Erasmus Turku

1. Make a presentation of yourself.

Ciao! I’m Carlotta. I come from Italy. I ‘m studying “Science of communication” which should be the stepping stone to become a writer or a journalist. I live in a small mountain village: I love skiing and rock climbing. My friends call me “Heidi”. I love spending my time with friends, cooking (especially sweets), writing and taking pictures. I have one brother that I love a lot! I decided to participate to the Erasmus project because I was ready for a new adventure abroad. I always been fascinated by the North Europe, so I decided to go in Finland, in Turku! I was full of enthusiasm, but, I have to tell the truth, the month before I was a bit worried because I didn’t know anything about my future.

2. Describe briefly the place you are from.

I come from a small mountain village in the North of Italy, in Aosta Valley, called Cervinia. It’s a ski resort, 2050 meters above the sea level. There is plenty of snow during the winter, so there are a lot of tourist. The summer season is more quiet. We are just 600 of inhabitants.

3. Tell us how the city where you study is.

I study in Turin, the old capital city of Italy before Rome. It’s a nice city, full of art and history. There are amazing squares like Piazza Vittorio and Piazza San Carlo, great buildings and, at the same time, you can see the mountains. There are plenty of cosy cafés and restaurant. If you walk under the covered walks that are typical of Turin you don’t feel the usual frenzy of the big cities.

4. What do you think about your home university? (Before you go on Erasmus) Be honest ;)

In Turin there are many universities that are very different: there are the faculty of Medicine, the “Polytechnic” (for engineering and architecture), the faculty of law, and “Palazzo nuovo” which include all the literature, humanities  and languages faculties. Well I study in Palazzo Nuovo and I’m not enthusiastic about it: you never knows exactly where you will have your daily lesson; most of the professors don’t reply to the e-mails; the faculty office is not informed about the lessons and the important notices; the official website is not clear; the classrooms are small and, often, dirty. The quality of the lessons is good, but the organization in general is really, really bad!

5. What encourage you to go on Erasmus? Reasons, etc..

I wanted to do a new exciting experience, to go abroad and discover a new university system, to meet people coming from other countries, to improve my English.

6. When you decide that, what countries / destinations you had in mind and why?

I always had the dream to go in the North of Europe. My idea was to go in Sweden to work, maybe during the summer, but it was not that easy to find a job (also because you need to speak Swedish!). One of my university friend told me that one of the destination for Erasmus was Finland, so I didn’t have any doubt: so let’s go for it!

7. Once you know definitely the destination

a. How did you feel?

I was very excited. I knew it was the place where I wanted to go, I didn’t have any hesitation! There were two destination for Finland: Helsinki and Turku.  I just asked to some friends that participate to the Erasmus program the year before to know a little bit more. I think that asking to other students it’s the best way to have the information that you need (in my case for sure, because my university tutor didn’t know anything about Finland or any other universities; also for the documents and the exams!). In the application we had to choose three “favorite” destinations. I choose Turku first, Helsinki (so I was almost sure to go to Finland!) and Paris. After the first enthusiastic reaction the fear arrived: of course I was a little bit worried, I started to have doubts about my  decision. I didn’t want to leave my friends, my family and my daily routine. I was scared and excited at the same time!

b. What did you think about the place?

Well I had the “dream of the North” as the country of the rain dears and the fairy tales. I went to Stockholm one year before and I felt in love (even if there were -33 degrees!). I have always been fascinated from Scandinavia, so it was a great opportunity!

c. What your closest people (family, friends, colleagues ...) told you or thought about it?

At the beginning, when I said: “I’m going to Finland for 6 months” the first reaction of my family and friends was a little smile. Everyone was a bit scared: “It’s so cold up there. There are many suicides. Finns are introvert and silent. There is no light. Why didn’t you choose Spain?”. So I had some doubts, I was worried, but I have been reassured when I spoke to some other guys that went to Turku the year before that were so happy and excited about the experience!

d. If you had a choice to choose another one, what would have been?

I think I would choose England or maybe France.

8. For how long is / was your stay? Do you think that's enough? Would you have liked to have stayed longer? / Would you like to stay longer?

I have been in Finland just for one semester (from January to the beginning of June) because I could choose just one semester because in the first semester the courses were just in Finnish, so they didn’t accept exchange students! I think that if I could I would do one year! Six months are so short!

9. How did the paperwork, formalities, etc..? What do you think about all this?

It was a kind of nightmare in Italy! My tutor didn’t know anything about the Finnish university. On the web site there were just the exams of the year before, so I didn’t know how to complete the learning agreement. Nobody was able to give me the right information about the courses and the credits (that were different). I was completely confused and I felt lost! I didn’t want to “loose” one semester if my exams wouldn’t be recognized. Finally I have been helped a lot from my friends that went to Erasmus the years before, but not from my professors (well just the Erasmus student office was helpful, but they couldn’t help me specifically for the exams!).

10. How is the city where you live or you used to live during your Erasmus?

I lived in Turku, a small city in the south of Finland, with about 170 000 inhabitants. It’s very quiet and it’s surrounded by the forest. There are nice old buildings and a river that flow through the city. Turku has many cosy bars, libraries, pubs with live music, bars for metal funs, shops, supermarkets, discos. The universities are amazing: there are many students from all over the world! There are all the services necessary, plenty of activities to do, a very active ESN group, professors and all the university staff extremely helpful!

11. Where did you stay (residence, apartment, dorm)? Explain how it is.

I stayed in a shared apartment for three people (but we were just two at the end), 15 minutes far from the city centre for a really good price (206 euros for month!). Everyone had a single room. There were two bathrooms and a wide kitchen. In the building there were many exchange students. We even had a sauna, a barbecue place for the spring and a laundry!

12. Well, what about the Host University? How it is? What do you think?

The host university was Turku University of Applied University. It was very nice: good lessons, professors always helpful, lessons in English. There was even a “tutor” that helped us from the beginning (they come to pick us up from the airport!!). My tutor gave me her ice-skates and her coffee machine, she was absolutely great! The only problem was that we had a kind of “separate” class of Erasmus student (of course the language was the problem). We followed just a course with the Finnish students, so we didn’t really integrate in the university system.  Also, sometimes we didn’t know our week plan, so it was not always 100% well organized. We had some online courses which was very new, because in Italy we have just frontal lessons.

13. Compared to your home university, what advantages and disadvantages do you get when compared to the host university?

The fact that all the courses were in English for us was very good: we had the chance to improve it a lot. The class was very small (we were just 6 exchange students), so the professors followed us a lot. They have always been very helpful. One think that surprised me a lot was the fact that they always answered to the e-mail, I’m not used to that because in Turin it’s not like that! Another big difference was that in my home university the courses are all just theory courses, in Finland there were many practical lessons: for the course “audio expression” we had to make an interview, for “video expression” a video, we learned how to use vimeo and some audio programs.

14. During Erasmus, it is common make trips taking advantage of the staying in other countries and places. Did you already make a trip? Got one in mind? Where do you want to travel? Where have you gone?

Yes, of course, I think that Erasmus is the best opportunity to travel. Before this experience I thought that the idea of travel was just something that you would do once, maybe in the summer, after the summer job. But in Erasmus you realize that you can see so many places, even just in one week end and not spending a huge amount of money! It’s also great because you meet people from all over the world that have your same interest, your same curiosity to discover new places and are very easy-going.  I have been to Stockholm because I had a friend that is living there and London (very cheap flights). Then, I have been in Lapland for one week (AMAZING) with a trip organized by the guys from ESN. We also visited Finland: we went to Helsinki, Salo, Tampere, Lahti. We had the chance to go to Russia, in Saint-Petersburg with two good friends. And after Erasmus the travel continues because some friends come to visit you and you go to visit them in their countries!

15. Finally, the most important. Tell us as Erasmus generally is in the place you are or were (as applicable). How the partys, the other Erasmus, social life, student organizations, associations Erasmus, are and so on (The more you can write, the better!).

Turku is still in my heart. I have been there until the end of May. The city was great for student life. There were so many students. We lived in a residence with many exchange students, so we had the chance to hang out a lot. We did many trips and parties together and we even enjoy just walking in the wood near home. There is also a super active ESN group which was great! Every Monday there was an “hangaround Monday”, a day for all the exchange students: a great opportunity to make new friends! They organized plenty of activities and trips: cooking course, group games, trip to the sauna, typical Finnish dishes. Almost every night there was a party in a different club. All of them was different: one with commercial music, another one with latin party… there were also nice pubs: metal pubs and some of them with alternative indie music.

I still receive letters and postcard from all my new international friends! We are still in touch! Amazing, if you have the chance do it! J

Carlotta