Studying at the Oulu University

Daria Efimova and Polina Chaynikova, the 3rd year students from the Institute of Mathematics and Information Technology, took part in an exchange program with the Oulu University (Finland).

For four months the students have been studying in Finland, learning about the culture of the country and making new friends.

“We thought about exchange studies during our first year, and in our second year we already started to fulfill the dream. We started collecting documents for the selection stage at PetrSU: it was a long but simple process: we had to get a foreign passport, and all the other documents could easily be obtained at the university. When we received the message that we passed the internal selection, we started to choose courses for the curriculum and uploaded the rest of the documents to the special website (all instructions had already been sent to us by the Oulu University). We were waiting for a long time, but finally we received the message that we had been accepted (6 June).

Oulu is a few hours' drive from the Swedish border, and we had many questions about how to get there from Petrozavodsk.

In Finland, students choose their own courses to study. But we had to choose subjects that were similar to those at PetrSU at the same time in order to "pass" them. It was also necessary to choose for 30 credits. As it happened, we ended up with 34 credits. Basically, the subjects we could take were master's courses, we only had one bachelor's course. Of course, this caused some difficulties, but we managed to cope with everything.

During the first period (September-October) we were studying the following courses: Affective Computing (face and voice recognition, using different models for that), Natural Language Processing and Text Mining NLP for short (extracting relevant information from the text), Social Computing (we studied how to create a user-friendly interface and crowdsourcing systems), Software Project (we designed, developed and tested software here) and we took Survival Finnish as an additional course to learn the basics in this difficult language.

In the second period, we continued studying Software Project (as it was for 7 credits), as well as Survival Finnish. New disciplines were Deep Learning (studying neural networks), Internet of Things.

All of these courses were interesting; in almost every subject, apart from the lab work, there was a project that had to be done as a team (except Deep Learning). We didn't really like the NLP subject: the choice of projects was only given at the end of September, which meant that there was less than a month to complete it (the project itself + presentation + a properly formatted report).

As for the university itself, it is a very large building of three floors, which is combined with another university, OAMK. The university has many facilities where students can come and study and get together to discuss projects at any time. There are also special little rooms where you can get together with someone and you won't be disturbed. The most popular such room at the university is Tellus.

To find the right classroom/restaurant/café and more, there is a special Oulu Campus Navigator app and the Tuudo app itself, which every student should have. By joining a university union, you can activate your profile in this app and discounts will be available to you. For example, a meal at university will cost just €2.70 and a train ticket will be half the price!

The university also has a large Pegasus library.

The training format itself was mixed, but for the most part all classes took part in a distance learning format. In two disciplines there was a choice: you could attend lectures either face-to-face or remotely. But only 5-7 people usually came to the face-to-face lectures. We took one exam on Affective Computing, which took place remotely. We didn't need to be connected to Zoom and could use the lecture materials. There were quite a lot of questions, so it was a bit difficult to answer them all in time. The Finnish language exam was also held remotely in Moodle due to the increased sickness rate, but students already had to plug into Zoom with cameras. Examinations are very rarely oral (compared to PetrSU), mostly all in writing, and it takes a long time to check them (from two weeks or more). The same applies to project reports.

One of the most favourite pastimes has been the campfire. Finland cares about people, which is why all over the city you could find gazebos with a barbecue in the middle. Our dormitory provided us with firewood for free, and several times a week we would come to a nearby gazebo, cook food on the fire, get warm, listen to music and just hang out. It was during these gatherings that we met most of our friends. In addition, despite its seemingly quiet and measured life, Oulu was also full of entertainment. There were parties in the dormitories every weekend (and sometimes not just weekends) to keep you entertained and offer opportunities to meet new people. There were also board game nights at the university itself.

Oulu is remembered as a quiet and cosy town, surrounded by nature.

We visited some places in Oulu: The University of Oulu botanical garden, Nallikari beach, Tietomaa science museum (very interesting!), Pohjois-pohjanmaa history museum, Oulu's museum of art (extremely unusual exhibits).

We also went to Koiteli to admire nature and to the Kierikki Stone Age Center, a kind of nature museum.

There was also a LUMO light festival in the city itself, with different exhibits in the centre of the city, along a 4 kilometers road. I think we saw almost the whole of Oulu's population that day.”

Polina:

“In addition to Oulu, I managed to visit three other places. My friends and I rented two cars to visit the first two places. The first place was Rovaniemi.

Rovaniemi is the home of Father Christmas (or as the Finns call him, Joulupukki). In the village itself you can visit the residence of Father Christmas, make friends and feed reindeer, and just have a good time, especially if you come in December.

Our next stop was Ylläs Mountain. Ylläs is a 719m high hill, a popular centre for downhill and cross-country skiing, and simply a very beautiful place with amazing landscapes, which I highly recommend viewing if you want to get a feel for the spirit of Lapland. The best part is that when you travel by car in Lapland, you can meet reindeer just on the road! Another trip I took was to Helsinki, the capital of Finland. There's definitely something to see here: Suomenlinna Fortress, where you can see ancient artillery pieces and fortification walls, Oodi, a modern library that incorporates many new and often unexpected features (like music recording rooms and even 3D printing spaces), and dozens of museums waiting for your visit! Also, because I went there in December, I remember the city even more for its Christmas colours.”

Daria:

“I also went north to Rovaniemi in December, and it just so happened to be one of the coldest days that month. That didn't spoil my trip at all. I'm originally from the city of Kem, so on the way to Rovaniemi we decided to stop in the Finnish town of Kemi. Our next destination was the village of Santa Claus in Rovaniemi! The sun was shining on this very cold day (-35°C) and it made the village even more handsome. I would love to go back there, and more than once! The queue for Santa Claus was unfortunately very long, so we had to skip that part. Next, we went to the Arktikum museum, which is a huge and very beautiful building (I suggest you look at the pictures online). Costing just €9 for students, you can spend hours there looking at a story about life in the polar regions. The final leg of the trip was a short stop in Sweden at Haaparanda, where there is a huge Candy Word candy shop close to the border.”

The students thank the PetrSU Exchange Programs Division for the opportunity to study in Finland.