Survival in Finnish - my semester abroad
Marcus Messetler and Nico Gigacher spent the winter semester at the University of Applied Sciences Oulu in Finland. Marcus is studying for a Bachelor's degree in IT Infrastructure Management, while Nico is studying for a Bachelor's degree in Information, Media & Communication. Both told us about their experiences.
Survival in Finnish - or Marcus and the swim in the Arctic Ocean
How did you decide to spend a semester abroad?
The presentation by our International Office at the FH Burgenland gave me the idea in my first semester. I then found two fellow students who were also interested and we started to sit down together and read through everything in detail. Finland came into question as a possible partner university for our degree programme, so we decided on Oulu.
How was teaching organised there?
Lessons were possible from Monday to Friday, in the first part of the semester lessons started a little later, sometimes at 10 a.m., in the second part they usually started at 8 a.m..
Which courses did you attend?
In addition to the IT-centred courses, we also had to look a few steps outside our narrow field in order to fulfil the points for the Learning Agreement. In addition to Usability Basics, Internet Protocols and User Interface courses, we also had Physics, Statistics and Intercultural Competences. The latter is specifically for international students. We also made quite a few friends there.
We also had "Finnish Survival", a course in which we learnt the basics of the Finnish language.
Where and how did you live?
In a student residence, relatively centrally located between all the different buildings of the Oulu University of Applied Sciences. Our campus was the furthest away from our student residence and we had half an hour to walk, but with appropriate planning it was no problem.
The flat was simple and had the essentials. However, it was sufficient and once we had acquired a few kitchen appliances, we were dedicated self-caterers who cooked the typical student meals ourselves. There was also a supermarket 5 minutes' walk away - a great thing.
I was lucky enough to also have my colleague in the shared two-person flat and so, with regular visits from our third student from the Burgenland University of Applied Sciences, our small group of three used this kitchen together.
What were the highlights for you?
Phew, that's where it gets more difficult.
We planned a week in Lapland, where we were exposed to quite a lot of "typical Finnish" things.
Besides dog sledding, driving a snowmobile and snowshoeing at around -23 °C, this was definitely the most adventurous week. The journeys in the far north from A to B were quite long, often 40 kilometres until you got "up there" to your nearest neighbour. The journey to Norway was definitely one of, if not the highlight of this week-long trip. In the fishing village of Bugøynes, with just under 200 inhabitants at the top end of Norway, we threw ourselves into the Arctic sea after the sauna.
What friendships were formed?
The tutor of my fellow student and flat mate was one of the friendliest people I met in Oulu. A 27-year-old designer called Merija, who did a lot of things with us (and once took us to a Finnish karaoke bar). Through her we met Shen, who was from China but came from Holland, and Augustas, a Lithuanian. Over time, we all became a pretty close-knit group (and still are) who "made Oulu unsafe" together. Once we cooked cheese noodles for everyone. And even though we had bought the wrong flour (the Finnish or Swedish labelling of the food in the supermarket sometimes fooled us), they weren't too bad. Shen, on the other hand, taught us how to make sushi.
In any case, it was a great time in which we saw and experienced a lot. Something I look back on fondly.
What was the most difficult thing for you?
I was actually quite well on the whole during my stay in the far north.
I also coped quite well with the Nordic night, but I think that's probably most true here. Getting up early for lessons, walking for half an hour in the dark and not really seeing the sunlight for a long time ... The best thing to do here is to wrap up in a few layers and then traipse off to university in the wind and weather. That can get on your nerves over time if you don't have friends and colleagues around you like I do and approach things with a bit of humour.
There was also a certain charm to braving the cold and getting through the Nordic winter together. That sentence sounds good, doesn't it?
What advice would you give to younger fellow students facing this big adventure?
You will certainly think about it when you're facing a semester like this, but in the end the best thing to do is "close your eyes and go for it". You definitely benefit from throwing yourself in at the deep end (in Norway, haha) and I'm now convinced that it can ultimately only be a good thing to live a little outside your familiar surroundings and see how others do it. Quite a lot of fellow students there initially feel the same way as you (and I did) and it's not just this common ground that forms the basis of all the friendships you'll make. Good luck and best wishes!
The Nordic dream - Nico's semester abroad in Finland
Note: Unfortunately, Nico was not at all enthusiastic about the courses he attended in Oulu. Nevertheless, he agreed to tell us about his semester in a guest article. The article is abridged here. If you want to see more from Nico, follow him on his YouTube channel.
The first day
I could start my report in the preparatory phase of the semester abroad and go into more detail about why I chose Finland or how big the administrative hurdles were. In the end, however, this is quite easy at the FH Burgenland, which is why 90% of the things that need to be done can be done in one day. That's why my journey begins on the day of departure to Finland. I can still remember exactly how mixed my feelings were on the way to the airport. I was hoping - especially in Finland, which is known for its high standard of education - for a challenging university that would demand a lot from me and where I could learn all kinds of things. I hoped to meet cool people who would later become friends. At the same time, I was nervous because I wouldn't see my family, girlfriend and friends for several weeks. I would be on my own and would have to deal with the small problems of everyday life myself. In retrospect, my chaotic mind naturally dreaded trivialities, but even that has to be part of it at the beginning.
Arriving in Finland was really great, as I was picked up directly at the airport by my tutor Jing.
These tutors - you could also call them mentors - are a great idea because they take some of the initial hurdles in Finland off your shoulders. They show you the dormitory, organise your keys and show you the most important supermarkets in the area as well as the way to the university. Basically, all the things that are most important during the first few days. The hall of residence itself seemed quite dull to me at first.
The first task in Finland was therefore to furnish my room with the most necessary things. Rubbish bins, coat hooks, towels, a shower curtain and many other things were initially on my checklist, which I had to buy at the nearby K-Supermarket. Fortunately, they had everything I needed for my start in Finland. After a day of settling in, I already had my first "familiarisation event" at the Oulu University of Applied Sciences.
If I had to draw a conclusion after the first week, it would probably have been an enchanting one. But then those annoying courses came in between.
I enrolled for them the following day, although unfortunately they hardly corresponded to those originally offered. Thanks to a new administration system at the university, some courses were cancelled, mislabelled or didn't even take place due to space problems. Other courses, on the other hand, were excessively overcrowded, which meant that rooms with 20 seats were suddenly crammed with 50-60 students. Thanks to the flexibility on the part of the FH Burgenland, however, it was quite easy to choose the right course programme and find the right courses.
The student's everyday life with "new friends"
After that - i.e. from the second week onwards - a form of "everyday life" began to set in. I went to university and took my courses, ate with others in the canteen, did my unfortunately daily shopping and went home again, where we usually played table tennis or billiards in the common room. However, my everyday life was disrupted by a rather unpleasant event. One morning I woke up and was surprised to see little red dots scattered all over my wrists. After having to sleep in a jumper and jogging bottoms because our landlords PSOAS didn't think it was a good idea to heat until mid-September, only a few areas of my body remained bare. One day later, I noticed that the number of red spots had increased. I thought to myself that I might not be able to cope with the €5 bed linen from IKEA, so I took it downstairs to the laundry room and cleaned it. When I came back upstairs, however, I noticed a small, wandering brown dot on my mattress. So there they were - my new Finnish friends.
Bedbugs had made themselves at home in my room. Not only there, but also in my suitcase a few weeks later I discovered a few more specimens.
An exterminator was contacted for me. The colleague came five times every two weeks - yes, you read that right: FIVE times - to my flat because the bedbug problem was not so easy to get rid of.
Travellers should be let go!
In addition to this ups and downs of everyday life, there are also countless opportunities to travel and explore Finland and its neighbouring countries. For example, the European Student Network organises trips to St. Petersburg, the Lofoten Islands and Lapland, to name but a few. To make things a little shorter, I would just like to summarise a small list of the trips I was able to experience during my stay in Finland:
- Two Mökki trips with friends - a Mökki is a weekend cottage complete with sauna (usually deep in the forest or by a lake) that Finns go to in order to relax.
- A factory tour in Tornio, as we had an interview at the Outokumpu company for the "Introduction to Project Working" course. Contrary to my expectations, this was a real highlight because I travelled with people I had only known for a few minutes beforehand.
- A two-day trip to Kuusamo for ski jumping, where I was able to see legends such as Noriaki Kasai just a few metres away from me. Away from that, we got stuck in the snow in the car, nearly ran over two reindeer and lost a wallet containing around 500 euros. Fortunately, we got the wallet back, which turned out to be a really fun trip.
- A week together with my girlfriend in Helsinki, where we drove around large parts of southern Finland in a hire car. Although the weather didn't exactly play into our hands, Helsinki is a beautiful and welcoming city. However, I would definitely recommend travelling to Porvoo, which is about an hour away from Helsinki. My girlfriend and I really liked this small harbour town.
- Several day trips to national parks or to the island of Hailuoto, where I was able to take extremely beautiful photos that I will probably only edit in a few years' time because I'm just too lazy to do so...
- However, my personal highlight remains the trip to Lapland at the end of the semester abroad.
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