Finnish life goes on
Spring has even reached Finland. Not for long, as far as I know, but after a long period of darkness, every ray of sunshine is worth its weight in gold. Life as an Erasmus student continues with adventures and even better spirits.
Dormitory life: if you don't adapt, you won't survive
I've lived in a dorm before, but the rules are a little different here. We don't have security guards, we don't have penalties, and we don't have any control. The worst that can happen is that they'll say, "Hey, hey, don't do that" - so it's hard to sleep. Students from Spain tried to prove to me that I didn't come to Finland to sleep or study. Cooking at dawn, screaming, mess, burnt food, speaking Spanish, theft - all this is everyday life. At first, we tried to get angry about the noise, clean the common rooms, throw away dirty things left behind, ask to speak English. Now I just have a huge collection of earplugs, I protect my things, I don't leave delicious food in the common fridge, I climb over the garbage, and I communicate with those who speak English or French to me.
More internships than college
When studying at university, we don't get much practice, even though we want it deep down. I get enough of it at the University of Tampere. For each subject, we have to prepare at least one practice paper. The most fun thing is that the assignments are so interesting that you want to do them immediately. For the lecture in which we learn about teaching French, we have to individually prepare specific hour-long material with tasks we have come up with ourselves and then justify our choices. The most interesting thing is that each of us received different situations: a lecture for small children, pensioners, people with attention disorders, a very large group, etc. I got the option - in prison. By the way, I saw that you can choose a course that lasts a week. During the "lectures", students travel to St. Petersburg and visit various legal institutions. When they return, they have to write a 10-15-page reflection, answering certain questions and be sure to provide a personal assessment. The strangest thing is that some subjects are not even graded because they are completely unimportant. The most important thing is knowledge and the joy of learning.
Finnish winter? No, I haven't heard of it.
There was no winter in Finland. Not that much. For a while, there was a real unpleasant cold, but for Finns -15 is not a “good winter”. Moreover, all this lasted only a month. At the beginning of March, I only remembered about snow from a trip to Lapland (which I will tell you about soon), because there were not even pebbles left on the streets of Tampere, which are scattered so that Finnish bicycles do not slip while riding. Spring does not please the locals as much as it does the Erasmus students, and they remind us with a hopeful smile: “winter is not over yet, it will still get colder”. However, I think I can also understand the position of the Finns. If you have already installed a sauna, bought winter bicycle tires, learned to ski well, got used to swimming in the lake, you want to use it for as long as possible.
A trip to Lapland and swimming in the Arctic Ocean
Until now, I thought that Lapland is a city where Santa Claus lives and nothing else. However, Lapland is a region, and Finland has two Santa Clauss, and both of them are real. I had to visit Rovaniemi. In order to see Santa Claus, you must buy a photo, which costs 25 euros. Of course, even 20 people can take a photo and save money, but only one person will get a photo. Although Santa is very kind, friendly and greets in different languages (Lithuanian too), everything else is just commercialism.
During the trip, we had to go all the way to the Arctic Ocean. We were convinced that this might be the first and last chance to swim in this ocean, so we had to do it. I warmed up in the sauna and waded into the ocean. The icy water burned my feet, but I dared to immerse my whole body for a couple of seconds, because otherwise I wouldn't have been able to say that I had swum. Now I can boast that I was in bed with a fever for two days, and the runny nose and cough remind me of the Arctic Ocean. During the trip, I also rode sleds pulled by huskies and visited a reindeer farm. The five-day trip cost 400 euros, but the impressions I brought back are priceless.
New semester
At the University of Tampere, students study in certain cycles – I call them semesters. The third (for me it was the first) period of the academic year lasted from the beginning of January to the end of February. The next semester started on March 10 and will last until May 16. In February, I only had to take two exams, because other subjects continue in both cycles. I will also have two new subjects, but I will not have to take exams for them, a long written work, presentations and active participation in lectures will be enough. After refusing one lecture, which I did not like very much and was too difficult, I had to find something new. I felt very discriminated against, because students from abroad are always at the bottom of the list. I was not accepted into three subjects. I had already started calculating how much I would have to pay for the insufficient number of credits (according to my mathematical knowledge, about 10,000), but later I managed to come to an agreement with the teacher and I was accepted into one very interesting lecture. My Erasmus The sun is shining again in the student's life!
AUTHOR: Judita Jurkėnaitė
