Masters in Finland - the educational process and the subtleties of admission 2014
Good day!
Inspired by the fresh history , I would like to share a short post about the ways of people who decided to enter the University of Technology in Tampere (Finland) after reading last year's post and talk about the educational process in comparison with the domestic one.
I must say - the flow was successful.
Photo by: TampereUniTech
')
So, let's start with some changes in exchange earnings this year (previous requirements can be found in the same post last year):
Now to the point, several people from Habra spoke with me, a group of students from my native university and children from domestic conferences: basically, their feelings from the conversation were the same - curiosity and horror. Quite a few decided to act, I personally know of three such examples.
So, the first person was going to apply for a full-time master being on the 4th year of a bachelor’s program in his native GUAP, brilliantly passed the language and surprised the selection committee with an average score of close to 5 (the Finnish system means a point system starting from one accordingly, the genius of such a student simply goes wild in their eyes. It is not surprising that he successfully entered and is now preparing for protection in Russia.
The second person got excited about the idea of ​​enrolling in the master immediately after reading the post, preparing for the language exam, but for a normal student, passing another EGE (which is any language exam for a level) seems almost impossible, so it was passed on 58/110 with a passing score on technical specialties equal to 80. Accordingly, the possibility of admission to Degree has disappeared. At that time it was still impossible to file for an exchange, but from the experience of last year it was seen as completely unrealistic because of the linguistic threshold. What was the surprise about the optional surrender of the language is difficult to describe. The link to the application was successfully received, all documents were prepared and uploaded. Began the long days of waiting for a decision.
The third person did not even try to enroll in a full-fledged magistracy, but immediately set his sights on the exchange. He calmly passed IELTS, filled out all the documents and filed without any additional advice or jerks. Decent way.
Well, both of these people successfully acted. Of course, the curriculum was curtailed for various reasons, but this does not negate the fact that studying in such a near abroad was once again possible. If you have not read the previous post , squeeze : everything is also the main charm of this higher education, in addition to the ease of admission, is the fact that it is free. There is no need to pay four to five-digit amounts per year, and the level of knowledge delivery remains good if there is a desire to learn.
But for these guys, the fight against bureaucracy is just beginning. It is necessary to apply for a student visa, buy expensive insurance for a year, find housing and prepare for the move. The main problem at the moment is mail. Documents on the confirmation of receipt will be sent by mail, and how much they will go to their home state - no one knows. So, the simplest way out is to come and pick them up personally, or wait a month. As a last resort, ask them to transfer with someone at least to their home country. Unfortunately, the registration of a student visa takes at least 3 weeks, so getting them in the middle / end of July is unforgivable, because studies start on August 17th.
Summing up, I want to say that admission is possible. It is not as bad as it seems. Warning a question about graduate school - there are big problems with places, but you can try again.
If there is a clear desire to enroll in the Degree program, I recommend starting to prepare for the language exam right now, and apply in February next year.
For patriots: This is not a post with the implication "It's time to cut", this is an addition to the story that you can get a higher / additional education not far from your home, but whether to return or not - can be discussed later, this is an extremely subjective decision.
If someone enrolled in a Finnish university, please write off, it is very interesting to listen to your stories!
Naturally, I am ready to try to answer any questions.
In addition, I wanted to talk about the study at the university. Honestly, it is very different from the one that I had to observe in St. Petersburg. No one requires anything. Absolutely. If you want to learn, you will get both knowledge and some experience. Laziness - no one will force. For a foreign student and a visa extension it is necessary to collect a certain amount of credits for the year. To be exact - 40. Simply put, you need to pass 12 simple items (three credits each) or 7-8 difficult (5-7 credits each) for the first year. In comparison with our education, where every semester was 7-9 subjects, it looks acceptable.
Simple items can go for two months (marketing, etc.), or four (language). As a rule, it is necessary to attend lectures or practical classes and take a simple exam. Naturally, there are homework for which it is difficult to spend more than an hour a week. Simply put, a week at most will be spent on such an item for 3-4 hours.
With serious items all the more difficult. Every week, it is necessary to attend lectures (1.5-3 hours), supplemented by practical exercises (+1.5 hours) and, during the semester, there will most likely be several laboratory tests (3-6 hours). The exam will be difficult.
Yes, speaking of the exams - no "machines". Usually this is a set of questions (about 20) on all topics and you need to answer each, i.e. no one pulls tickets and forms all the same. However, the questions are not homogeneous, i.e. can be test or open in the same exam. The handing over is rather trivial - everyone goes to a large audience, gets questions, paper, and answers three hours. Then the answers are collected, sealed in a package and referred to the teacher, who will check them for a month. Cannot be written off. Not at all. Of course, no one will say the words that they have noticed behind this case, but they will report back to the teacher. Twice caught - expelled. Not the most pleasant outcome. The grade for a course of 60% consists of an exam, and the remainder of the results of laboratory, homework and practice. You can retake the exam three times if the implementation of the course itself has not changed. If it is mandatory, but fails to pass - you will have to retreat to all classes again.
An interesting part of training in a technical specialty is laboratory ones, namely, courses consisting entirely of them. Some would say that these are easy loans, but they are not. Each lab takes 3-6 hours, and they teach you to really understand the topic. For example, for two semesters of laboratory courses on Networks, students went from setting up interfaces to BGP on real hardware. The chance to touch not only the “configs”, but also run with the wires leaves a huge positive impression!
In any case, all subjects are divided into four groups for each specialty: compulsory, basic, secondary and additional, and you need to accumulate a total of 120 credits. For the "techies" mandatory two - Finnish-1 and Personnel Management, an entertaining combination. Next, there is a small group of cores - you need to take almost everything, and they themselves describe the “core” of the specialty. Additional items are those that describe secondary specialty or “Minor”. And additional - language and curiosity courses just satisfying. In total, to be able to select a diploma theme, you need to earn 80 credits. The diploma itself costs 30, and the remaining 10 are the subjects accompanying its writing.
If you look at things soberly, you can complete the magistracy in two years due to the fact that some of the required courses overlap. From this time you need at least half a year to write a diploma. At the same time, you can learn four, but it is meaningless in terms of cost of living.
I hope that somehow clarified the situation for those interested in the learning process. If you have any questions or new ones, I will be happy to answer them in the comments or personal messages!
Thank you for your time!
ps Most likely my language has already suffered greatly, do not swear strongly.
Inspired by the fresh history , I would like to share a short post about the ways of people who decided to enter the University of Technology in Tampere (Finland) after reading last year's post and talk about the educational process in comparison with the domestic one.
I must say - the flow was successful.
Photo by: TampereUniTech
Subtleties and history of admission to magistracy 2014
')
So, let's start with some changes in exchange earnings this year (previous requirements can be found in the same post last year):
- Donating a language is no longer necessary. In electronic form, applications for the exchange program are now asking for their own opinion about the level of the language (it makes sense to use Advanced). Naturally, you should not go with zero English, but the bonus is pleasant - you do not need to spend $ 250 on the exam.
- Of the required documents, only a notarized list of items with marks from the dean's office and a photo are needed. But I advise you to attach a CV with letters of recommendation, this increases the chance of receipt. And if you have publications, then everything is quite interesting.
- However, the admission form is now closed - if your home university participates in the exchange program, you need to request a link from the International Office of your university (if there is one), this reduced the flow of applications from highly eastern countries. Otherwise - read the following paragraph. :)
- At the same time, there was an opportunity to submit documents under the Free Mover program. Simply put, any student can try to come to the exchange from his university, but with an individual consideration of each application.
Now to the point, several people from Habra spoke with me, a group of students from my native university and children from domestic conferences: basically, their feelings from the conversation were the same - curiosity and horror. Quite a few decided to act, I personally know of three such examples.
So, the first person was going to apply for a full-time master being on the 4th year of a bachelor’s program in his native GUAP, brilliantly passed the language and surprised the selection committee with an average score of close to 5 (the Finnish system means a point system starting from one accordingly, the genius of such a student simply goes wild in their eyes. It is not surprising that he successfully entered and is now preparing for protection in Russia.
The second person got excited about the idea of ​​enrolling in the master immediately after reading the post, preparing for the language exam, but for a normal student, passing another EGE (which is any language exam for a level) seems almost impossible, so it was passed on 58/110 with a passing score on technical specialties equal to 80. Accordingly, the possibility of admission to Degree has disappeared. At that time it was still impossible to file for an exchange, but from the experience of last year it was seen as completely unrealistic because of the linguistic threshold. What was the surprise about the optional surrender of the language is difficult to describe. The link to the application was successfully received, all documents were prepared and uploaded. Began the long days of waiting for a decision.
The third person did not even try to enroll in a full-fledged magistracy, but immediately set his sights on the exchange. He calmly passed IELTS, filled out all the documents and filed without any additional advice or jerks. Decent way.
Well, both of these people successfully acted. Of course, the curriculum was curtailed for various reasons, but this does not negate the fact that studying in such a near abroad was once again possible. If you have not read the previous post , squeeze : everything is also the main charm of this higher education, in addition to the ease of admission, is the fact that it is free. There is no need to pay four to five-digit amounts per year, and the level of knowledge delivery remains good if there is a desire to learn.
But for these guys, the fight against bureaucracy is just beginning. It is necessary to apply for a student visa, buy expensive insurance for a year, find housing and prepare for the move. The main problem at the moment is mail. Documents on the confirmation of receipt will be sent by mail, and how much they will go to their home state - no one knows. So, the simplest way out is to come and pick them up personally, or wait a month. As a last resort, ask them to transfer with someone at least to their home country. Unfortunately, the registration of a student visa takes at least 3 weeks, so getting them in the middle / end of July is unforgivable, because studies start on August 17th.
Summing up, I want to say that admission is possible. It is not as bad as it seems. Warning a question about graduate school - there are big problems with places, but you can try again.
If there is a clear desire to enroll in the Degree program, I recommend starting to prepare for the language exam right now, and apply in February next year.
For patriots: This is not a post with the implication "It's time to cut", this is an addition to the story that you can get a higher / additional education not far from your home, but whether to return or not - can be discussed later, this is an extremely subjective decision.
If someone enrolled in a Finnish university, please write off, it is very interesting to listen to your stories!
Naturally, I am ready to try to answer any questions.
Studying proccess
In addition, I wanted to talk about the study at the university. Honestly, it is very different from the one that I had to observe in St. Petersburg. No one requires anything. Absolutely. If you want to learn, you will get both knowledge and some experience. Laziness - no one will force. For a foreign student and a visa extension it is necessary to collect a certain amount of credits for the year. To be exact - 40. Simply put, you need to pass 12 simple items (three credits each) or 7-8 difficult (5-7 credits each) for the first year. In comparison with our education, where every semester was 7-9 subjects, it looks acceptable.
Simple items can go for two months (marketing, etc.), or four (language). As a rule, it is necessary to attend lectures or practical classes and take a simple exam. Naturally, there are homework for which it is difficult to spend more than an hour a week. Simply put, a week at most will be spent on such an item for 3-4 hours.
With serious items all the more difficult. Every week, it is necessary to attend lectures (1.5-3 hours), supplemented by practical exercises (+1.5 hours) and, during the semester, there will most likely be several laboratory tests (3-6 hours). The exam will be difficult.
Yes, speaking of the exams - no "machines". Usually this is a set of questions (about 20) on all topics and you need to answer each, i.e. no one pulls tickets and forms all the same. However, the questions are not homogeneous, i.e. can be test or open in the same exam. The handing over is rather trivial - everyone goes to a large audience, gets questions, paper, and answers three hours. Then the answers are collected, sealed in a package and referred to the teacher, who will check them for a month. Cannot be written off. Not at all. Of course, no one will say the words that they have noticed behind this case, but they will report back to the teacher. Twice caught - expelled. Not the most pleasant outcome. The grade for a course of 60% consists of an exam, and the remainder of the results of laboratory, homework and practice. You can retake the exam three times if the implementation of the course itself has not changed. If it is mandatory, but fails to pass - you will have to retreat to all classes again.
An interesting part of training in a technical specialty is laboratory ones, namely, courses consisting entirely of them. Some would say that these are easy loans, but they are not. Each lab takes 3-6 hours, and they teach you to really understand the topic. For example, for two semesters of laboratory courses on Networks, students went from setting up interfaces to BGP on real hardware. The chance to touch not only the “configs”, but also run with the wires leaves a huge positive impression!
In any case, all subjects are divided into four groups for each specialty: compulsory, basic, secondary and additional, and you need to accumulate a total of 120 credits. For the "techies" mandatory two - Finnish-1 and Personnel Management, an entertaining combination. Next, there is a small group of cores - you need to take almost everything, and they themselves describe the “core” of the specialty. Additional items are those that describe secondary specialty or “Minor”. And additional - language and curiosity courses just satisfying. In total, to be able to select a diploma theme, you need to earn 80 credits. The diploma itself costs 30, and the remaining 10 are the subjects accompanying its writing.
If you look at things soberly, you can complete the magistracy in two years due to the fact that some of the required courses overlap. From this time you need at least half a year to write a diploma. At the same time, you can learn four, but it is meaningless in terms of cost of living.
I hope that somehow clarified the situation for those interested in the learning process. If you have any questions or new ones, I will be happy to answer them in the comments or personal messages!
Thank you for your time!
ps Most likely my language has already suffered greatly, do not swear strongly.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/225261/
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