3 Students – Futa, Daria and Aline from Russia, Lebanon and Japan shared their reasons why they choose to live and study in this remarkably diverse country.
My name is Aline from Lebanon
I came to Finland for my Master studies in Media Communication. Why I came to Finland? I wanted to study a master’s degree abroad and other countries such as Germany, but schools here don’t offer what study program I want, so I decided to go to Finland. Finland is a great destination because everybody speaks English and the Finnish universities websites are clear and easy to find information about studies. Other reason is because Finland has good universities, good statistics and the reputation about Finnish education is remarkable.
During my application, I haven’t used any agencies, because the whole application process seemed to be quite easy for me. All instructions about to study in Finland was so clear, I didn’t need extra hand. Although, I needed the TOEFL language test and few translated and verified documents were required. To get all my documents, it took around 3 months. It was a bit complicated, for example, I had to go from Lebanon to Turkey to do all my papers, because in Lebanon there isn’t Finnish Embassy.
I am really satisfied about my experience in the Finnish higher education, Finnish education system is quite different compared to Lebanon, I like the collaborations with other teachers that are not from the same universities, (in my country – wouldn’t be like this), students are more independent, online learning is easily available and more practical studies. I would recommend to other students to come and study in Tampere.
I am not sure what will be my plans for the future but I would like to be here in Finland, I know getting a job takes too much time, must contently be searching, and I would like to have an opportunity to work about Media Lecture.
Why Futa from Japan decided to study in Finland
My name is Futa and I’m from Japan. I came to Finland to study International relations Master Degree about European and Russian markets in the University of Tampere. I choose Finland for my masters because the higher education in Finland is excellent, I also applied to Norway as well.
The process of applying to Finland was easy and systematic. Documents were easy to find. Only hard thing was finding the program to study. You have to go visit every universities web sites separately to see what they have to offer. In the future it would be more helpful to have all those available program in one place, like a list of degrees or programs.
Due to my applying process I have to do English language test. I was lucky, because I could do it at my home town. I didn’t have to travel anywhere. All in all the process of applying was one year. From the beginning of starting to find the suitable programs for me to the end of getting in to the school.
It is common to use help with abroad studies in my country. Most people use agents. In Japan, it’s not unusual to even go abroad to study for masters. People tend to just start working after their bachelor’s degrees.
When I applied to Norway and Finland the difference was that you applied directly to university in Norway, but in Finland you applied to all universities at once.
I really liked to be here in Finland. People are friendly and other Finnish students’ helps with the integration when you have arrived to Finland and at school. Finnish schools have tutor programs that helps the new students to settle in.
The workload was less than I expected to be at school, comparing to my home country. After I have finished my master I may apply to doctorate degree, but depends if I get a job as well.
Daria from Russia
I came to Finland for my Master studies in Media Communication. I had a few reasons why I chose Finland as my education destination: personal reasons, geographical location and good education.
My application process to Finland was quite long, expensive and complicated. I started the process in August by taking the English test to prove my language skills. The actual application happened in January and I received my results only in April. The bachelor certificate verification from my Russian University was, probably, one of the most difficult parts of the whole application and took about a month. I think that the idea of Edunation to make the application process easier and faster for students is great and most importantly, very helpful. As I mentioned before, the process of applying to study in Finland is very challenging for students and I am very happy and excited to see results of this brand.
Besides of The University of Tampere, where I got accepted, I also applied to schools in Jyväskylä and Helsinki. Requirements for all the universities were quite similar, but Helsinki required a higher level of English language test.
It is quite difficult to compare my experience of studying in Russia and Finland because the education systems are completely different. Also, in my opinion, Finnish universities allow much more freedom and independence to students compared to Russian ones. In some cases, recently graduated high school students might even feel that it is too much freedom for them because they are not used to it.
Mostly, Russian students independently search for schools and universities to apply to. Agencies are not very common. Sometimes, it is even advisable to check on the university’s website to check more important information available.
More student experiences here and study programs that suits your interests!
