Time has passed and I have been neglecting my blog. How very sorry I am, but I have spent my non-blogging time well. I have been travelling, studying, talking about small and big matters with my Erasmus friends, studying, eating, studying, studying, studying... My roommate might laugh now, but I feel like I've been studying more than ever in my life. The differences between Finnish university and Swiss university are in the details (the Devil is in the details!) despite the fact that subjects and core learning outcomes are somewhat the same. So, I decided to get back blogging when I am done with my exams and studies and I am now (Hallelujah!). This looong post is divided to studies in USI part and campus description part with pictures of the campus as well.
Studying in USI
Studying. The official but not so honest reason why anybody should go to exchange. Obviously, I had to do Learning agreement before coming to USI and I browsed through the study catalog (online) of my Faculty in which I am going to study: Communication. Bachelor courses are all in Italian, so master courses were my only option. Our university agreement was with the whole University, which meant that I could choose studies also from other faculties. That was at first good for me, because quite many of the communication courses offered in spring demanded prerequisites of other courses, which I didn't have. My options were limited so, I chose studies also from Faculty of Economics in International Tourism and communication studies from masters of Media Management and Corporate Communication.
And now to the crucial point: Mixing faculties is something I DON´T RECOMMEND to do unless it's necessary. Maybe it was just my typical luck, but some of my chosen courses had schedule changes and when usually faculties plan changes according to their own masters, it was more than inevitable that the changes started to overlap with this and that from other faculty. At first, my schedule looked good: no overlapping with communication and international tourism and suddenly very much overlapping. Attending to classes is important, sometimes obligatory which made my overlapping every other day situation a bit problematic at some point. I had to leave few courses and change my LA to make my schedule a bit sensible in the middle of the semester. But then again, quite many of other students also mixed and matched faculties without problems. At the beginning of the semester students don`t know the dates of exams either, which makes mixing studies with other faculties even more risky. First I was going to do more courses than I am actually (and hopefully if I pass the exams) finishing, but after dropping few courses, I now have 20 credits coming from USI. Courses are usually 3 credits and evaluating the work load of each course, that is plenty of studying for just three credits. Let me tell you people, study you may if you come to USI. Go to Finland if you want to chill and get credits while chilling.
Before semester I had to send e-mails if I wanted to take courses from certain masters like corporate communication, international tourism and management etc. After doing this was then enough to go in class and sometimes also to mention teachers about being an Erasmus-student. We didn't have to enroll in courses, only to iCorsi, which is a platform, where all the course readings, assignments and info is updated. Now some detailed information from each course I took:
Studium Sustainale (Sustainability studies)
This course was experimental course of trying to teach sustainability for students coming from multidisciplinary backgrounds. Sometimes I felt that the course was a bit too philosophical and theoretical and to be honest, I expected something more practical. First we weren't supposed to have an exam, but the USI dean demanded it. In the end, we did have exam which was quite difficult. Difficult meaning silly and pedantic questions. I am not used to study details, because in Finland exam questions are usually broad. I am not sure how I can use the knowledge I learned from this course in the future... But then again, we used two hours to play sustainability game which reminded of Monopoly.
Global Corporate Communication
I loved GCC. I loved our Indian lecturer and the content of the course. The idea was to understand the framework for public relations in global context and how different countries have their own specific differences which affects on the PR done in the country. Course assignment was to be done about a case study in certain country and we chose Fukushima crisis in Japan. We did research about Japan's political, economical, cultural (organizational and societal) and media environments and then made some conclusions how did these environmental variables affected the Fukushima crises's PR catastrophe. Written case was 40% of the course grade, 10% came from the presentation of the case in class and 50% was from exam. For the exam we had to read our lecturer's quite heavy book, but it was interesting and I spend my nights reading the book quite happily. I might even change my master's thesis idea, because I got so inspired by this course.
Corporate Social Responsibility
CSR had interesting content and lot's of examples about companies doing wrong. Exam was 100% of the course grade and it was my only mid-term exam in April. It was horrible for me. I didn't know how to study the slides (or I studied like for Finnish exam's, trying to understand the big picture) and in the end questions were concerning one small detail in one slide or something similar. In Finland, we have this thing called pilkun nussiminen (comma fucking). It's when small details get more attention than they should. However, I passed the exam. Can't say hooray for my grade, but then again I never really care about grades.
LAB in Heritage Interpretation
Course was from the master of international tourism and it´s core was to teach about cultural and heritage tourism. We had classes and we had to prepare a presentation about one dimension of cultural heritage. My team chose tourism for imaginary places and we focused on Harry Potter-tourism. The presentation was 50% of the course grade and the other half was form exam in the middle of June. For the exam, we had to read slides and the exam consisted of two open end questions. I had taken worst exams in my life, so this one wasn't so bad...
Business Travel
Business travel course grade was 35% of written group assignment and 65% of exam. We had two lecturers and the course was divided to travel management and business travel section and meetings, incentive travel, conferences and exhibitions section, Because of that, the exam was also divided to 8 questions from the first section and 25 questions from the second section. Total of 33 questions and again dividing to 30% and 35% of the total grade. Core of the course was interesting and I liked our Scottish lecturer. Although tourism isn't my major I think this course was very useful for my future.
Communicating in the Media Branch
This course was from media management major and the core of the course was to understand communication activities that media companies do. We had to prepare a presentation about European Journalism Observatory's webpage and content and give recommendations how to improve the page. Presentation was 30% of the course grade and the rest was from writing an article about scientific research which would interest future media managers. No exam (loveloveloveit...).
Sorry for the length of this post, but I am still going to continue a bit. For exams we had to register some time before exams in certain webpage and we did two registrations: for mid-term exams in April and for summer-exams. For both of them we had about a week to register in April and May. We also needed to do academic integrity "exam" online concerning cheating and plagiarizing. For exams we usually had just few hours to do them and that was new to me who is used to sit for four hours in an exam room and think. Overall, courses were nice, but not very practical and exam session is quite stressful. On the other hand, I learned about new things and found out new passion from global communications and also found out that I am able to read through the night and succeed in exams although at first it seemed impossible for a lazy... special student like myself. I expanded my limits of can do's and can't do's as a student so this was a useful semester by that account as well.
And now to the crucial point: Mixing faculties is something I DON´T RECOMMEND to do unless it's necessary. Maybe it was just my typical luck, but some of my chosen courses had schedule changes and when usually faculties plan changes according to their own masters, it was more than inevitable that the changes started to overlap with this and that from other faculty. At first, my schedule looked good: no overlapping with communication and international tourism and suddenly very much overlapping. Attending to classes is important, sometimes obligatory which made my overlapping every other day situation a bit problematic at some point. I had to leave few courses and change my LA to make my schedule a bit sensible in the middle of the semester. But then again, quite many of other students also mixed and matched faculties without problems. At the beginning of the semester students don`t know the dates of exams either, which makes mixing studies with other faculties even more risky. First I was going to do more courses than I am actually (and hopefully if I pass the exams) finishing, but after dropping few courses, I now have 20 credits coming from USI. Courses are usually 3 credits and evaluating the work load of each course, that is plenty of studying for just three credits. Let me tell you people, study you may if you come to USI. Go to Finland if you want to chill and get credits while chilling.
Before semester I had to send e-mails if I wanted to take courses from certain masters like corporate communication, international tourism and management etc. After doing this was then enough to go in class and sometimes also to mention teachers about being an Erasmus-student. We didn't have to enroll in courses, only to iCorsi, which is a platform, where all the course readings, assignments and info is updated. Now some detailed information from each course I took:
Studium Sustainale (Sustainability studies)
This course was experimental course of trying to teach sustainability for students coming from multidisciplinary backgrounds. Sometimes I felt that the course was a bit too philosophical and theoretical and to be honest, I expected something more practical. First we weren't supposed to have an exam, but the USI dean demanded it. In the end, we did have exam which was quite difficult. Difficult meaning silly and pedantic questions. I am not used to study details, because in Finland exam questions are usually broad. I am not sure how I can use the knowledge I learned from this course in the future... But then again, we used two hours to play sustainability game which reminded of Monopoly.
Global Corporate Communication
I loved GCC. I loved our Indian lecturer and the content of the course. The idea was to understand the framework for public relations in global context and how different countries have their own specific differences which affects on the PR done in the country. Course assignment was to be done about a case study in certain country and we chose Fukushima crisis in Japan. We did research about Japan's political, economical, cultural (organizational and societal) and media environments and then made some conclusions how did these environmental variables affected the Fukushima crises's PR catastrophe. Written case was 40% of the course grade, 10% came from the presentation of the case in class and 50% was from exam. For the exam we had to read our lecturer's quite heavy book, but it was interesting and I spend my nights reading the book quite happily. I might even change my master's thesis idea, because I got so inspired by this course.
Corporate Social Responsibility
CSR had interesting content and lot's of examples about companies doing wrong. Exam was 100% of the course grade and it was my only mid-term exam in April. It was horrible for me. I didn't know how to study the slides (or I studied like for Finnish exam's, trying to understand the big picture) and in the end questions were concerning one small detail in one slide or something similar. In Finland, we have this thing called pilkun nussiminen (comma fucking). It's when small details get more attention than they should. However, I passed the exam. Can't say hooray for my grade, but then again I never really care about grades.
LAB in Heritage Interpretation
Course was from the master of international tourism and it´s core was to teach about cultural and heritage tourism. We had classes and we had to prepare a presentation about one dimension of cultural heritage. My team chose tourism for imaginary places and we focused on Harry Potter-tourism. The presentation was 50% of the course grade and the other half was form exam in the middle of June. For the exam, we had to read slides and the exam consisted of two open end questions. I had taken worst exams in my life, so this one wasn't so bad...
Business Travel
Business travel course grade was 35% of written group assignment and 65% of exam. We had two lecturers and the course was divided to travel management and business travel section and meetings, incentive travel, conferences and exhibitions section, Because of that, the exam was also divided to 8 questions from the first section and 25 questions from the second section. Total of 33 questions and again dividing to 30% and 35% of the total grade. Core of the course was interesting and I liked our Scottish lecturer. Although tourism isn't my major I think this course was very useful for my future.
Communicating in the Media Branch
This course was from media management major and the core of the course was to understand communication activities that media companies do. We had to prepare a presentation about European Journalism Observatory's webpage and content and give recommendations how to improve the page. Presentation was 30% of the course grade and the rest was from writing an article about scientific research which would interest future media managers. No exam (loveloveloveit...).
Sorry for the length of this post, but I am still going to continue a bit. For exams we had to register some time before exams in certain webpage and we did two registrations: for mid-term exams in April and for summer-exams. For both of them we had about a week to register in April and May. We also needed to do academic integrity "exam" online concerning cheating and plagiarizing. For exams we usually had just few hours to do them and that was new to me who is used to sit for four hours in an exam room and think. Overall, courses were nice, but not very practical and exam session is quite stressful. On the other hand, I learned about new things and found out new passion from global communications and also found out that I am able to read through the night and succeed in exams although at first it seemed impossible for a lazy... special student like myself. I expanded my limits of can do's and can't do's as a student so this was a useful semester by that account as well.
USI Campus
[Note: The owner of this blog doesn't take any responsibility of this these next paragraphs although I should. Guest writer, Stefanos, is a really dear friend of mine whose mother says he`s special... I agree.]
USI campus is beautiful as butterfly flying in the middle of autumn in the eternal valleys of love and death. The architecture itself is made by God himself [Corinthians 16:4]. The overall layout is so friendly and useful, even the knight from monty pythons could navigate around. The biblioteca on the other hand is the epitome of Intelligence, studying there is like watching Einstein, Gauss and Tesla having an orgy... yeah I know... that intense, your mind will explode! Ah yes! I forgot.. The Mensa... midst divine exists evil... A restaurant designed by Satan itself just to take your money!
On a different subject I wanna tackle a very important aspect of universities. Yes you guested right. alumni. I only have three words for 'em : pretentious smoking butter-babies. "Just because every time you cough I think I have cancer myself, doesn't make you wise... prick". The above applied to almost everybody, except informatic students, they were simply a m a z i n g !
τελεία και παύλα !
This small definition is made by a dear friend of mine, he is the lighthouse of wisdom, the president of democracy, the emperor of kindness and the titan of humbleness... Stefanos
USI campus is beautiful as butterfly flying in the middle of autumn in the eternal valleys of love and death. The architecture itself is made by God himself [Corinthians 16:4]. The overall layout is so friendly and useful, even the knight from monty pythons could navigate around. The biblioteca on the other hand is the epitome of Intelligence, studying there is like watching Einstein, Gauss and Tesla having an orgy... yeah I know... that intense, your mind will explode! Ah yes! I forgot.. The Mensa... midst divine exists evil... A restaurant designed by Satan itself just to take your money!
On a different subject I wanna tackle a very important aspect of universities. Yes you guested right. alumni. I only have three words for 'em : pretentious smoking butter-babies. "Just because every time you cough I think I have cancer myself, doesn't make you wise... prick". The above applied to almost everybody, except informatic students, they were simply a m a z i n g !
τελεία και παύλα !
This small definition is made by a dear friend of mine, he is the lighthouse of wisdom, the president of democracy, the emperor of kindness and the titan of humbleness... Stefanos
//
Kiire on nakellut ja blogi on jäänyt suunnittelemattomalle opintovapaalle. Suunnittelemattomalle siksi, että en suunnitellut opiskelevani täällä niin paljoa mitä todellisuudessa olen tehnyt. Istuin yötä myöten kirjastossa lukeassa tentteihin, koska täällä tentit olivat välillä vähän haastavampia mitä olen tottunut. Tulen muistelemaan vaihtoani kirjoittamalla blogia Suomesta käsin, kunhan viikon päästä lennähdän takaisin. Sitä ennen hiukan asiaa opinnoista ja kampuksesta. Kuten kuvista näkyy kampus on kaunis ja mikä parasta, kompakti. USI ei ole opinahjona mitenkään suuren suuri muutenkaan ja huhujen mukaan tohtoriopiskelijoita on enemmän kuin kandidaatti- ja maisteriopiskelijoita yhteensä. USI siis keskittyy tutkimukseen eikä valmistuneiden tehtailuun. Opettajat ovat pitkälti lainassa muista opinahjoista tai sitten sellainen tuuri sattui minun kurssivalintojen kanssa.
Kurssit olivat aika teoreettisia eivätkä pyrkineet käytännöllisten taitojen kartuttamiseen: esseitä, esityksiä, artikkeleiden lukua ja kirjoittamista. Erityisesti pidin Global Corporate Communication kurssista, joka käsitteli kansainvälisen viestinnän ja PR:n tekemistä jokaisen maan politiikan, talouden, kulttuurin ja median erityisyys ja erikoisuudet huomioon ottaen. Ensimmäinen tentti meni vähän miten sattui, koska luin siihen niin kuin lukisin kotimaan tentteihin: yritin ymmärtää kokonaiskuvan ja pohtia sovellutuksia. Sattuikin niin, että tenttikysymykset olivat osittain todella yksityiskohtaisia ja luentomateriaali olisi pitänyt opetella ulkoa. Tuli sellainen tunne, että koe ei edes pyri mittaamaan kuka ymmärsi ja mitä vaan se pyrki saamaan selville kenellä on paras muisti ja kyky opetella asioita "hauki on kala, hauki on kala" -menetelmällä. Opiskelijat halutaan laitaa ranking-järjestykseen ja pikkutarkat kokeet ovat tapa tehdä niin. Tämä ensimmäinen koe oli ainut mid-term kokeeni huhtikuussa ja loput olivat kesäkuussa. Ne menivät paremmin, kun muutin kokeisiin luku tekniikkani. En pahemmin välitä arvosanoista ja heti, jos en näe miten kurssi mahdolisesti auttaisi minua työelämässä, kiinnostukseni lopahtaa. Sveitsissä sellainen mentaliteetti ei tullut kyseeseenkään, mutta tulipahan kokeiltua eri mentaliteetilla opiskelua. Opin, että jos kotimaassa panostaisin vähän enemmän ulkoa opetteluun ja määrään saattaisin olla paljon parempi opiskelija mitä tullessani Sveitsiin.
Kiire on nakellut ja blogi on jäänyt suunnittelemattomalle opintovapaalle. Suunnittelemattomalle siksi, että en suunnitellut opiskelevani täällä niin paljoa mitä todellisuudessa olen tehnyt. Istuin yötä myöten kirjastossa lukeassa tentteihin, koska täällä tentit olivat välillä vähän haastavampia mitä olen tottunut. Tulen muistelemaan vaihtoani kirjoittamalla blogia Suomesta käsin, kunhan viikon päästä lennähdän takaisin. Sitä ennen hiukan asiaa opinnoista ja kampuksesta. Kuten kuvista näkyy kampus on kaunis ja mikä parasta, kompakti. USI ei ole opinahjona mitenkään suuren suuri muutenkaan ja huhujen mukaan tohtoriopiskelijoita on enemmän kuin kandidaatti- ja maisteriopiskelijoita yhteensä. USI siis keskittyy tutkimukseen eikä valmistuneiden tehtailuun. Opettajat ovat pitkälti lainassa muista opinahjoista tai sitten sellainen tuuri sattui minun kurssivalintojen kanssa.
Kurssit olivat aika teoreettisia eivätkä pyrkineet käytännöllisten taitojen kartuttamiseen: esseitä, esityksiä, artikkeleiden lukua ja kirjoittamista. Erityisesti pidin Global Corporate Communication kurssista, joka käsitteli kansainvälisen viestinnän ja PR:n tekemistä jokaisen maan politiikan, talouden, kulttuurin ja median erityisyys ja erikoisuudet huomioon ottaen. Ensimmäinen tentti meni vähän miten sattui, koska luin siihen niin kuin lukisin kotimaan tentteihin: yritin ymmärtää kokonaiskuvan ja pohtia sovellutuksia. Sattuikin niin, että tenttikysymykset olivat osittain todella yksityiskohtaisia ja luentomateriaali olisi pitänyt opetella ulkoa. Tuli sellainen tunne, että koe ei edes pyri mittaamaan kuka ymmärsi ja mitä vaan se pyrki saamaan selville kenellä on paras muisti ja kyky opetella asioita "hauki on kala, hauki on kala" -menetelmällä. Opiskelijat halutaan laitaa ranking-järjestykseen ja pikkutarkat kokeet ovat tapa tehdä niin. Tämä ensimmäinen koe oli ainut mid-term kokeeni huhtikuussa ja loput olivat kesäkuussa. Ne menivät paremmin, kun muutin kokeisiin luku tekniikkani. En pahemmin välitä arvosanoista ja heti, jos en näe miten kurssi mahdolisesti auttaisi minua työelämässä, kiinnostukseni lopahtaa. Sveitsissä sellainen mentaliteetti ei tullut kyseeseenkään, mutta tulipahan kokeiltua eri mentaliteetilla opiskelua. Opin, että jos kotimaassa panostaisin vähän enemmän ulkoa opetteluun ja määrään saattaisin olla paljon parempi opiskelija mitä tullessani Sveitsiin.