The thing that makes Lapland UAS differ from other UAS in Finland is that Lapland UAS is a relatively small and young, so everybody just knows each other. It made me feel like I was in a family.

First of all, let me introduce myself, my name is Hien and I am an international student from Vietnam. I came to Lapland UAS in the Autumn 2019 semester and have been doing my studies in the Business Information Technology programme since then.

When I first came to Finland, my first impression was the cold weather, it was not a really good impression. However, it only took me few weeks to get used to the weather condition of Lapland, and that was the first good signal for a guy coming from a tropical country.

Then I had my first class, only few days after I made arrangements for my living. I suddenly realized that the teaching style in Lapland UAS, in Finnish universities in general, is very different from my home country. It requires from the students the ability for self-studying and doing research to acquire knowledge. Firstly, we received very helpful instructions from the teachers and were allowed freely to explore the knowledge on the internet and were always welcomed back and receive feedback from the teachers. That process really stimulated the creativity in every student, personally, I find I had more room and support to get what I want to learn in each course/subject. Secondly, the topics taught in each course/subject were very up to date, in my case, I had the chance to discover the newest technique for data analytics with Python, business intelligence (sorry for being academic in this sentence :D), and many other cool things which are beneficial for my future career. Finally, the thing that makes Lapland UAS differ from other UAS in Finland is that Lapland UAS is a relatively small and young, so everybody just knows each other. It made me feel like I was in a family, and the friendliness of the tutor and teachers make the students feel comfortable reaching out to them via emails for support in studying and in life. The support from the teachers and tutor had helped me getting through many obstacles during my time as a student.

About living in Finland in general, especially in Lapland, the variety of weather conditions throughout the year really strengthen my adaptability. From minus 30 degree in winter to 30 degree in summer, enrich my sense of experience for life. In winter, I was very surprised by a lot of outdoor activities that Finnish organize, such as national skiing, cross countries skiing, ice fishing competition, or just building snowman with family members.

Personally, I utilize the winter time to concentrate on myself, to reach into my deeper-self, equip myself with good habits for better “me”. In autumn, enjoying the sun, you would see a different Finland, a more dynamic one, the national festivals organized everywhere in the country. Especially in Lapland, the place you can see the clearest contrast between day and night, it is normal if someday the sun does not set. Personally, I traveled to many cities in Finland to explore the culture, during my first summer. I have been to Helsinki, Lahti, Suonenjoki, etc, and have made a lot of new good friends with whom I am still staying in touch.

Besides the weather, the Finns are very warm and friendly, which are completely opposite to their winter. There are many foreigners who said that Finns are very introvert and you can easily find a lot of meme on the internet about the Finnish “stereotype”. To me, Finnish people are so special and with extremely admirable virtue, they are shy in the crowd and barely express their feelings to others, but they have truly bonding relationship with their close people, truly know and understand who they are, which is lacking in so many other countries’ people, especially in the age of internet explosion and social media. I heard some people say you would have been very lucky to have a Finnish friend because it could be a life-time friendship.

That is about my personal experience about studying and living in Finland, and definitely not all about this magnificent country. I will leave the space for you, the readers, the future Lapland students, the foreigners to discover more beautiful things about Finland.

– Hien –