Everyday life

One of the things that my home university asked to write on my exchange blog was everyday life in the destination. Already one month since the last blog post has passed, and the things here are definitely starting to feel more like "everyday life" instead of a new, unknown environment so I thought it is a good topic for now.

Soon after my last post, I had a Monday morning when my alarm was set at 7am. I looked outside the window and it was still dark, my bed was so nice and warm, and then for the first time I realized that it really is normal everyday life here, not a holiday full of adventurous things, and that waking up in the morning would still be as hard as back in Finland. Yes I'm not a morning person.

On most weekdays my time is spent between the university and the campus. Couple times I suddenly realized that I'm actually living in Amsterdam, world-wide known metropolis, which is easy to forget when you don't visit the center or other busy areas for some days. The contrast between the area where I spend my daily life (south part of Amsterdam / Amstelveen) and the inner city is really big, but I like the nature and calmer environment that surrounds the campus.

Also last Sunday evening I cycled to a different grocery store for the first time, situated right next to the campus area. On my way there I noticed all the normal dutch homes next to a small river and the families inside of them (it's so weird that here you can see so well into the houses from the windows, i always feel like a creepy stalker) living their everyday lives. That gave me a really cozy feeling somehow.

That was also one of the only times that I felt like I should have worn gloves cause it was a bit chilly. I didn't realize it would still be this warm here, specially when yesterday it snowed all over in Finland.. What I really like is that it's not as dark here. Evening mornings seem better when it is not pitch dark at 8am. I'm even slowly getting used to the every-day rain fall..

But couple weeks ago two of my friends came here from Finland, and the weather was so nice the whole time! The pictures in this post are mostly from those days, since having them here gave me a good reason to just go around taking touristic pictures of everything, instead of studying.

Today I had my second and last exam of this period, and Monday I'll start two new courses. But before that we will celebrate Halloween this evening, hahaa! Have a good weekend everyone!

One month down

One week ago, the 18th of September, I realized that it had been one month since I moved to Netherlands and started my exchange. That it has already been one month isn't as scary as the fact that that I only have 4,5 months left (!!). Oh my god. I hope the rest of the months don't pass as fast as the first one.

My previous posts have focused on practical things, so this time I wanted to come and share some happenings and memories from the past month.

The introduction week had some really nice locations for the parties // Enjoying one of the last summer weekends in the Hague

From the boat party at the end of introduction week

My first weekend here was spent at Rick's hometown in Zwolle and there I went to his friends' party

Some balance after all the fun.. The annual autumn flu (here to demonstrate it is a doodle.. :D) and trying to survive the surprisingly long uni days with the power of coffee

One beautiful Saturday me and my room mates threw a surprise birthday party for two girls in our appartment. It was so fun and exciting to organize it and I'm really happy of how it turned out. Before the surprise we also had a sushi workshop in our kitchen.

I went to a food festival here in Amsterdam and had such a good vegetarian (tasted completely like chicken!) greek pita wrap. // Me drinking tea after two days of moving Rick to his new apartment.

 

More pictures from Rick's new place. The place is so beautiful and cozy(and I decided to capture it with these selfies taken in the staircase..), I'm a bit jealous. Especially because this is how our kitchen looked like for many days last week:

I feel like this is a good point to end this post. All in all, I have really enjoyed my time here so far, and I feel like the only problem I have is that I feel the time here is slowly running out. There are so many new things to experience, but of course some days you can only focus on normal everyday life and taking it more easy. I can't wait for the upcoming months, let's hope they will be as nice as the first one :)

First week of uni

Today began my second week at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, so I thought I would come and share some thoughts that have come up so far. Since I'm doing a minor in neuropsychology which is a completely foreign territory for myself and many other fellow students, I can't say anything general about how courses are normally organized in Dutch universities, but here we go:



Something really different compared to my studies in Finland, is the length of "school days". Here they actually feel like school days, 'cause I have some days with lectures from 9am until 4pm. The amount of lectures varies weekly, but I definitely have much more lectures in a week than I did back in Helsinki. That might also be because we have to go through the very basics of genes, brain, anatomy etc. and still finish the minor within 5 months, which requires a lot of teaching and learning. Contributing to the amount of lectures, we also have practical studying like laboratory sessions, which obviously aren't really needed in sociology :D



Two other things that caught my attention already during the first week were the communicative way of studying, and lack of hierarchy between the students and the lecturers. An example of the communicative side is that before having a lecture from keynote speaker, we were assigned to read their research paper, and we had a workshop where we discussed about the article and could present questions to the course lecturers, instead of us all just reading the articles by ourselves before the actual keynote lecture. Also every lecturer highlights the importance of asking if you don't understand something (and students actually do ask questions) and contacting them by e-mail or calling them if you have any problems with the course.

I feel like the lack of hierarchy is a part of the communication, because the way that students and lecturers talk with each other seems much more relaxed and less stiff than in Finland. It reminds me more of the communication between students and teachers in high school or primary school, where as in university the students and lecturer always seem to have much more distant relationship. It was also nice to notice here that after every lecture there are students walking up to the lecturers to talk or ask questions. We have been told that this lack of hierarchy also exists in Dutch work life, where the workers and bosses are equal and everybody has the right to express their opinion and ideas.

One thing that we have also been told about in advance, is the academic grading system here in Netherlands. Today at the info of our second course, our lecturer told us that "you have to get 5.5 in order to pass the course, but of course I hope you all get 7". Knowing that the highest possible grade is 10, (and the lowest being 1), this sounds really weird. In Dutch academic grading the grades 9 and 10 are really rare (together they form about 3% of all results), and 8 is already considered as "excellent". So I guess passing the test normally means that you get something between 5.5 and 7. And if you fail, you get to find out just how badly, on a scale from 1 to 5.5, yey! It doesn't make much sense to me but I'm curious to see just how difficult it is all going to be :D

Now after spending some studying time to write on my blog, maybe I should actually start studying.

Arrival and practical matters

Wooh, last week was definitely one of the most intensive and hectic ones ever. I wanted to attend as many events as possible, just to meet new people and have fun. We had introduction week program from the uni, and also an introduction weekend organized by ESN. Before the last party on Saturday (which was like the 6th party of the week), it seemed like everyone was in some kind of coma ready to fall asleep, but we got ourselves together and had a really cool party on the boat around the river IJ, which was a really nice ending for the whole week.

Last Monday and Tuesday day time was reserved for taking care of practical matters, such as registering for municipality, getting your student card, opening a dutch bank account etc. It was really good to have that time reserved for those things, cause even though we were able to arrange many things in advance before arriving here, there were still many things to be taken care of and of course everything doesn't always go like planned and ends up taking more time in the end.

GETTING A BIKE

One thing that I was happy to have arranged before coming here is my bike. Already on the first days we had to make all kinds of small trips, to the grocery store or the uni campus, so having a bike really made that easier. Also cheaper, because with the public transport card here you pay separately for every single trip, and yesterday I found out that as a foreign student I can't have student discount on my card unless I receive the dutch student finance. So for a foreign student, bike is a really useful form of transportation. I ordered mine before arriving through a company called BikeBoys, which our uni had advertised, and I made an appointment for picking up my bike on the Friday when I moved in. I could test different bikes and pick a suitable one, and that was it. There are many markets and people who sell bikes around Amsterdam, but I felt like it was much easier to just go and pick it up after arriving, instead of trying to find time to go and look for one.

ACCOMMODATION

Also one thing that I think is really helpful to arrange in advance, is accommodation for your exchange. The first week is so busy and you are surrounded by all kinds of new things and people, so adding an apartment search on top of all that sounds waaay too stressful for me :D I got my apartment through a student housing company called DUWO, and I live on a campus in an apartment building unit with 13 other international students, sharing the kitchen with them and having my own room and bathroom. Living with so many people is really different compared to living in a studio apartment in Helsinki, but I think it's the best way to get to know new people and have some kind of group to belong to. Also I got really lucky with my room mates, so I'm happy with my housing choice even though the building and room itself were quite messy and disgusting at the time of arrival. But I'll write a separate post about that and the whole accommodation thing at some point!

Tomorrow I'll have my first lectures here. My feelings consist of strong excitement and slight concern, since I think studying here will be more stressful than in Finland, because the grading system and way of teaching are both quite different compared to Finnish universities. But I'm really happy to get some kind of structure and obligations in my life (for sure I'm going to regret saying that), after these two weeks full of events and derping around.

Writing a blog after a long time and about a certain topic feels surprisingly difficult, so if there is something that you would really want to read about, please leave a comment! :)

Day 1: 17.8.2017

Hey and greetings from Helsinki-Vantaa airport! I planned to write my first post in good time before leaving to Amsterdam, but the last days have passed really fast. As usual I was still packing and cleaning my apartment this morning and wondering if I'll manage to do everything in time.. Luckily I did!

Since it is my first post here I'm going to share some basic info about my exchange:

In Amsterdam I'm starting my 5-month long Erasmus student exchange, and I'll be doing a minor in neuropsychology at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. At my home uni in Helsinki I am majoring in sociology and doing another minor in disability studies. I moved to Helsinki two years ago, which is the time that I've spent on my current studies there.

I decided to start this exchange blog 'cause i noticed that University of Helsinki was looking for students who could write about their exchange. So I will be focusing a lot on the dutch way of studying in a university, and comparing that with my own experiences of studying in Finland. There will also be posts about the more practical matters of being an exchange students, and for sure, a lot of pictures.

I've been in the Netherlands four times altogether, so some of the little dutch quirks I'm already used to, but I'm sure this exchange will bring many new ones on my way. I've also studied dutch for one year and I hope to embetter those skills during my exchange, even though all my courses will be in English. The pictures on this post are from my very first trip to Netherlands in June 2016.

Tomorrow is the first day that we can collect our keys for the student housing, so I'll spend this one night in The Hague and tomorrow I'll be there at 9am at the office waiting to get my key. More about the apartment and many other things later, now I'll have to head to my gate! Adios!