INSIDER 04.10.2019 | VOL. 22 | ISSUE 04
STUDENT MAGAZINE OF XAMK
Featuring Ice Hockey Student story Exchange view Movie review Visiting Carfield University Why it is interesting to learn Finnish language PART 2
STAFF
EDITORIAL
LIDIIA BENKOVSKAIA
ARIAN UKAJ
JASMINE LAIMER
MUHAMMET CAKIROGLU
PRAKHAR SHARMA
ANNA RYNDINA
NIKITA MUNENKO
HENNA SUORTTI
INSIDER STUDENT MAGAZINE South-Eastern Finland University of Applied Sciences Paraatikenttä 7 45100 Kouvola INSIDER ISSN 1457-1587 Editor in Chief: HUGH CLACK
PHONE +358 44 702 8758 WEBSITE insider.xamk.fi EMAIL insider@xamk.fi 2
EDITORIAL October is here and so is Iinsider! You’re holding the 4th issue of Volume 22 of our magazine, I’m Nikita and let me tell you what you can expect to find on its pages. It seems like the topic of this one is journeys. Jasmine, for example, has visited my beloved hometown in Russia, St. Petersburg. It was the first time for our Austrian student to come to Mother Russia, so she shared her thoughts on it. Warning! After reading what she has to say, you might want to visit St. Petersburg as well! We also have our editor in chief, Hugh Clack, with his article (sorry Hugh, I probably should’ve put you first). Mr Clack, unlike Jasmine, went to his native UK, where he had a not-so-secret mission to visit Cranfield University. Hugh tells us about how he spent his time there, as well as maybe exciting opportunities for XAMK in the future. Be sure to check out his article!
Going on with foreigners in Finland, we have Claudia Riva from Italy. Anna Ryndina spoke with Claudia for Student Profile, so be sure to check it out if you wanna know about somebody else from XAMK! We also have Sara, a design student from XAMK who speaks about her studies, job, obstacles and good parts of it too. Ever think about changing your major to design? There you go! Design student are also very welcome to read the articles and see if they can relate. I myself am ready to present another movie review to you. This time I watched a film based on a popular TV show, Downtown Abbey. Was it good? Was it meh? You’ll learn from my article. Happy reading and welcome to October!
Prakhar had his first experience with ice hockey, which is a huge thing for Finns! He went to see a Kookoo, team from Kouvola, play against their competitors from Turku. He wasn’t really an ice hockey fan at all, so did his idea to see what it is turn him into one? Read his article and find out! Lidia, who’s my fellow Russian, wrote about Finnish. It’s one of the hardest languages to learn (trust me, I spent yhdeksän years at school trying to learn it. Forgot everything), so she gives her opinion on the language and some piece of advice as well. Might be useful to you, dear foreigners!
Written by Nikita 3
CRANFIELDuniversity A visit to Cranfield University in the UK The visit started on Thursday with a run-through of the MK:U project at the main project offices on campus. This was an interesting session held as a “stand-up” session, where all project participants introduced their part and the state of progress. Later, participants "Fragments"serieswere of able to discuss with each other any kinds of cooperation paintings that was necessary in a “freeform” discussion, as some had previously not been introduced. A meeting with Oksana Koryak, who is leading a Master’s programme, led to a discussion as to how undergraduate education differs from post-graduate, and how teaching and curriculum development is carried out at Xamk. The afternoon allowed for presenting Xamk and our integrated teaching methods with the MK:U programme coordinator and a lot of new discussions about onlineeducation came up. Later that afternoon, we were able to attend the SciRoc (Robotics Challenge) in Milton Keynes, in which Cranfield is participating and the town is intending to become a Smart City.
Last week, myself and Director of Education (Business), Marja-Liisa Neuvonen-Rauhala, had the opportunity to visit Cranfield University at the invitation of Sabrina Sommer. Some of you may remember Sabrina, who visited Xamk in May this year to give some lectures for our Summer School. Sabrina is working for the Betanny Centre for Entrepreneurship of Cranfield School of Management, within the university. Sabrina is also involved with the MK:U project, a new university that will start undergraduate (Bachelor) education in Milton Keynes in the next couple of years. As Milton Keynes is a new town, they do not yet have a university or city status. The intention of visiting Cranfield was to learn more about them as a university and a potential education partner for Xamk. Cranfield is the only post-graduate university in the UK, meaning that students come to Cranfield after already obtaining a Bachelor or Master degree and wish to pursue a higher level. In addition to Master and Doctoral degrees, Cranfield also offers other kinds of education, for example at the
Cranfield Management Centre, we met a group of entrepreneurs looking to scale their businesses. 4
On Friday, we had the chance to participate in the eMBA programme, which is run as a part-time programme, where students are working full-time and employers are mostly paying the tuition fees. After this, we were invited to participate in the first introductory session of the SCALE 12-week programme for entrepreneurs. It was interesting to see that many of them had in fact been working in successful highlevel management positions previously, and now had their own companies which they wanted to grow.
A relaxing weekend allowed us to explore the town of Bedford (where we were staying) and visit a few of the museums and historical sites. It was interesting to find out that the second most read book in the world “The Pilgrim’s Progress”, was written by John Bunyan from Bedford. It was also the name of the hotel we stayed at.
Monday again saw us meeting with various leaders of programmes and administration. I had a very constructive discussion with Ilka Ellis, the Learning Designer of Cranfield School of Management. We discussed how Cranfield is starting to create online content and Ilka was very interested to hear of Xamk’s experience with online learning, particularly my experience with courses that are taught totally virtually. We had a productive meeting with Joe Nellis, a long-standing member of Cranfield University, who was very enthusiastic to learn that we were interested in fostering an international partnership with Cranfield. Another aspect of Cranfield’s interest in Xamk was how student recruitment and predictions for student numbers is carried out. Their MK:U project is totally new to them, as they have never provided education for undergraduates before, so predicting what students would or would not like to study is quite challenging. Another meeting we had was with Tom Stephenson, who is the Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research and Innovation. He was very interested to hear our views on research and project cooperation and is keen to start something in the near future.
On Tuesday we were able to meet with Karine Couly, the International Development Manager for Europe and Central Asia. The idea behind this meeting was of course to discuss exchange opportunities for students and staff. Karine has agreed to take the ideas forward and will be contacting our international office. After this meeting, we were invited to actively participate in a Professional Skills Workshop. Run by Lorraine Bell Head of Technology Enhanced Learning with the help of an outside consultant Yolande Herbath, they had consulted with various enterprises as to what skills were expected of graduating students. At the workshop, we were expected to place those skills into the framework of a 3-year programme and whether or not they were expected to be taught within the relevant programme or as an independent course available to all students. It was interesting to see that most of the skills mentioned would be skills students would receive through their normal studies. The afternoon ended in a discussion with Michael Dickmann, who is the Programme Director of Master’s in Management. We explored again the possibilities of cooperation between our programmes for projects, exchange, or continued studies at the Master’s or Doctoral level.
I would say that the trip was very productive and a successful start to hopefully continued cooperating with Cranfield University. Although at times the hurried meetings felt like “speed dating”, they were all the more intense for the short time that we had. People were positive and enthusiastic about future cooperation, and were very interested in Xamk. I would recommend colleagues to visit Cranfield University if they have the opportunity.
Hugh Clack, Editor in Chief
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EXCHANGEVIEW visiting the beautiful St. Petersburg Since Finland, especially Kouvola, has not many touristic things to offer (except for nature), for me as an exchange student it is nice to visit Finland’s neighbour countries from time to time. For this article I chose to write about my adventures in the biggest country of the world, Russia. Booking this trip was kind of a spontaneous action, as my roommate just came back from her hometown St. Petersburg and was so enthusiastic and passionate about her city (just as all the guys I met from St. Petersburg are!). So I decided that I definitely want to go there! That is all well and good, but as I’m an exchange student from Austria I would have needed a tourist visa from the Austrian embassy (As the electronic visa is only available from the 1st of October as I learnt later on..). Thank god, there is a company which offers 72h visafree tours from Helsinki to St. Petersburg via the ferry at a price even students can afford! Unfortunately, I booked last minute (~2 weeks before departure) so it was not possible to stay at least for one night in St. Petersburg, because the ferries were simply sold out (no wonder!). Due to my schedule and the fact that I wanted to see St. Petersburg in the autumn I chose to book the trip anyway.
My ferry departed at Helsinki Terminal 2 at 6 pm on a Friday. Until then, I was not sure if they would even let me check-in, because a lot of people told me I will need a guided tour to be allowed to step on Russian ground. Thankfully, when I arrived at the terminal the women at the check-in told me that a shuttle service from the port to the city centre is included in my ticket price, which counts as a “guided tour” (relief!). At 3 pm the boarding began and I have never been more excited! Mainly because I was going to Russia for the first time in my life, but also because I’ve never been on a ferry that big and even slept on it! So I kept on walking on the ferry for hours and just looked at the sea, appreciating the vastness of the ocean. On this day, I went to bed early because the next day, on Saturday, the ferry will arrive in St. Petersburg and I will have less then 6 hours to see this magnificent city.
"Saturday, 9:00 am: The ferry finally arrived in St. Petersburg." I was super excited and couldn’t wait to get to the city centre – just as all the other passengers. Soon my excitement vanished as all the passengers were guided to the passport control and honestly, Europeans don’t even know how lucky they are these days! This control felt like it would take ages and in my mind the clock kept ticking – 5,5 hours left for sightseeing. After a view odd questions like “Is this really you on the picture?” and “You dare travelling alone?” I finally passed the passport control and went to the city centre with the shuttle, where I arrived at approximately 10:30 am.
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As I stepped out of the shuttle bus, I could not believe my eyes, what a wonderful sight this city was. Huge antic buildings, aesthetically beautiful and of architectural magnificence, possessed an elegance that had created a particular fascination to me. Thanks to my roommate, who wrote down all the cool stuff I should do when being in St. Petersburg, I had an amazing day, even though it was not for long.
I had a lovely dish for not even 5€ at a Georgian restaurant and an even better dessert, because my roommate also gave me the hint to visit a dessert restaurant called Pyshechnaya, where they sell a traditional Russian dessert called пышка (Pyshka). One of these costs ~15 rubbles which is about 0,20€.
Besides the student friendly pricing, Pyshka is an amazing dessert, but I do recommend ordering not too much, as they are quite stuffing. After that, I chose to visit one hidden sight of St. Petersburg, the metro stations! Those are one of the world’s deepest subway systems and in fact, one of the world’s most beautiful. So, if you’re planning to go to St. Petersburg plan time to at least visit the red line, as it is out of this world!
I visited the Hermitage museum, St. Isaacs Cathedral (unfortunately I had no time to go upstairs to enjoy a beautiful view) and the church of the saviour on blood. Besides that, I went to a hell of lot souvenir shops, because the souvenirs in St. Petersburg are just ridiculously funny!
After that, it was already time to go back to the ferry At 7 pm we left this beautiful city, but as we passed by these giant bridges in the glow of the red sunset, I was sure I will come back again very soon.
Written by Jasmine 7
PROFILE PROFILE: Claudia Riva Last year during winter break you have visited Christmas Market in Tallinn, Estonia. How was it? I have started planning everything at the last minute, but still prices weren’t that high and there were many options available. So, it’s a good choice for budget student trip. I went there to visit Christmas Market on the first place. It was smaller than I supposed, that is why one day was more than enough for this purpose. I have bought many Christmas gifts for my family. But if you’re planning to visit city too, I’d recommend travelling during warmer periods.
You were born in Italian city Lecco, where you have graduated from high school and professional school. What were the main reasons, that motivated you to move to Finland? After graduating from high school, I have started searching for some opportunities in Italy, but they were not very interesting for me. That is why I decided to take gap year: I had some working experience in Finland. After that I have realized that I want to study in Kouvola. Can you tell more about your work at AU PAIR Program. Did it help you to learn language and got used to Finnish lifestyle? Yes, for one year I was living in a Finnish family. My main responsibilities were taking care of kids and doing some small tasks in the house. Living in a Finnish family, I have learned about their traditions and have started speaking Finnish, because it was the only way to communicate with little kids. *laughing* During this work experience I had enough free time for myself. Besides, I have become very close to this family: we’re still visiting each other. About one year ago you just came to Finland to begin your studies. What has changed since that time? I have become more responsible and I had to face adult life. *nervously laughing*
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This summer you went back to your home country to spend some time with family and friends. What do you miss the most about Italy? I miss my family and friends the most, obviously. However, it’s difficult to live without sunshine through my window and Italian food. What would you advise to freshmen according their first year as business students? You must learn how to combine daily routine and studying life. But don’t forget to enjoy free time! Winter is coming… so try to find some hobbies to kill time and not get depressed. As a European student, what kind of benefits do you have? I think the best thing is that I study in Finland for free. I just must pay for my groceries, apartment and freetime activities. Question from previous interviewee: Have you planned to go anywhere during the autumn break? It’s great season to explore Europe, so don’t miss it! I don’t have any plans for autumn holiday week, but I have already bought tickets to Italy to celebrate Christmas there. Can’t wait!
Written by Anna
LEARNINGLANGUAGES Why it is interesting to learn Finnish language?! (Part 2) Perhaps, I will continue to tell interesting facts about the Finnish language! In Finnish, there are eight compass points, and not four, as in Russian or English. For the northeast, northwest, southwest and southeast there are words (not compound, as we have): koillinen, luode, lounas, kaakko. As far as I understand, all these words have a “inner form” (origin clear for speakers): so koillinen “northeast” comes from koi “dawn”. The names of some European countries in Finnish sound completely unexpected: Russia - Venäjä, Belarus - Valko-Venäjä, Estonia - Viro, Sweden Ruotsi, Germany - Saksa, Austria - Itävalta. The longest known Finnish palindrome (a word that is equally readable from left to right and from right to left) is saippuakivikauppias - which freely translates as “soap seller”.
The longest known Finnish palindrome (a word that is equally readable from left to right and from right to left) is saippuakivikauppias - which freely translates as “soap seller”. The Finnish word pääjääjää in the partitive has 14 points in a row. «Thank you» in Finnish in 5 different ways: Kiitos! (Thank you!) Kiitos paljon! ( Thank you so much!) Se on erittäin ystävällistä sinulta! (That’s very kind of you!) Kiitos lahjasta! (Thank you for the gift!) Kiitos ystävällisistä sanoistasi! (Thanks for your kind words!)
Photo from vavet.ru
Written by Lidiia 9
STUDENTSTORY Hi! I´m Sara! I study Service Design at Xamk Through rental companies I did different jobs like delivering mail and at metal industry for almost 2 years. That wasn't my field for a long term job. So that's where Xamk came in.I was looking for different study options in different places but Xamk was the most convenient for me. At first I thought to study something like marketing or business. Then I discoverd service design.
I’ve been living in Kouvola for 4 years now and moved here from capital area where I was born and I grew up. I moved here for relationship reasons and now I'm a mother of two daughters I have a background in the graphic industry area. I worked almost 20 years in two different large companys in digital printing business, doing basically costumer service, file managment, production, post production. At 2016 I moved to Kouvola. Even for me as a finn was a culture shock, coming from Helsinki to live to Kouvola. Still to this day a piece of me belongs to Helsinki but I adapted here as well. There are some advantages here like there’s less byrocrasy, It's more quiet and less traffic. Beautiful landscapes as well. It was very difficult to find a job in the area that I was was working. Whenever you find it difficult to get a job, you can always ask from jobs rental companies.
Service design is about making things works better order and there is room to make a better product or service everywhere so it can fit in every industry. My goals now are to finish fast and find a job. At the moment I'm intern at Xamk with design academy project. That is about developing education of design in Finland overall I found out that it was amazing oportunity that I could do it here at Xamk. So I gave it a try. I think I have one of the best views of all projects that are using design in this area. Cause there are many differnt projects that can use service design like traveling, business etc. My job is challenging but interesting and I can educate and develop my self further, never to stop learning. So far I'm lighenting very much. Xamk gives great effort and it's worth coming to study. One of the good thing about Xamk it’s a big instituion and very cosy and warm people are helphul and nice.
Written by Arian 10
ICE HOCKEY Ice Hockey (is actually fun!) When foreigners come to Europe, the first thing that comes to their mind after hearing the word “sports” is usually football, tennis and all the mainstream sports considering their huge popularity around rest of the world. But little do they know that in reality one of the most popular sports in this tiny sized but multi-cultured continent, is Ice-hockey. Now, for the foreigners it is easier to get confused at first since most of the people in ice-hockey playing countries refer to it just as “hockey”, which actually is a similar sport played on grass rather than ice. Therefore, they mainly know about this game as ice-hockey and usually it’s just the name that people know.
As a foreigner myself, i was unaware of how much fun ice-hockey is in reality and never really bothered to go watch a match or play an NFL match on consoles with my friends. Then last Wednesday, I finally decided to overcome my personal mindset about hockey and went to watch the Kouvola team Kookoo play against their league opponents TPS from Turku. I was quite amazed and happy when I got to know that the students get discount on tickets and it ranges from 5e to 10e.
The Lumon Areena, home stadium to the Kookoo team was full of crazy fans from both sides, giving the match a more competitive atmosphere. The teams started well with Kookoo having more attacks in almost all the periods but the opposition goalkeeper and defence was too strong for them to overcome. As far as the scoreline was concerned, TPS beat Kookoo 7:2, but the intensity of the match was one for the experience. There are many things about hockey that can surprise and admire foreigners who love sports no matter what. The way players are fined during the match, the risk of getting it by the puck, the super-short breaks when the goalposts are cleaned of the unnecessary ice and many more such things can leave an imprint on the minds of the new viewers. So, for all that it is worth an experience for sure, even more when you are living in Finland.
Written by Prakhar 11
STUDIO 123 Kymenlaaksonkatu 1 45700 Kuusankoski 044 375 3686 www.studio123.fi 4.10-10.10.2019 STUDIO 1 METALLICA & SAN FRANCISCO SYMPHONY : S&M2 (S) | 18€ | 2h30min Wed 19:15 DOWNTOWN ABBEY (7) | 12€ | 2h2min Every night 17:00 JOKER (16) | 12€ | 2h2min Every Evening 19:20 STUDIO 2
MOVIEREVIEW Downtown Abbey: Hit or Miss? First of all, a small disclaimer: I haven't seen the show. Not a single episode. Of course, in order to watch the movie and write a review, some preparation had to be done, but it didn't involve watching the series, so... Sorry if the review doesn't catch Easter eggs or some other cool stuff that came from the small screen.
MESTARI CHENG (7) | 12€ | 1h54min Fri 19:00, Sat-Sun 14:45, Mon-Tue ,Thur 19:00
The film takes place in 1927, 2 years after the last episode of the show and for those who like truly yours haven't seen the OLEN SUOMALAINEN aforementioned show, it might (12) | 12€ | 1h53min Fri 16:45, Sat-Sun 14:30, Tue-Thur be quite difficult to understand 16:45 who's who and what's going on. King and Queen are going to visit RAMBO : LAST BLOOD Downtown and, when heroes (16) | 12€ | 1h41min receive the letter that tells that, Sat-Sun 16:45, Mon 17:00 all hell breaks loose. ONCE UPON A TIME...IN HOLLYWOOD (16) | 13€ | 2h42min Sat-Sun 18:45 STUDIO 3 TOYSTORY 4 (DUB) (7) | 11€ | 1h40min Sat-Sun 15:15 MARIAN PARATIISI (12) | 12€ | 1h51min Every night 17:20 AMAZING GRACE (S) | 11€ | 1h29min Fri-Sat, Mon, Wed 19:30
The film was funny. If there British Humor is a thing, you're able to find it here. And in Kingsman. But Downtown Abbey is about royalty, so don't expect to see any f-bomb in the movie. Funny situations and one-liners do exist, with some sort of well-crafted puns. The actors also did their job very, very well. Aristocratic England is not only brought by costumes and decorations (which are truly amazing by the way) but also by actors. Probably no reader of this issue has lived in England 90 years ago but you'd definitely agree that if there was something royal about it, it'd be just like in the movie. However, Maggie Smith is the clear MVP. Who doesn't like Professor Minerva McGonagall? Good old Maggie is perfect in her role of Violet Crowley who is quite upset about things going on. All in all, awesome decorations, genuine acting and a good story earn this movie 4 stars. It for sure would be five, had I watched the show, though.
PAVAROTTI (S) | 12€ | 1h55min Sun,Tue,Thur 19:30 Students/armed services, pensioners 1€ discount on all full priced tickets of 10€ or more
Written by Nikita