Hello again! I can't believe I've only been here for ten days! We've been so busy every day that it feels like much longer. I'm finally settling in to university life here and I've figured out how to get around the campuses and into the city. Since classes have started, we've gotten into a much better routine, so I thought I would take the chance to talk a bit about my studies here, some activities we've had so far and some of the trips I am planning on taking this semester.
While I'm here at the University of Jyväskylä, I will be studying Intercultural Communication. The classes here are very interesting, because instead of splitting the year into two semesters, they are split into four periods. So that means that most classes only last about 4-6 weeks, and instead of taking four or five courses at once you only take two or three. It makes the courses much more intensive, but for me, it's been really nice. I've only had one week of class so far, but the workload seems much more manageable and I feel like I'll really have time to properly focus and learn about the material. The Finnish grading system is a little different here too. It's a scale of 0-5, where 5 is the best and 0 is a fail. But, from what I learned at the orientation it seems like grades don't really matter for students here - they told us that people study what interests them and they don't get ranked based on their marks. That seems like a really nice philosophy to me, and I think it would make school in Canada much less stressful and competitive if we adopted this type of mindset. I'm currently taking three courses: Introduction to Intercultural Communication, Theories and Models of Intercultural Communication and Finnish 1 starts on Monday. In a couple of weeks, I will start on Issues in Intercultural Communication and a couple of electives in Education. Another cool thing about the university is that you can get course credits for taking part in sport classes! You sign up for them as if they were a class, and then if you attend enough classes you get get up to 3 credit hours.
Even though my classes seem interesting so far, I am much more excited about the potential I have to travel and the extracurricular activities I can take. In Europe, there is an organization called Erasmus, which was developed to promote student exchanges across Europe. So any European student who travels to another university to study automatically gets funding to do so - and some degree programs even require that you do at least one semester abroad. Anyway, the Erasmus organization is represented at each university through a group called the Erasmus Student Network (ESN). The ESN is in charge of planning get-togethers, activities and trips for the exchanges students to participate in. Some of the activities are here on campus while others involve travelling to other countries.
My friends and I were really excited to learn about these trips and we've already booked two: to Lapland in February and Russia in March! Lapland is the northern region of Finland, and is apparently the best spot to see the Northern Lights. We'll be going for four nights to a place called Vasatokka, which is almost 300km beyond the Arctic circle. I am pretty excited for this trip because I've never seen the Northern Lights before, and from the pictures it looks really incredible. There's also a lot of winter activities to participate in like cross-country skiing, dog-sledding and nighttime snow shoe hikes. The Lapland adventure also involves a boat ride into Norway, and the option of swimming in the arctic ocean, which will be pretty cool as well! The second trip, to Russia is a week-long road trip to Moscow, Novgorod and St. Petersburg. This trip seems much more touristy, and I think we'll learn a lot more about the culture and history of Russia.
Other than these big trips, my friends and I are planning to do some stuff on our own, either day trips or weekend excursions. The student discounts on travel here in Finland are really good so it makes taking small trips much more manageable. We are thinking of going to Helsinki for the day, and then maybe taking the ferry to Stockholm in Sweden or Tallinn in Estonia. Even without travelling though, there is a lot to see and do here in Jyväskylä. This past week, we went to a hockey game between the city of Jyväskylä and a team from the Czech Republic (Jyväskylä won 4-1). We also went to a party organized by ESN for all the new exchange students. Tomorrow, we are going to the "Ultimate Sauna Experience." Apparently saunas are extremely popular here in Finland and this particular trip involves running from the sauna into the frozen lake! I'll definitely let you know how that goes, and I'll take some pictures if I can!
I've been trying to get more pictures to post, but it's hard because it's only light out here between about 9-3 which is when I'm in class! Hopefully I can get some this weekend so you can all see what things look like here in Finland! As always, thanks for reading! :)
