Past Review

By (Hotel and Restaurant Administration, Turku University of Applied Sciences ) for

Turku University of Applied Sciences: Turku - Direct Enrollment & Exchange

What did you gain/learn from your experience abroad? Was it worthwhile?
There was a lot of downtime. The program was not hard at all and I couldn't find a job, so I was bored a lot. The schooling was a huge disappointment. The students were great, but I'm not the biggest partyer. I like to hang out, but not constantly party and that's all they seemed to do. I did learn a lot about management and teaching. Some by clear examples of what not to do. Some by examples of what to do.

Personal Information

If you took classes at multiple universities, list those universities here: Oklahoma State University
How much international exposure did you have prior to this program? 0-2 weeks

Review Your Program

* Overall educational experience

Academic rigor, intensity, resources, etc.

Highly disorganized. Class was supposed to start on Jan 11th - then Jan 13th - then it really began Jan 18th. Attended random lectures and had 1 group project. No other classwork. School was supposed to end May 21st or so... but then really ended April 30th. On the last day of lectures, the professors announced a few papers that would be due the next week. These were not mentioned before. The papers were supposed to be 10 pages - then 25 pages - then 3 pages...

* Host Country Program Administration

On-site administration of your program

Nobody really knew who was supposed to take care of us. Anu, in the International Office, was great. But she ended up being more of a middleman simply because it wasn't really her job to help us, but she would do so anyway. So she would have to hunt down information for us as best she could. Saw the program director maybe twice. She's the PI for our grant in Finland, but she never interacted with us.

* Housing:

How satisfied were you with your living arrangements?

Nice, quiet apartment block. Very close to a supermarket. A 20 minutes bus ride to the city center.

* Food:

Good, filling food. Could use some more spices, but other than that it was fine. Loved the salad bar at the ICT house.

* Social & Cultural Integration:

How integrated did you feel with the local culture?

Students were very friendly. Finnish people tend to be more introverted, but they are great once they become comfortable with you. Younger people are much more outgoing.

If you could do it all over again would you choose the same program? No

Finances

* Money: How easily were you able to live on a student's budget?

(1 = not very easy/$200+ on food & personal expenses/week, 2.5 = $100/week, 5 = very easily/minimal cost)

Language

* Did your program have a foreign language component? Yes
Language acquisition improvement?

Learned Finnish once a week.

Other Program Information

* Where did you live?

Select all that apply

  • Apartment
* Who did you live with?

Select all that apply

  • International Students
  • Americans

A Look Back

* What do you know now that you wish you knew before going on this program? There is a lot of downtime. The program was not hard at all, so your life will be filled with more social activities.