Tag: exchange
Singapore, an Asian roundtrip in the city state
As a part of the Metropolia UAS and Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT) joint project Dosis, we were the lucky ones to have the chance to attend an intensive exchange week in Singapore. There were five of us students and three professors from Metropolia UAS who traveled to Singapore for a one week express exchange. In the Dosis project students from both Universities work together to create scoping reviews on various topics. The express exchange to Singapore was the culmination of our joint article projects and a dedicated time for face-to-face workshops and learning experiences after working together remotely for a year or so. *We met some of the students and the SIT professors earlier in the spring as they were visiting Finland on their behalf. Eventually it turned out that the four months from the approval to attend to the express exchange turned out to pass quite fast, and finally on 12th of August we arrived in Singapore. After the weekend of getting to know our way in Singapore, the actual intensive week started by an introduction to SIT’s Dover campus. We were given a tour of the SIT campus where we got to see our Singaporean fellows’ studying facilities. We also got to see some innovation and learning empowering tech. Later on, we workshopped some focal points of our article manuscripts, expected to be submitted later this year. During the intensive week, collaboration among Finnish and Singaporean health tech enterprises and the participating Universities was promoted to foster the possibilities of new joint projects. Relating to that objective SIT organized a seminar with Finnish and Singaporean enterprises and other health care and technology related keynote speakers. They brought out their views to the current state-of-the-art and future perspectives of advancements in health care digitalization and in health tech. The collaboration between the health tech industry and Universities also included company visits to Phillips's, Siemens Healthineers' and SenseTime's Singaporean headquarters and showrooms. During the visits, the health tech companies demonstrated their visions of developing technological solutions in improving the patients' experiences during treatments and stay in hospital and creating more seamless care pathways from home to hospital and back. The companies presented the possibilities of technologies such as virtual and augmented reality in training the future health care professionals to get acquainted with the technologies before moving on to actual clinical practices. SenseTime provided us with an overview of the use of artificial intelligence technologies centered more to our everyday lives. For understandable reasons the practical demos were focused on the technologies that are already applied, rather than the technological advancements that are possibly emerging in the future. The visits and seminars before and during the intensive week have enlightened us that the scoping reviews and other investigatory work conducted related to the Dosis project is operating at the cutting edge when it comes to advancements in health tech. The project overall has provided us with fair insight to the application of artificial intelligence in medical imaging and other medical applications, that are state-of-the-art or just emerging somewhere in the near or distant future. Cultural exchange Alongside the official project program, we experienced Singapore and its corners through local eyes. The students who visited Finland earlier in the spring treated us with genuine Singaporean hospitality and guided us through experiences we would not have experienced relying only on the typical tourist guides of Singapore. Singaporean food, sightseeing and souvenirs - our friendly Singaporean hosts shared tips and helped us get the most out of our stay. Thai style steamboat dining experience, best hawker food courts, hipster shopping streets, best underground places to try out Singaporean and Asian specialities such as frog porridge, chili crabs and durian fruit, you name it! We will never forget the hospitality of our Singaporean fellow students, some of them who had already graduated, and still came to meet us, thank you Shawn, Darren, Melissa, Chris and Zhuo and the professors Frank and Cheryl, and other SIT staff (special thanks to Desmond and Charmaine). ❤️ Blog post written by the Metropolia students: Ella Lonka, Janina Saarinen, Arttu Sundell, Emilia Larmala ja Mika Nieminen
Incoming Student Story: Rafał Bartosiak from Poland
Rafał Bartosiak participated in an exchange semester during academic year 2021-2022. He was studying Electronics in the Field of Technology. Doing an exchange semester abroad was an obligatory part of Rafał’s degree program in his home university Lodz University of Technology in Poland. The exchange process started with an internal application period and Rafał was chosen to apply to Metropolia. “For a couple of years, I had been interested in how it looks in Northern Europe and I wanted to hear Finnish language myself. I also wanted to experience one of the best education systems in the world as well as be in a country where I can easily manage in English”. Finland turned out to be a great destination for Rafał who prefers cold and wanted to see nature. Study Experience at Metropolia Study experience in Metropolia surprised Rafał positively. Metropolia as University of Applied Sciences offered a different kind of perspective to a traditional university: studying is just not about the theory but especially about using it in practice. Learning methods did not differ much to his home country as they included both group and individual work, but lab working was freer in Metropolia. Electronics courses are worth 15 ECTS In Metropolia and exchange students participate on two courses during the exchange semester. Rafał found the big course sizes good: “It was nice to be able to focus only on one subject specifically at once”. Rafał also noticed that students don’t get pressed to study in Finland but they are expected to take responsibility over their own schedules and success. Rafał got to be a part of the Finnish student union tradition to Metropolia’s student union METKA. He took part into some events organized by METKA but the best thing was to be able to wear the student overalls. In the spring semester the biggest event was the Vappu (May 1st) celebration. METKA also organized tutoring for exchange students and Rafał also had a tutor who was, for example, welcoming him on the airport and brought Rafał to his student dorm in Finland. Free-time and Finnish Experience Rafał enjoyed especially the Finnish nature and sauna during his stay: “I fell in love with sauna and in the end went to sauna twice a week!”. Rafał was amazed by the amount of forests in Finland and the good air quality even in Helsinki city. He was also able to travel a lot within Finland: he went to Lapland and saw the northern lights as well as to Turku and Tampere. Helsinki itself offered also a lot of nice destinations, such as Seurasaari, Suomenlinna and Mustikkamaa islands, as well as the important landmarks Helsinki Cathedral and Temppeliaukio church. Besides this Rafał also traveled to the Baltic countries and Lofoten in Norway. Tips from Rafał: Go to sauna a lot - most student houses from HOAS have a common sauna that students can reserve for free! Try to travel a lot - go especially to Lapland in the winter! Apply for a tutor Use the HSL app for public transport
First month in Copenhagen!
It’s almost the end of the first month of my exchange period, so I thought it would be good time to tell how life is in Copenhagen. So far everything is going really well, and I’m slowly starting to feel like I’m actually living here, instead of being in a really long vacation. Sometimes I already find myself thinking in English which I knew was going to happen sooner or later, but I never thought it would happen during the first month. I think the main reason for that is the fact that I haven’t met any other Finnish speaking people here, so the only times I use Finnish is when I’m talking to my family. First week here was an orientation week which was mostly about paperwork and getting to know our campus and Copenhagen in general. We got lot of information about how everything works here in case of sickness, what is the easiest way to use public transport and of course about the biking culture. We also had few team building events where we got to know each other little better. In the end of the week our team building event was a Tango lesson, which turned out to be really fun event. The first few lectures that we’ve already had have been very interesting, even though they’ve had similar topics to the courses I already had in Finland. Getting new perspective on welfare systems by hearing stories from other countries has given a great view on how we handle things at home. And I guess that is one of the main reasons why everyone should consider studying semester abroad. Also the lecturers we’ve had so far have been besides very good at teaching, they have been very good at performing and seemed to be very enthusiastic about the subjects that they are teaching. So it has been exciting to be in classes as well. The teaching itself in here is very similar to Finnish way of teaching. We have lectures which are about different theories and practical examples, guest teachers and few field visits also. We do a lot of group works which is very familiar to me, but not to all of my classmates. Our campus is KP’s smallest one and the only campus that has students from one degree, so everyone at our campus are studying social work. Besides being a small campus, its also pretty old but I find it very cozy. Student lunches here are a bit different compared to Finland, and they are prized by weight. It’s also a bit more expensive so most of us bring our own lunches to school. Student culture in Copenhagen is very different compared to Finland. Most of our University's campuses host Friday Bars every Friday in campus which is a great way to meet fellow student from other campuses as well. Some other Universities also host parties during the week at their campuses, but it takes a bit of luck to be able to go there as well. One thing that other exchange students here find interesting about Finnish student culture is overalls and patches and if there’s deeper meaning behind them. Everything’s going really well and besides going to school we’ve also had time to explore Copenhagen as well and we’ve already visited many beautiful places. During the first weeks we’ve visited some tourist attractions such as Glyptoteket, Nyhavn, Christianborg’s tower and of course, The Little Mermaid. The first month here has gone by very fast but it also feels like I’ve been here longer than I have. Living without Covid restrictions has also been weird sometimes, but mostly liberating. The first month has so far taught me so much about myself and the world around so I’m really looking forward to the next months as well.
Student Stories: EBA Double Degree Exchange Year in Stuttgart
First of all, my name is Tatu Sairanen. I’m now a 24-year-old third year European Business Student from South-Eastern Finland and I have been doing my one-year double degree exchange for the last 8 months Studying Business Psychology in HFT Stuttgart. I arrived in Stuttgart in the beginning of October and moved to live in a Student Dormitory called In der Au. In the dormitory I have shared my apartment with two other guys, one from Nepal and the other from India. Read whole post
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