UNIVERSITY OF GRONINGEN. Exchange in Vaasa. Report of exchange semester at the University of Vaasa, in Vaasa, Finland

Transcription

1 UNIVERSITY OF GRONINGEN Exchange in Vaasa Report of exchange semester at the University of Vaasa, in Vaasa, Finland Wies van Eeden, s Autumn semester In this document, the general report and the specific report of my exchange semester in the autumn semester of the academic year of at the University of Vaasa, in Vaasa, Finland.

2 A. General Report 1. Host Institution and Exact Dates of Semester Abroad I did my exchange at the University of Vaasa (in Finnish: Vaasan yliopisto) in the city of Vaasa in Finland. I arrived on the 21 nd of August and left on the 22 nd of December. 2. Contact with Home Faculty, Preparation and Journey Before my exchange, the contact with the International Office of the University of Groningen went very smoothly. The information on the website was sufficient and the International Office was always prepared to help. We were offered a presentation before the application deadline about all the factors that should be taken into account before applying, then after being accepted at the University of Vaasa, I had another presentation with everything that needed to be arranged and in particular the Erasmus forms. We received regular mails about deadlines. The contact with my program coordinator Pim Heijnen also went smoothly: we made an appointment, discussed my Learning Agreement and came to decisions very quickly. Besides the Learning Agreement, my preparation consisted of finding housing in Vaasa, buying a plane ticket from Amsterdam to Vaasa (with a stop in Helsinki) and practical matters such as insurance checking and bank account checking. Moreover, I attended the ESN activity in which you could meet international students from the country of your exchange. The journey went as planned and the University of Vaasa arranged a free pick-up service from the airport to the apartments. 3. Residence Abroad 3.1 Residence permit You need a residence permit in Finland when your stay lasts longer than 3 months. This can be done at the police office in the city center. 3.2 Arrival and departure dates I arrived on the 21 nd of August on the official arrival days of the University of Vaasa. Because of this, I had a free transport from the airport to my apartment. On the 22 nd of December I left and went to the airport by taxi with some fellow exchange students. From Monday the 25 th to Friday the 29 th of August there was an introduction week for all exchange students, which introduced us to literally everything in the university, from all student services to the rules concerning plagiarism. There are no fixed departure dates, but officially the semester ended at the 19 th of December. Arrival to the airport can be done by a bus (which does not go that frequently) or taxi. 3.3 Accommodation This semester, it was the first time that there were problems with accommodation, due to renovation activities of VOAS. I applied for an apartment of VOAS in May, but was not able to get an offer for a furnished apartment. Therefore, at the end of June, we received a mail from the university stating that if we did not had an offer yet, we should search for other housing options. A Facebookgroup was started with international students looking for a place to stay and with 3 other girls I applied for a private apartment of Pikipruukki. The apartment was 102 m2 and had 4 rooms, a large living room, a shared kitchen, 2 bathrooms, 2 balconies and a sauna. We paid 264 each per month, so it was quite cheap, even though it excluded heating (approximately 40 per month in total). Unfortunately, the apartment was unfurnished, so the first week consisted of a great search for furniture in all second hand shops

3 (there is no IKEA near). In Jupiter, we could find most of our furniture and all cooking materials and other small stuff were found at Adam & Eve s, both relatively cheap. Lastly, at the way back from the Helsinki-Tallinn trip of the university, we stopped at IKEA in Tampere to buy the final necessaries. My advice is to apply for VOAS as soon as possible. The best locations are Linna, Tekla, Olympia 1 and Olympia 2. Here, most exchange students live and it is relatively close to the university and the city center. 3.4 Student Life, Culture and Leisure Even though there is a large amount of students in Vaasa, the city is nothing compared to Groningen. The university is quite new and it does not have as many associations as we are familiar with. There is one big student association, VYY, but in my opinion, they are not really focused on international students. There are several smaller (Finnish) suborganisations, for instance for students coming from Lapland, but they are not really open for international students. In my opinion, the membership of VYY does not offers many advantages for exchange students, so I recommend to become a member of ESN. Even though ESN is much smaller than in Groningen, both in size and activities, they are focused on international students and their membership is much cheaper and offers all the relevant advantages the VYY membership also has. The city is not as lively as Groningen. There are a few bars, of which Fontana is the most popular. Furthermore, there are some museums and cinemas. There are a few student sport associations, for instance for rugby or cheerleading. Moreover, the university organizes some (free) open exercise hours. 3.5 Language Vaasa is in the more Swedish area of Finland. In Finland, there are 2 official languages: Finnish and Swedish. In Vaasa, there are a lot of Swedish Fins. Finnish is a very different language from more or less any other language, except from Hungarian and Estonian. As Swedish is more similar to Dutch and English, this is the language which will save you in the supermarket. Furthermore, most Fins, and especially the younger ones, have a very good level of English. 4. Grant 4.1 Erasmus scholarship From Erasmus, I received approximately 250 per month. 70% of this amount was paid before my departure, 30% after my exchange. As only my monthly rent was already 264 monthly, this amount was by far not sufficient to cover my spendings here. On average, I spend around 1000 a month here. It should be noted that I spent a lot of money on travelling around. 4.2 Expenses abroad Travelling During my exchange, I wanted to travel a lot. Therefore, I spend more or less 400 per month on travelling. Travelling is very expensive. A two-way ticket from Vaasa to Helsinki costs about euros with student discount (this card can be bought for 10 at the train station, with a letter from the university which can be obtained at the International Office). Cars can be rent for 90 a day (excl. gas) and distances are quite large in Finland (Vaasa Helsinki 5 hours by train, Vaasa Turku 5 hours by train, Vaasa Tampere 3 hours by train, Vaasa Oulu 5 hours by train). Flights from Vaasa leave to Helsinki and Stockholm and those flights are only relatively cheap when booked far in advance Food and Drinks

4 Food and drinks are expensive in Finland. Except for carrots and potatoes, everything is much more expensive. You pay 2 for a cucumber, at least 3 for meat and at least 2 for a package of yoghurt. The cheapest store here is Lidl and Minimani is also relatively cheap and has basically everything you need. Overall, this generally implied that the costs for groceries are almost twice as high as in the Netherlands. A lot of money can be saved by having lunch at the university s cafeteria, which offers 3 different meals consisting of one plate of warm food, one salad plate, unlimited bread and a cup of lemonade/milk and a cup of water for 2 or Alcohol is very expensive both in the stores and in the bars (cheapest bottle of wine is 6 in the stores and beers are 5.50 on a regular Fontana night). However, some bars have evenings on which drinks are cheaper. Moreover, all bars have an entrance fee and cloak room costs Study in General 5.1 University of Vaasa The University of Vaasa is nicely located next to the seaside and is smaller than Zernike. There was a general introduction week for all exchange students, the first week after the arrival weeks. In those week, we had a nice introduction about all the facilities and rules in the university. The university uses different websites for all kinds of information, but this is properly explained in the first week. There is quite some working space in the library and the computer rooms all around the campus, although some statistical or programming programs are only available in certain areas. 5.2 Studies The academic year in Vaasa started at the first of September and the first semester ended at the 19 th of December. The semester consists of 2 blocks, with each 7 weeks of lectures and 1 week of exams. However, courses do not have the same weekly schedule, so for some courses, there are only a few lectures. Many courses have one or more essays as exam. The level of education is somewhat lower than I am used to, but this could be due to the fact that I am already in the finishing phase of my bachelor Econometrics and Operations Research and the courses I took were of lower level and not all of them had a quantitative background. I did five courses: Survival Course Finnish for Exchange Students, Introduction to Intercultural Communication, Programming in C and C++, Cross-Cultural Management and Statistical Dataprocessing in SAS EG. There were no language problems in any of the courses, all teachers spoke perfect English. 6. Summary Impression An exchange in Vaasa implies an exchange in a somewhat quite city, surrounded by nature, similar to the rest of Finland. People are very helpful and friendly. The University of Vaasa is small and young, implying a very personal approach. They are in the process of internationalization, meaning that mostly everything is in English, but sometimes you could run into some pages in Finnish. The level of education to me was easier than Groningen, so it should be doable to gain more than 22 ECTS, like me. From all countries in Scandinavia, Finland is the most cheap, but still much more expensive than the Netherlands. Furthermore, the weather differs quite and especially the darkness at the end of the year affects many. There are a lot of exchange students and some organizations organizing activities for international students, but not too much. The city of Vaasa offers, besides the regular cultural activities such as cinemas and museums, not extremely much entertainment, but the nature and seaside are stunning!

5 B. Specific Report 1.1 Host Institution and Study Period My host institution was the University of Vaasa (Vaasan yliopisto) and I studied there in the autumn semester of the academic year My stay lasted from the 21 st of August to the 22 nd of December. 2. Courses During my exchange, I took 5 courses, worth 22ECTS in total. I needed only a business/economics course worth 5 ECTS to finish my bachelor, so I chose other courses that seemed interesting to me in a more broad sense to have at least the required number of ECTS (namely, 15 ECTS) to receive the Erasmus scholarship. 2.1 Survival Finnish for Exchange Students (2 ECTS) Course Description: This course was set up for exchange students to get a first impression of the Finnish language. At the end, we were able to introduce ourselves in Finnish, tell the time, and describe things such as the weather, our family or a job. Name and Course Code: KSUO5010 Survival Language Course for Exchange Students Teacher: Johanna Dahlin Duration of the course: 10 lectures, divided into 6 weeks Timing of the course: You can either chose to have the course in the first block, in the second block, or during the whole semester. In the latter option, it is implied that you have 1 lecture per week during the entire semester. Lectures: The lectures contained of a PowerPoint with the required materials, some additional exercises on handouts and explanation by the teacher. Compulsory attendance: You need to be present 8/10 times, but she did not check it very often. Compulsory literature: Only the slides and the material on Moodle (Nestor for UvA) Examination: 1 written exam of 2 hours, hold in the last lecture of the course. Study load: Quite low, you need to learn about 350 words/sentences and a small amount of grammar. Relevance for study program in Groningen: None. 2.2 Introduction to Intercultural Communication Course Description: In this course, different aspects of cultures were discussed and how different cultures influence communication. Several theories on assimilation, acculturation, racism, new racism and theories by Hofstede, Hall are discussed. Name and Course Code: ICSC3003 Introduction to Intercultural Communication Teacher: Daniel Rellstab Duration of the course: 10 lectures, divided over 5 weeks Timing of the course: Block 1 Lectures: The lectures consist of a PowerPoint presentations with some movies and examples in it with explanation by the teacher and a few handouts. Compulsory literature: I only used the slides for this course. Examination: Lecture journal, meaning a summary of 2 pages every lecture with the mean points discussed and your view on it and a take-home exam, consisting of an essay. The essay consisted of a news topic and we had to apply 2 of the discussed theories or definitions on it.

6 Study load: If you had written all the summaries of the lectures right after the lectures, then the study load was quite low. I think one summary cost around 1 hour to write and the exam preparation was minimal, as you were allowed to keep all your documents with you. Relevance for study program in Groningen: For EOR, this course is completely irrelevant. I did it out of interest. 2.3 C and C++ Programming Course Description: This course is a basic programming course for students who study computer science or information systems. It teaches you the basics in both C and C++, which are both relevant programming languages in the computer science field. Also, the differences between the two programs are highlighted. The basics consist of the different types of variables, pointers, classes, lists, memory allocation, and some other concepts. Name and Course Code: TLTE2110 C and C++ Programming Teacher: Tobias Glocker Duration of the course: 14 lectures (2h) and 12 tutorials (4h), divided over 7 weeks Timing of the course: Block 1 Lectures: In the lectures, the teacher explained the material by means of a PowerPoint presentation and demonstration in the program used in this course. In the tutorials, we had to solve programming problems in C and C++. Compulsory literature: This course mainly used the books and advised some online manuals, for instance on Wikibooks. Examination: Halfway the course, the teacher gave us homework that we could hand in for a bonus credit. In the following class, he asked us to denote the exercises we had prepared and then he asked random students to present their answers on the blackboard and he considered these students as a random sample. Then, he awarded everyone full points for the exercises they had said to have made. The final examination consisted of an exam. The first part of the exam was a closed book written exam, consisting of 3 questions. The second part of the exam were programming exercises in C and C++ and were open book. The teacher provided around 5 opportunities for resits and did everything to make everyone pass, so in my opinion it is impossible to fail this course. Study load: The study load for this course was relatively high, as the course implied 12 hours of (noncompulsory) lectures and tutorials in a week. In order to prepare well for the exam, it was necessary to do all the tutorial exercises. However, if you had done this, it would almost automatically result into a 5 on your exam. Relevance for study program in Groningen: As this course mainly focused on the computer science-part of programming, it is not directly relevant for the bachelor EOR. However, it is a good base for programming in general. 2.4 Cross-Cultural Management Course Description: In this course, the relevance of cross-cultural knowledge in management was explained and several theories on different cultures (Hofstede among others), leadership (GLOBE), communication (Lewis) were introduced. The course was set up in such a way that every participant obtained their own cross-cultural experience by means of a written report in a team. Name and Course Code: JOHT3002 Cross-Cultural Management Teacher: Olivier Wurtz

7 Duration of the course: Around 10 lectures in 5 weeks, including some guest lectures. Timing of the course: Block 2 Lectures: In the lectures, the teacher explained the material by means of a PowerPoint presentation with both text, figures and movies the relevant theories. Moreover, there were some guest lectures by speakers from the business with experience with working abroad themselves. Furthermore, there was a compulsory introduction session, in which a cross-cultural encounter was simulated. Lastly, there were some group meetings for the group work, but this was not set at a certain time. Compulsory literature: For this course, I mostly used the slides from the lectures and the books that were referred to in the slides. Especially When cultures collide by Lewis (2006) was a very helpful book for this course. Examination: The grade for this course consisted of three parts. First, there was a written report as group work. This report was written in teams of 5, with at least 3 different nationalities. The aim of the report was to write about a culture, about the differences between that culture and the Finnish culture, applying some theory on the differences and lastly describe the team work itself. The second part consisted of an individual written report, in which you had to describe the most important learning points from the lectures, the implications on cross-cultural teams of different scientific papers and the development of a cross-cultural skill you possessed. The third part of your grade consisted of the comments your team members had given to you. This implied that if at least 3 of your team members clearly stated that you participated insufficiently in the team work, that your grade for the team work would become insufficient and you would fail the course. Study load: This course took quite some time, but was very interesting to do. There were not that many lectures, but the group work took relatively a lot of time, as working together with other cultures imposes some difficulties. The individual written assignment was not that time consuming. Relevance for study program in Groningen: As this course was a FEB elective for my bachelor, this course was relevant in a sense that it shed a light on management in an intercultural way. Therefore, as an elective, this course is very relevant in my opinion. 2.5 Statistical Data Processing in SAS EG Course Description: In this course, the application of the statistical program SAS was demonstrated and taught. Some basics in statistical research were introduced, such as the use of descriptive statistics, quantiles, correlations, dependencies and regressions. The main focus of this course was the application of the SAS EG software, so there was no theoretical background on the statistical concepts used in the course. Name and Course Code: STAT2110 Statistical Data Processing SAS EG Teacher: Christina Gustafsson Duration of the course: 12 lectures and 5 tutorials, divided over 6 weeks Timing of the course: Block 2 Lectures: During the lectures, the teacher demonstrated the different features of the SAS EG software and how to perform statistical analyses in the software. During the tutorials, the teacher provided us with an elaborated assignment in the SAS EG software. Compulsory literature: This course mainly used the manuals for the SAS EG software. Examination: The grade of this course consisted of two parts. The first part was a written assignment, in which you had to perform a statistical analyses on at least two pairs of variables. If you chose to do this

8 assignment with 2 persons, you needed to examine at least three pairs of variables. Moreover, you could either choose between an exam, or to be present in at least 4 out of 10 lectures and 4 out of 5 tutorials. Study load: The study load for this course was not very high. The tutorials were very useful and if you had understood the tutorials, the practical assignment was relatively easy to make. Relevance for study program in Groningen: This course applies the basic statistical concepts on a large data set. The course did not introduce me to new statistical concepts, but did show the application of the SAS EG software, which is widely used throughout the business.