New Exchange Students – WELCOME to TAMK!

Being an international exchange student at Tampere University of Applied Sciences (TAMK) will an experience to you. You will meet new people, try new things and become acquainted with a new country - Finland. Finnish higher education institutions are known for their innovative and high quality teaching and learning and you will have a chance to experience that personally.

TAMK hosts yearly some 300 international exchange students and this spring about 100 new international exchange students will come to TAMK. The orientation week for incoming exchange students will take place 7-10 January 2014.

It's important to us that our international students are integrated with our Finnish students, giving the students at TAMK the chance to make friends and experience international cultures. The previous international exchange students have enjoyed studying in our university and I truly hope you will enjoy your stay with us too. You are very welcome to TAMK!

Kirsi Tolvanen

Head of International Services



Exchange student orientation, autumn 2013

Kamilla got inspiration from Erasmus Staff Training at TAMK

TAMK Social Counselor Mirja Onduso and Kamilla Trubicki picking up new international degree students from the airport.

Hei!

My name is Kamilla and I’m from Austria. I work in the international area of the University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria, Wels Campus. Our university has approx. 5000 students in total, 1500 of them at Wels Campus, so it’s fairly small.

I had been thinking of going on an Erasmus Staff Training for some months, but somehow the timing of the proposed staff training weeks never seemed right. When I discovered that TAMK holds its Orientation Weeks for both Incomings exchange and international degree-seeking students in August, I knew it would be a great opportunity for me. Usually staff trainings are held during organized staff training weeks, but as TAMK was very flexibly with hosting me, in my case this was a spontaneous and individual week.

Exchange students getting to know each other

I stayed at TAMK from August 19-23 with the goal to attend both mentioned Orientation Weeks and also to meet the whole International Team at TAMK. As my tasks at my university contain taking care of international students of our English taught Master’s degree programme “Innovation and Product Management”, but also Incoming exchange students, I knew I would learn a lot during my time at TAMK.

My week started, as it did for more than 100 exchange students (amazing!), with welcoming words by Kaisa and Marika and interesting introduction sessions on Monday and Tuesday. And some korvapuusti of course. It took me three days to remember that word, but I still know it! :) On Tuesday there also was a trip to Viikinsaari Island which was organized by the international coordinators for all the exchange students, with various games, team building activities and grilling sausages. It was a great opportunity for the exchange students to get to know each other and also the finish sauna culture – which I enjoyed a lot, too. :)

Get-together activities for new exchange students during the orientation week

The rest of the week I followed the Orientation Weeks for international degree-seeking students. It was really amazing to see the excitement to welcome international degree-seeking students! All the department heads and staff members welcomed those students and made them feel really comfortable. Another great part of the week was meeting the social counselor of TAMK, Mirja Onduso. She takes care of mainly international degree-seeking, but also regular and exchange students’ social issues on a full-time basis. We got to pick up some students, show them their apartments and also organize furniture for some students together. It was really inspiring to see Mirja’s – and of course also TAMK’s – commitment towards international students.

Finally I also had the chance to meet many of the international coordinators that I only knew from exchanging e-mails. It’s always great to meet people you usually only deal with by e-mail in person!

Kamilla took part in the trip to Viikinsaari Island together with the new exchange students

What I brought back home from my week at TAMK? First of all a great intercultural experience and a lot of inspiration by the great work of the International Services at TAMK. A head full of new ideas to improve my own processes in working with international students, some of which I’m currently trying to implement. And a great recipe for korvapuusti (thanks Mirja! :), but that’s still on my to do list.

Kiitos to Mirja, Kaisa, Marika, Matti, Piri and Noora for a great week at TAMK!

Herzliche Grüße aus Österreich,

Kamilla

http://www-en.fh-ooe.at/

Tampere by night

The first exchange students from Brazil and Lebanon

Mateus Engels Henke from Brazil and Fabio El Khoury from Lebanon have the honor to be the first TAMK exchange students presenting their home countries. Mateus is studying Paper Technology and Fabio is studying Film & Television at TAMK.

 Mateus Engels Henke and Fabio El Khoury in TAMK main campus during the orientation week

The students are from very different parts of the world but the reasons why they chose TAMK in Finland as their first option were the same: they searched information and they noticed that the level of studies is high in Finland and the education system works well thanks to the investments of the government. Fabio also got recommendations about TAMK from his Head of Degree Programme in Saint-Joseph University who had been a visiting lecturer at TAMK earlier. In addition, Fabio was tempted by the peaceful lifestyle in Finland so the desicion was easy to make.

The first impression of Finland was also similar for both: lot of trees and lakes, lot of space and a language which is really different from the other languages they know. Mateus was suprised to see how the cities are planned and Fabio noticed how everything is so well organized.

Mateus is a scholarship student of  Science without Borders programme which is a large-scale mobility programme primarily funded by the Brazilian federal government. Thanks to this new way of cooperation, next spring there will be more Brazilian students joining TAMK for the exchange studies.

Altogether, around 170 exchange students from 30 countries will do the exchange studies or training at TAMK this semester.

A bunch of exchange students and international tutors getting to know each other on Viikinsaari island

Text: Kaisa Merilahti, TAMK International Services
Photos: Kaisa Merilahti and Annika Dillenburger

New exchange students are here

While the degree students were still on holidays, the exchange students already started their semester with the Orientation on 3-4 January 2013. The Main Exchange Student Orientation gathered around 60 new students together to learn about studying and living here.

Exchange students in International Business, Tim Denissen and Valeriia Gorlushko, on snowy TAMK Main Campus

The new Erasmus students Valeriia Gorlushko from Poland and Tim Denissen from the Netherlands didn’t face any big culture shock when arriving to Finland. In their opinion, the weather is not too cold but the only thing Valeriia is missing is the sunlight. During the first weekend in Tampere, Valeriia and Tim were lucky to see the sun when having a walk on the frozen lake. They also saw people ice-fishing  and the fishermen were proud to present their catch of frozen fishes for the foreigners. It was funny!

The first day of orientation with different forms to fill

The students taught each others some Finnish words they had already learned

The main part of the arriving exchange students are from Europe. This spring the biggest groups come from Spain, France, Hungary, Netherlands and Belgium. However, there’re students also from more distant countries like South Korea, China, Japan, Kyrgyzstan, Mexico, Mosambique and Canada. 

In total, there will be over 120 exchange students at TAMK this spring. Almost 40 out of them will study in the Degree Programme in International Business. The Degree Programmes in Media, Nursing and Tourism will also receive more than 10 students each. 

Text and photos: Kaisa Merilahti, International Services