Winter is coming

It's starting to get chilly (=rainy and windy) out here. There has been exciting events such as Curtis day (I live in Curtis House), which I do not dare talk about here, but also more virtuous activities such as intramural football (not the American kind) yesterday. And I didn't even break any of my fingers! Also my parents visited me about a week ago, and we explored around St. John's and the Avalon Peninsula (pictures of cliffs below). But perhaps the most noticeable change in my everyday life has been the start of the NHL season. It's weird not having to wake up at 2 AM to watch a game, and that's probably why I've watched about 20 hours of hockey in the past week.

First impressions of courses

Since this blog should be focused on studying and school, I figured I might write out first impressions of each of my courses. I'll discuss them in more detail probably late November or December, when I've completed term papers and other assignments. Before that I should mention, that the university system is a bit different here. Rather than completing your Bachelor's (~3yrs) and Master's (~2yrs) degrees like in Finland, most people seem to go for only a Bachelor's degree (~4yrs). So I'm actually completing both undergrad (Bachelor's) and grad (Master's) courses here.

English 1020: Writing for Second Language Students (undergrad) is a course that is pretty well summarized by its title: it's an introduction to academic writing and reading for English as second language students. Most of the theoretical stuff in this course is taught in high school in Finland, but there are some things that are specific to English or Canadian academic writing. And by having to write stuff in English, you obviously get better at it both in grammar and in fluency. So in retrospect this might not be the best course to take as an exchange student, unless you're new or unfamiliar with academic writing. The teacher (at least in my case) has good expertise and is one of the better teachers I've come across here.

Engineering 3941: Production Technology (undergrad) is an overview of production. The lecturer is actually the only one of my teachers that speaks English as his first language, which makes following the lectures much easier. The content is new to me, so the lectures, projects and labs are interesting as well. Or as interesting as something not energy tech related can be. There's a lab each week in a machine shop, where you get to do operations such as turning, milling and drilling. By the end of the course you should have an air engine you've build and machined yourself, which is pretty cool. Projects include e.g. designing a few objects that are 3D-printed and laser cut, and reverse engineering e.g. an electric motor. The course is actually quite a lot of work, but it's also intriguing since you get to do something other than sit in a lecture or in front of a computer the whole time.

Engineering 9614: Renewable Energy and Resource Conservation (grad) is an interesting course (at least for me) on paper, but the reality is unfortunately a bit disappointing. There are appealing subjects such as hydrogen storage or tidal power, but the lectures are not that useful and you'd have to look up publications or books yourself to get a reasonable understanding of a subject. I'm guessing the lecturer doesn't have much experience in teaching, since she tends to get tangled up on irrelevant details or fails to give proper instructions for assignments that results in people asking the same thing (e.g. where to return it) over and over again individually, when she could just post proper instructions online. Half of a lecture might be spent on discussing what a Stirling engine is, when a couple of pictures or a short animation clip on a lecture slide would provide much more clarity than discussing the subject with a single student after going through 10 bullet points in a lecture slide. So, overall the subjects and the outline of the course are fine, but the implementation is lacking.

Engineering 9627: Environmental Systems Engineering (grad) is about optimization modelling of different systems (at least so far). I've taken quite a few modelling courses in the past couple of years back home, but apparently I've managed to dodge optimization modelling altogether, since this is the first time I'm actually learning about the theory behind it. So it's a pleasant surprise, because I wasn't sure what to expect when I enrolled on the course. Again, the lecturer is new to teaching, not speaking English as a first language and sometimes the explanations are not that clear. That creates some challenges when there's stuff like Lagrange's equations (which is not something that is freshly imprinted on my mind) implemented in actual engineering problems, but so far I've managed to hang on. And hopefully the focus will shift towards computer aided modelling, which should make things easier. Overall the lectures are fine, and I think this will prove to be the most useful course for me this Fall.

What's next?

The midterm break and Thanksgiving are coming up, and I've got plane tickets to New York. More about that next time.

-Aapo

Europe should be that way (Signal Hill, St. John's)

St. John's from Signal Hill

Still St. John's

I spotted the campus

Cabot Tower, Signal Hill

Cape Spear (~10 km SE from St. John's)

"New" lighthouse (Cape Spear)

WW II posters (Cape Spear)

A small island near Ferryland (~60 km south from St. John's)

Getting known to MUN

No more orientation, welcome events and get-to-know-one-another activities. By now everyday life is about studying during the day and something else in the evening. I've been more or less sick for over a week now, which is my excuse for not exploring the city as much as I would have liked. So this post will be brief and mostly about the MUN campus, and how it differs from LUT.

The campus

MUN campus (hospital and faculty of medicine missing from bottom left)

First of all, MUN campus is quite big compared to LUT. Just the distance from one end (Music building) to another (Faculty of medicine, missing from the map) is roughly twice the distance between the furthermost points of Saimia and Student Union House back home. And since there are so many different programs available, it's no wonder. The classrooms and facilities are not that different from LUT, except that they are mostly older and divided into several different buildings.

Nearly all the buildings in the picture are connected to each other with tunnels (MUNnels) or walkways. At first I was happy to walk outside when the sun was shining and you could just wear shorts and t-shirts without a problem. Now when it's raining sideways, I'd rather take the MUNnels.

Beneath Paton College (residences).

Between academic buildings.

Apart from classrooms and tunnels, there's a field house (free for students), including indoor tracks, swimming pool, gyms and courts for different games. Gyms are a bit weird though, since machines are located in multiple rooms in different floors. There's a large library including classics such as Kalevala and Seitsemän Veljestä. University centre has all kinds of services for students, e.g. bookstore, food court and a small store. And if you think study books are expensive in Finland, I can assure you, they're not. As I mentioned briefly in the previous post, there's also some money allocated on your student account to use in cafes around the campus, so you could get Subway or other stuff a lot of times without paying anything extra.

I'm taking four different courses, that I will cover more thoroughly later. One of them is an English course, one is an undergrad engineering course and two are grad engineering courses. Teaching methods are similar to LUT: on language courses you should attend most of the classes, and there's lots of minor assignments/homework and class interaction. On engineering courses you should attend classes as well, but attendance is not enforced or followed (apart from labs). Lectures are as you would except, there are individual and group assignments/projects and laboratory sessions seem to be more common.

What else?

Not much, I've went to downtown a couple of times, watched N hours of Netflix while sick and hanged out with the people from my house. There are quite a lot of events in the evenings, but I won't get too deep into those here. I'm slowly starting to plan out stuff to do on the weekends, so maybe next time I'll have cooler pictures to show.

-Aapo

Don't leave your door unlocked.

On my way home.

Welcome to St. John's

It's been a week since I moved in to my room at MUN (Memorial University of Newfoundland) campus. There's been orientation, information sessions and even a few actual lectures during this time. Not to mention evening activities. Campus is much bigger compared to LUT, but luckily there's a tunnel (MUNnel) system underground between different buildings and residence, so you don't have to experience outdoors if you don't want to. In this post I'll go through my first thoughts about living here, on-campus at MUN and in Canada.

What's it like living in Canada compared to Finland?

The most noticeable thing is that people are very friendly and much more talkative than in Finland (surprise). Also, Aapo seems to be a hard name to pronounce (too many vowels?) and Finland appears to be the most exciting country ever. It's been a fun week, and apart from actually having to do some actual school work it's probably going to be a fun semester as well.

There are lots of small details that you wouldn't even think about before actually coming here. E.g. Finnish tap water is the best in the world, mobile data transfer is practically free in Finland and cars in Europe are small. In Canada everything seems to be sponsored, there are STOP -signs on nearly every intersection, there are hardly any bicycles and both snow days and those yellow school buses actually are real things. Using credit/debit cards sometimes include extra fees, sometimes not, and I have no idea why. Everything from taps to wall sockets and mattresses to door knobs/handles are different. So far the most intimidating thing in Canada has been to try and use waffle machines that seem to be everywhere, maybe next week I'll have enough courage. Apart from all the minor details, transition to living here has been quite painless. And at least SI units are used and people like ice hockey, so there's something in common.

Language-wise English here is easy to understand, most people speak without any too thick accent or dialect. And most of my speech seems to be understood as well. Food-wise the differences have not been that significant so far. But like any Finn, I'll probably start missing rye bread pretty soon.

Housing and living on campus

There's a variety of different housing options available at campus. There are apartments, usually shared, as well as dormitory style houses with single and double bedrooms. Primarily I applied for a room in an apartment style residence, and had dormitory residence as my backup option. After all, housing is guaranteed for all new students, so I figured that would be the easiest way to get a place for this Fall. I ended up missing the initial time slot for a room selection, because for some reason you can have a webmail where you can write emails, but not receive (most of) them, thus me missing info about the time slot. Therefore I got auto-allocated to a double bedroom at House Curtis, Paton College. Am I sorry about that? Not at all, and here's why:

When beginning your studies at LUT, guilds are usually the kind of communities where you would meet your first friends, tutors and older students. There are guild rooms, there are events just for the guild and usually big portion of your friends would be from the same guild. I don't believe there are any organizations similar to guilds at MUN. But luckily, there are houses. People at your house are the first ones you're going to meet, orientation is mostly done with the people from your house and there are some events specifically for the people from your house. In practice, houses are kind of like guilds, but they're for the people living under the same roof instead of for the people studying the same major. And I think that's really nice, because people are studying completely different things and still there's a great community you are a part of. So if you're thinking about studying here, I'd highly recommend campus residence, so that you get to be part of a house and the awesome community coming with it.

Double bedroom example from MUN website. I didn't dare include a real photo of my room.

What's also good about the houses, is that everything is taken care of without having to do much yourself. Common spaces are cleaned, there's always food available (see below), broken stuff gets (eventually) fixed, rooms are furnished and so on. It's almost like I'm living with my parents, except I'm probably one of the oldest people here and I don't have to do as much chores.

Of course, there are also downsides of living in these types of houses. There's not much privacy compared to e.g. Finland, where practically all students have own or shared apartments. Having shared common spaces with other people requires a lot of rules, which is both understandable and sometimes irritating. It's also somewhat expensive (about 1950 CAD / 1350 € per semester), since living off-campus you'd get a shared apartment for the same price except without someone cleaning the common spaces and all that. Apartment style on-campus housing would be even more expensive. Also food is an additional (and obligatory) cost required for those living in these houses, and by buying and making your own food you'd save a lot. So what you're practically paying for is to have somebody do your food and some of the cleaning for you, and for me that's worth the money at least while living abroad.

As mentioned, for those living in certain campus residences buying a meal plan is obligatory. It's not cheap (about 2500 CAD / 1700 € per semester), but it covers almost everything: you can eat as much as you want during dining hall opening hours (7 am - 8 pm). Compared to Finnish student restaurants, dining hall is like combining 3 restaurants and a cafeteria together with the exception that you can eat as much as you want, and anything you want. Including desserts and all that. And it's ~50 m from your house. There's also a certain amount of money fixed in to your account that you can spend on cafes and restaurants around campus, if you don't feel like walking over 5 minutes to eat between classes or you want something different. So instead of living on noodles the whole semester, you could just eat pizza and ice cream as much as you want. I try not to.

Dining hall from outside (MUN website)

Next post will most likely be about 2 weeks from now. I'll probably introduce the university and the city of St. John's more thoroughly, once I get to know to places better myself. And I'll try to remember to take pictures myself, instead of just going through MUN websites.

-Aapo

Liftoff

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

Greenland from above

Toronto suburbs from above (ctrl+c, ctrl+v ?)

CN Tower

HHOF: Some glorified cup (replica?)

HHOF: goalie (or mass murderer) masks from 70s to present

How to burn through your exchange budget 101 (6 ECTS)