Questions and Answers

Where can I find a student counsellor (opiskelijaneuvonta)?

The official stundent counsellor is located at fabianinkatu 33. BUT, in most cases, they´re just gonna tell you the name of the person whoSHOULD be able to answer to your problem. It´s better to ask from a) Your tutor, b) Tsemppi, c) The Study Guide/Orientation Handbook, d) Your faculty department directly.

I´m a freshman, what are the first things I should take care of at the university?

This is very important and it´s strongly recommenended that you take are of these things before the orientation course!: Enrolment –>registration –> Student ID and student number —> Lyyra card and weboodi. Moreover someone might need a residence permit and a bank account.

How do I study languages at the university (especially Finnish)?

There are two institutions at UH where you can study languages: The department of Finnish and the Language Center. REMEMBER: you have to register for those courses BEFORE 1.9 at least. Otherwise you´re gonna be told that the courses are full. If that is the case, just walk inside the class and kick (literally)an exchange student out of it (since the courses are FULL of them). Remember also that it is your right as degree student to learn Finnish instead of an exchange student!Btw if you speak Finnish you can directly take the exams and grab 20 credits in one day.

What are the languages of instruction at the university of Helsinki?

Officially: Finnish, Swedish and English. In practice: It depends by what subject you´re studying. Generally there are FEW courses in English which means that you´re gonna end up at home reading a book in English and do the exam in English (that is not bad since most of the Finns do that as well). Option B: If you know a bit of Finnish, you can improve it by attending lectures in Finnish. Option C: If you don´t know any Finnish at all you could take some courses in Finnish in the later stages of your degree.

How do I get make new friends?

You have to be active in the student life; that doesn´t mean showing up at the lectures but by participating in the student organisations; few options:

a) Tsemppi! b) Your department´s and faculty student organisation. c) Student nations. d) Other interest university clubs. Remember to join the respective mailing lists in order to be updated.

Making friends with exchange students might be easy and funny especially with people from your own country, but remember that they´ll leave Finland in 3 months – 1 year.

What are my degree requirements (that is compulsory courses) ?

Generally you can find them from your faculty´s web pages under the name of “ECTS guides”.

What is WebOodi?

It´s a program which in most of the cases (hopefully) allows you to register to courses. You need a university userid and password to access it.

Where do I get my User Id and password?

After you register go and ask for it at Alexandria 3rd floor on the right. There should be a sign with something like “ATK- käyttöluvantoimisto”.

How do I register to courses?

They´re gonna tell you at the university that everything works through WebOodi but that´s not always the case; for example the department of Maths and Statistics has its own version of weboodi; anyway usually you can just step into the classes and register there.

It looks like, that as an international degree student I have to fight with a huge amount of bureaucracy, is that the case also for Finns?

Yes and no, the Finns have to get through the same processes and forms as us, but they received better counselling as opposed to us since our orientation course is organised together with the exchange students. Nevertheless also the Finns sometimes have no clue about certain matters.

The university´s English pages quite often sends me to pages in Finnish, and usually the information in English is poor compared to the one in Finnish; what can I do?

Learn Finnish or get someone to translate them. What is said above is true and there seems not to be a chance to change it.

…Feel free to add your own questions here and we will answer to them to the best of our knowledge!…