home for four months in Helsinki. My studio in Helsinki was
perfect. Housing for students in Helsinki is difficult to arrange, it is almost impossible to find
something (even more impossible, something good) when you are looking for it without interference
from Hoas. All exchange students coming to Helsinki need to register at Hoas as soon as they know
they are going to Helsinki. Hoas is an organisation put together by various student unions and they
own several buildings filled with student studios/apartments and rooms. They will send you one
offer and you can either accept or not accept it, however everybody urges you to accept as
otherwise you might not find housing. Unfortunately it can happen that they do not have enough
room for all new students and thus they cannot guarantee a room is available. I got extremely lucky
as I received an offer for a studio in Domus Academica, here a few hundred exchange students stay
every semester and most stay only for one semester. It is located in the middle of the city and I was
able to walk everywhere.
When I arrived on the 26th I had that day to unpack as the next day the first day of the two-day
‘welcome fair’ started. At this welcome fair I met my tutor and my tutor-group, the group was
already approached by e-mail a few months before by the tutor. The tutor is a student of the
University who will guide you through the practical issues and whom will guide the group through
the introduction week. The ‘welcome fair’ was very useful as all practical issues were dealt with
those days. The following week the introduction week started and here they emphasized on getting
to know the university and your group members and other students.
The University of Helsinki has several campuses that are located in different areas of the city; the law
faculty is located in the heart of the city. This made it possible for me to walk from my residence to
the university in about 20 minutes. The University of Helsinki was founded in 1640, however at this
time it was located in the city Turku. In 1828 the university moved to Helsinki. In total there are
about 40.000 students and staff members at this university and around 2300 students at the faculty
of law. During my stay I believe there were around a 100 exchange students for the law faculty. The
university has ‘unicafé’s’, this is a very cheap way of eating a warm meal. You pay 2,90 euros and get
one main food (one type of meat/fish) and you can get an unlimited amount of salad, rice, potatoes,
pasta and water. I did not like the food, but it is the cheapest you will find in Helsinki as it is not a
cheap city (country in fact).
As mentioned before, Helsinki is not a cheap place to live in. I got lucky with my accommodation and
did not have a very expensive studio. As it is a capitol you live in, it is only natural that it will always
be more than what you pay for a studio in Tilburg. In Helsinki, I and all other exchange students lived
by the motto: Everything here is more expensive compared to the prices at home. By just assuming
that, the shock of certain prices wasn’t that bad. Of course I also made sure not to buy luxury items,
or shop at the expensive supermarkets; by doing this I made sure the prices weren’t so bad for me.
Public Transport on the other hand is quite cheap. This is because if you are a student, you get a
huge discount. You do not have to buy any books either as the library of the university has all the
course books in big numbers so you can just borrow them for free. So in total I did not manage to
get by on only my various student grants, I did use some of my savings. Naturally this was also
caused by the fact I wished to enjoy my time abroad and thus I went travelling, sightseeing and had
fun in the evenings and weekends in Helsinki. One thing most will find important to know is that the
price of alcohol in Finland is extremely high, this because it is only available in Alko-stores, which is
run by the state.
At the University of Helsinki certain things are done differently than at Tilburg University. A major
difference is how the courses are run and the exams scheduled. At the University of Helsinki the
professors of the courses determine how long they will need to teach their course and how many
hours a day and how many days a week they wish to teach it. When the course is over the exam will
be straight after that. This means that all courses have a different length and can last from 2 hours at
a time to 5 hours. It also ensures that you can have exams all during your semester, there is not a set
exam week. I very much enjoyed this as it allows you to focus on one course before moving to the
next one. The teaching style at the University of Helsinki is very much focused on the theoretical
aspect. Another effect of the power the professors have over their course is that the amount of ECTS
can differ. At Tilburg University almost all courses are worth 6 ECTS, at the University of Helsinki this
differs, though the majority is worth 4 ECTS.
The courses I followed are the following:
Course title and
code.
20875
Foundations of
European Union
Law
22101
International
Human Rights
Law
Course level
(BA/MA)
BA
Prerequisites
Form of exam
ECTS
Comments
None
Written exam
8
BA
Students are
expected to
have completed
an introductory
course in public
international
law.
6
22102
International
Migration Law
20851
English and EU
Company and
Commercial
Law
20817
The Law of
International
Organizations
208560
Lectures on
Competition
Law
BA
International
law, human
rights
None
Class
attendance:
10%
Tutorial
attendance and
participation:
40%
Written exam:
50%
Take-home
exam
Very theoretical
course, lectures
are difficult to
follow.
Very theoretical
course.
4
Very relevant.
Essay
4
Lectures are
difficult to
follow.
Open book
exam
4
Lectures are
easy to follow.
Written
4
Very theoretical
course.
BA
BA
BA
Completion of
basic
international
law course
None
I liked most of my courses and had a few professors whom were extremely good at lecturing.
When I went to Finland, I was prepared for the possibility of a culture-shock. I had already received
an e-mail from the university with information regarding not only practical issues in daily life in
Helsinki, but also how to deal with those. I did not have to deal with a culture-shock as I believe
Finland is a very western orientated country, same as the Netherlands. Of course there are some
differences, but these were very easy to adjust to in my opinion. The people of Finland are a little bit
quieter than the people in the Netherlands and they most certainly love queuing more than most
from the Netherlands. They eat more fish than I usually do and they celebrate Christmas larger than
most do in The Netherlands. These are just a few examples of the differences between the two
cultures and as I mentioned before these were not difficult to adjust to. I very much enjoyed the
Finnish culture as I found it to be a culture which is more, as we would call it ‘back to basic’. By this I
mean that they enjoy spending time in the nature (most Finnish people own a cabin in the middle of
the nature) and they certainly love their sauna-time. Most Finnish people speak good English, which
was perfect because Finnish is a language most will never be able to learn.
When I went to the welcome fair at the start of the semester, I joined the student-organisation
‘ESN’. I can really recommend this, as they organise a lot of parties, events and trips that you can
join. It makes it a lot easier meeting new people and making friends. Living at Domus also enabled
me to meet people in the common areas or just in the hall, so this is also perfect for exchange
students. I loved my semester abroad in Helsinki; I gained a lot of experiences and learned a lot. I
certainly became more independent, as I had to do everything by myself in a foreign country. It also
made me learn a lot about not only the Finnish culture, but a lot of others as well since the exchange
students came from all over the world. My worst experience there was probably when I was very ill
for a week. My best experience there is just all the people that I met and the experiences we shared
on trips and events. Even my worst experience there has a silver lining as I loved that my new friends
took care of me when I was ill.
For future students going to the University of Helsinki for a semester abroad I really recommend
being there for the welcome fair, it is not mandatory but it is the first real opportunity to meet new
people. Also make sure to register at Hoas as soon as you know you are going to this university,
otherwise housing might become an issue. You need to realize it will not be cheap, but you yourself
can make sure you do not spend excessively much. If you really want to do or experience something,
you should budget it in and definitely do it, after all it might be a long time before you get another
opportunity to do it. I would also definitely become a member of ESN, as this gives you great
opportunities to meet new people. Remember though, the University of Helsinki is known for its
quality of education, so you will definitely have to study at this university to pass your courses. I
personally loved going to this university, because of this quality of education. I believe it adds to my
degree that I followed courses at this university.
To conclude, I definitely recommend choosing the University of Helsinki for your exchange period. It
is a great university and the country is unique as well.