Professor-student relationships in Finland are not constrained by formal conventions. THERE IS NO HIERARCHY. Well, formally there is. There are titles as usual: MSc (Master of Science), PhD (Doctor of Philosophy), Professor, Head of the Department, etc. But in reality, people are not respected for having any of these titles. They are respected by students for being intelligent, approachable, friendly or even funny.
“Aalto acts as a simulation of work life. No company should be a silo of different departments, why should universities? The primary reason I applied here was because Aalto blends design and business with tech and science.”
– Angela Hernandez, Pattern Painter & Creative Sustainability student
Get more than a degree at Aalto University. Application for Master’s programmes 3 Dec 2018–11 Jan 2019 and for English Bachelor’s programmes 9–23 Jan 2019. Find your own programme and apply.
Sebastian Wolf is a talented photographer and a versatile artist from Germany. He started his one-year exchange in Aalto since last summer and enjoyed Aalto and Finland a lot. I met Sebastian in the ceramics workshop when we both went there for an introduction session conducted by the workshop master Tomi Pelkonen, who kindly showed us the basic throwing skills. Of course, we tried out on the wheels afterwards. I realized how hard it was and couldn’t make out of anything. Then I turned around and saw that Sebastian had already done his first cup. He’s a total natural.
Gautam Vishwanath, Joel Wolff and I presented our final proposal ‘Eventful Forest’ for 2018
Design for Government. © Heidi Konttinen
Design for Government (DfG) is an advanced studio course in Creative Sustainability Master Programme. It took two periods from February till May 2018. “DfG develops design addressing the complex challenges of the government and public sector. In the course, we apply empathic approaches to identify stakeholder needs, systems approaches to analyse the wider context of policies, and behavioural insight to identify and design relevant solutions.” (Design for Government course description)
Share my experience in Aalto and Finland with new students in Taiwan and others who are
interested in applying for future study. © YANG,LI-FANG
First of all, Congratulations! Welcome to Aalto!
I’ve been participating in webinars and chats to answer questions from new students for several times. I’d like to share my experience and some useful information for new students about how to settle down.
Please see all up to date information on admissions and the beginning of your studies on Aalto’s website (aalto.fi) or by contacting Aalto’s Admissions Services (admissions (at) aalto.fi) or your programme’s student services.
This is part 2 of a blog post telling about my participation in the course Sustainable Global Technologies (SGT) Studio at Aalto University. To read the first part, scroll down.
The time in Dhungetar was valuable for all of us. It felt like we spent several weeks there and we became familiar with some of the locals. In the evenings after all the official tasks were done, we had long conversations on cultural differences and life with our fellow students from AITM and during the days we all tried to find some own time to reflect on the experiences we were having.
On Saturday we left Dhungetar and we spent a day travelling through Nuwakot, visiting the famous Nuwakot palace of the king Prithvi Narayan Shah who united Nepal some 250 years ago. We also visited a chaotic marketplace and festival in a town close by and had lunch on the way. In the evening we arrived to Kathmandu and on Sunday we had a day of rest and touristing around in Thamel where our apartment was situated.
This Spring I am doing the Sustainable Global Technologies (SGT) Studio at Aalto University, which is a cross-disciplinary course focusing on connecting sustainability and technology in developing context. As part of our studio course my team did a two week field trip to Nepal now in March.
The studio course started officially in January but I met my team members and our mentor already during last Autumn to learn to know each other and start applying and looking for grants and potential sponsors for our project. What is exciting and really interesting about the Nepal project is that we built it up from scratch. It is a pilot project, meaning that there is no earlier collaboration established in Nepal through the SGT course. We decided on our topics and partners ourselves and it has been really interesting to see how far 5 ambitious and motivated students can get (with a lot of help from others!) in 3 months.
Our main topic is to look into reconstruction practices after the earthquake that hit Nepal in 2015 and made 1 million people fall below the poverty line. We are especially interested in knowing how successful reconstruction projects have been conducted and how the information related to reconstruction has been communicated to the beneficiaries and inside the organisations.
The teekkari cap is an auspicious symbol of the teekkari (technical student) lifestyle. It has a very rich history dating back to 1893. It is a summer cap which can be worn from 1st May (wappu) to 30th September. Special permission is required to wear the cap outside of these dates. But what if you were not born and raised in Finland? Does it mean you can never get this cap? Well, not really.
But in order to get the cap you should first integrate with Finnish culture, most importantly teekkari culture. So as a student at Aalto, you can get the teekkari point card from your respective guild and start filling in the points by attending a variety of events and doing a whole bunch of different things that are part of the teekkari lifestyle. The points on the card are divided into different sections, and I’ll go over all the sections and major events required to get a teekkari cap.
Whether you are into technology or IT, or for that matter in product development, Silicon Valley is the one place that would come in mind as a work place which would definitely be a life event for you that will be really hard to check in the wish list of yours. Reason for this could be that stakes are high in the most advanced research tech companies and margin of failure is low. What would it take you to get this dream come true? Yes, you heard this right! Aalto University has the solution for you. ME310 is a platform where you learn to apply the product development concepts at whole new level with real life projects offered by companies which are looking for solutions to problems that will make the world experience more comfortable for all of us.
In Aalto University, there are many project-based courses that provide valuable opportunities for students to work with real clients. For 2018 fall semester, I take the advanced studio course in Creative Sustainability master’s program – Design for Government, which utilizes design approach to tackle complex challenges of the government and public sector. This year our clients are Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry and Metsähallitus. The project aims at establishing a clear profile for national hiking areas and attracting more visitors. In order to help students gain a better understanding of national hiking areas, the course subsidizes every student for a site visit to Evo, which is about 90-min drive away from Helsinki.
My team organized a two-day field trip in mid March. On the way to Evo, we were talking about wild animals living in Helsinki city. I was surprised that foxes can be seen around the suburbs. Then and there, a handsome fox crossed the street in front of our car and stared at us curiously. What amazes me the most in Finland is the nature is always so close and stunning.
