Aapo in NA: elokuuta 2019

This blog, first of its kind by me, will revolve around my exchange period in Memorial University of Newfoundland (MUN). This blog is an alternative to an obligatory travel report, and I decided this would be an easier (although more laborious) way to keep up a regular writing pace. Instructed schedule would be to publish a post every two weeks, and posts should be study focused. So that's the plan, I'll write about the university, my studies and the differences between MUN and LUT. I'll also include stuff I'll do off school. Aim is to pass on information to potential future exchange students and keep up with my experiences.

So, where am I going?

My exchange university is in St. John's, Canada (see below).

That's part of province called Newfoundland and Labrador. St. John's is the largest city, and MUN is the only university in this province. There's a huge variety of study programs in MUN: anything from engineering to medicine, arts to business and physics to marine biology. More info here: https://www.mun.ca/main/about/.

So why MUN and why Canada? First of all, I wanted to go to a place where I could imagine myself living in the future for a longer period than just a few months. I prefer wealthy and civilized countries with at least somewhat similar culture (read: sports) to Finland, so that means basically Europe, North America, Australia and parts of Asia. I've traveled in Europe quite a lot and wanted to see new places instead, so I just applied to Iceland as a backup and chose to leave other destinations to other people. And regarding Australia, unfortunately I've received mixed opinions on the exchange universities there, so I decided to pass on that. This thinking process left NA as the most prominent destination, and for me NA has always been a place I'd like to at least visit, and now I even get to live here. MUN was actually the only university I could apply to from LUT as a technology student this Fall, so the choice wasn't hard. And after researching about MUN, it seems that I'll be going to a high-class university in an interesting part of Canada. Works for me.

What was the application process like?

I applied to Fall semester 2019 at MUN in February 2019. In addition to a standard exchange application at LUT, I had to take a language test. The alternatives were IELTS and TOEFL, and due to my late acknowledgment of this requirement I booked a TOEFL test to the beginning of February. As it turned out, I and multiple others (~30) were sold a language test appointment that wasn't conducted at all: the test center was no longer in use. This resulted in many people missing their exchange deadlines and postponing their exchange by at least half a year, because the test was the last possible for most of the deadlines. I was luckier, I got to take the test later at a different location and return my results at a later date as well. Otherwise I wouldn't be at Canada right now. So my first top tip to future exchange students: take the language test well in advance, since it seems that anything can happen.

After the exchange application and language test came the waiting and preparation period. I got accepted, filled out dozens of different forms to both universities and to different grant organizations and tried to prepare as well as possible. I chose to stay in student housing at campus during my exchange. This and lots of other stuff had to be done before leaving Finland, but if you don't leave it all to the last week, it's not that bad. Things that made the process quite a lot easier were especially the student housing system and not having to apply for a visa. Basically opportunity for a student housing is offered for all students, and for a study period shorter than 6 months you don't need a visa or a study permit from Finland to Canada.

What's going on right now?

So after about 20 hours of traveling, I got from Savitaipale to Lappeenranta to Helsinki to Reykjavik to Toronto yesterday (hence the headline). Today I checked out downtown Toronto, including Hockey Hall of Fame, CN Tower and some other places. Pictures below. Tomorrow (or today in Finland) I'll fly to St. John's, and the day after tomorrow I'll move in to my student accommodation. Next time I'll probably write about orientation and getting used to living in Canada.

-Aapo