Category: In English

Hi 5, Tips to survive your freshman year

Starting your studies is exciting and scary. The combination of expectation and dread can tangle your brain into a pretzel. Here are some tips to help you unpretzel.

In English

TEKSTI Marcelo Goldmann

1. Attend the Orientation Week

Orientation week at the University begins on September 1st with an Info Fair where you’ll get info about services and student groups. On September 6th, the Vulcanalia Fair takes place. During the day, there are stands and activities indoors. At night, the Vulcanalia evening bash will rock your socks off with awesome live music.

2. Get your Frank student card

Your student card gives you benefits, including nicely priced food at University restaurants and a myriad of discounts. If you have student rights and already paid the Student Union (OYY) fee, you can go to Frank.fi and order your student card or use the Frank app.

3. Locate your Guild

The best way to integrate into student life is to follow those who already know what is going on. Locating your guild and hanging out there will prove to be beneficial to your academic and after-hours exploits.

4. Join student groups

What better way to absorb the student culture than to join student groups. You can for example join your guild’s board or an international group like ESN, NISO, and AIESEC.

5. When in doubt, ask!

If things are still hazy after orientation week, you can ask your classmates, the Student Center, or OYY. Knowledge is power, or so they say.

+ 1: Bonus tip:

download the TUUDO app. It has info about studies and services. More importantly, it tells you what’s for lunch at the university restaurants.

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Marcelo Goldmann

A Doctor of Chemical Engineering from the University of Oulu. "Life is like a rubber duckie, you gotta keep it afloat to see its splendor." Instagram: @marcelogman

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Marcelo Goldmann

Campus Shop Looking for New Space at Linnanmaa Campus

The shop will be replaced by a new juice and smoothie bar, which will be serving “freshly squeezed juices, green smoothies, vegetable shots, take-away, high-quality special coffees, and tea”, according to the concept design.

In English Yleinen

TEKSTI Anni Hyypiö

KUVAT Anni Hyypiö

In Finnish.

The Uniresta-owned Campus Shop is looking for new business space at the Linnanmaa campus. Early next year the shop will be replaced by a new juice and smoothie bar, owned by Juvenes-Yhtiöt.

The CEO of Uniresta, Kaija-Liisa Silvennoinen, says that the shop will move out of the central lobby by the end of October.

“It is still uncertain when we will be open for the last time. However, we believe that our doors will close around mid-October.”

In April, the University of Oulu terminated its lease contract with Uniresta regarding the Campus Shop space. The reason behind this is the need to increase restaurant space, now that the Oulu University of Applied Sciences will be moving to the Linnanmaa campus.

According to Silvennoinen, Uniresta has been discussing the new spaces with the university. As of now, no new spaces have been found.

“The university has advised us to contact the University Properties of Finland Ltd. (SYK) directly. With the arrival of the University of Applied Sciences, the whole set of spaces is still a bit of a mess, which means we haven’t gotten any concrete suggestions for the new space.”

If a new space cannot be found at all, Silvennoinen admits that one alternative is to close the shop for good.

“We would like to continue our business but if, instead of getting a central business location, we are forced to relocate somewhere in the peripheries of the campus, it is more reasonable to quit. Location, location and location, these are the most crucial qualities. Campus Shop requires enough volume and clientele in order to remain profitable.”

Among other things, Campus Shop sells office and stationery supplies, gift items, books for courses and entrance exams, and products featuring the university logo. Additionally, they sell small snacks, such as coffee, tea, pick ‘n’ mix candy, salads and sandwiches.

According to Silvennoinen, the most popular products in the last few years have been coffee, candy and take-away food, but there is also demand for office and stationery supplies.

“Traditionally, pens, rubbers, notebooks, note-taking equipment, and cards have all been fast sellers. Being able to buy intact tights or a pencil for an exam has saved the day of many students and members of staff.”

If Campus Shop will be out of business for good, could one of the other cafés at the campus start selling office and stationary supplies?

“This matter will definitely be settled in one way or another. I will be meeting with the CEOs from both Juvenes and Uniresta before Midsummer, and the matter is being discussed with them”, says the financial director of the University of Oulu, Pirjo Kytösalmi.

 

Juices, smoothies, high-quality special coffees

The competitive tendering for the Linnanmaa campus restaurants reached its conclusion on Wednesday 31st of May. Juvenes-Yhtiöt from Tampere was chosen as the new service provider.

According to the restaurant concept design enclosed with the call for tenders, there will be 128 seats inside the new smoothie bar and 40 more on the terrace. The bar will be open from morning to early evening.

In the concept plan it says that the juice and smoothie bar will include “freshly squeezed juices, green smoothies, vegetable shots, take-away, high-quality special coffees, and tea”.

Additionally, the concept design includes a mention of ”mocktails and cocktails at the pop-up place downstairs (Friday special!)”.

Does this mean that alcoholic beverages will also be available?

Pirjo Kytösalmi states that this description means “first and foremost selling juice and smoothie-styled mixtures”. Serving alcoholic beverages would require a liquor license.

“According to the service description, the bar area will be defined separately during the contracting process. This process can only start after the appeal period has expired. In other words, the liquor license question will later be clarified further. Serving alcohol at the campus is also a question of ethics and moral and will be carefully considered prior to implementing anything”, Pirjo Kytösalmi replies.

 

Translation: Laura Jalkanen.

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Anni Hyypiö

Oulun ylioppilaslehden entinen päätoimittaja. Twitter: @AnniHyypio

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Anni Hyypiö

Debate, diplomats and Finnish Sauna – Getting to know diplomacy in Helsinki

"You learn many things during these new experiences, things which you don't learn in your daily life. So never be afraid to travel and socialize", says Ammar Bukhari after participating in FinMUN 2017.

In English Yleinen

TEKSTI Kaisa Tervahauta

At the University of Oulu there are plenty of student societies that offer all kinds of possibilities according to ones’ interests. However, for those interested in international relations the choices are very limited. That’s why Ammar Bukhari took the opportunity to join Finnish Model United Nations in Helsinki.

During an intense weekend in April he met statesmen, diplomats and students from around the world. We asked Ammar to tell you all about his first FinMUN experience.

 

Who are you?

“Ammar Bukhari, 23, studying Master’s Programme in Product Management in University of Oulu.”

 

What is FinMUN?

“FinMUN is an annual conference where many international people and people from different parts of Finland come to debate. It is a simulation of United Nations, where each delegate is representing one country allocated to them. You debate like it happens in the actual United Nations and learn about diplomacy. It is a type of public speaking exercise. It is organized by Finnish Model United Nations Society.”

 

What was the program like?

“It was a great experience! The best part was the visits and diplomacy we learned from respected people.

The first day, a welcome session was held at the EU office in Helsinki where Canada’s representative gave a talk. Then we were welcomed at Helsinki City hall by few representatives from the local government. The second day we visited Swedish Embassy and met the Swedish Ambassador who welcomed us and gave a talk about Swedish and Finnish collaboration and shared his experiences in the UN.

We also visited the Finnish Ministry of Environment, where we discussed Finland’s stance and efforts for the Arctic region. We also learned about the experience of Finnish Sauna diplomacy, which was actually adopted by a former Finnish prime minister.”

 

What was your role?

“I was representing France in the United Nations Security Council, and was declared best delegate (most active delegate) in the committee, even though there were many experienced MUN speakers. Other participants flew in from Germany, Spain, Sweden and Russia to join students from all over Finland.”

 

How can I join?

“Anyone can participate. You apply online, tell them what you study or have any experience in this MUN public speaking before or not. Most students are studying international affairs and I was the only one with engineering background. It was also my first time participating in the event. You just have to participate, it teaches you a lot! In my experience you learn many things during these new experiences, things which you don’t learn in your daily life. So never be afraid to travel and socialize.”

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Kaisa Tervahauta

Pohjoismaisen filologian, valtio-opin ja viestinnän opiskelija. OYY:n hallituksen jäsen vuonna 2017.

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In English Yleinen

Kaisa Tervahauta

Renovation of Teekkaritalo will move next autumn’s freshman events somewhere else

Teekkaritalo, the center of many student events, started undergoing renovations in the beginning of May. The improved version of the house will be available for use in October.

In English Yleinen

TEKSTI Sanna Häyrynen

KUVAT Anni Hyypiö

In Finnish

Teekkaritalo, built in 1993, will receive a large-scale renovation during the summer.

According to Tero Marin, the chairman the board of Teekkarilupi Oy, the organization responsible for the upkeep of Teekkaritalo, the house has received only small maintenance and repairs when needed during the past 24 years.

“The surfaces are in such bad condition that a large-scale renovation has to be done”, Marin explains.

The total expenses for the five-month period will easily reach six-figure numbers. Financial aid will be given by companies and private donators.

“The house has without a doubt given many people a lot of hilarious moments, great experiences, warm memories and new friends. Now is a good chance to give something back to the house”, Marin states.

The members of Teekkarilupi will take part in voluntary work when it comes to demolition work and acquisition of materials, for example, but the more advanced maintenance work will be left to the professionals.

 

Oulun ylioppilaslehti 2017.
This is how ascetic Teekkaritalo appears at the moment. The entire floor on the first floor of the building will be renewed and underfloor heating will be installed. Tommi Portti, pictured above, visited the worksite on 24.5.

 

A LONG TO DO-LIST

The kitchen of Teekkaritalo will undergo changes, as it will receive new appliances and furniture. According to Marin, the main objective is to make the kitchen more practical than before.

The entire floor on the first floor of the building will be renewed. It will be cast again, and underfloor heating will be installed. The floor that previously consisted of tiles and wood will be replaced by rubber matting.

“The heating channels next to the dance floor, the dread of all those who use high heels, will be removed. Because the new floor consists of unbreathable material, we have to ensure that water cannot access the structures, so underdrain pipes and a rainwater sewer will be installed in the yard surrounding the building”, Marin notes.

A separate drain for a hot tub will also be installed. Teekkaritalo does not currently have a hot tub of its own, but users can bring a rentable hot tub with them.

The old plywood board of the sauna building’s exterior surface will be replaced by wood and steel surfaces. The roof of the sauna and the roof terrace will also be repaired.

An entirely new storeroom, which will also be larger than before, will replace the old one.

“Unfortunately, the storeroom has seen more than a few break ins. The new storeroom will be more durable, and will also have some working space”, Marin adds.

 

ALTERNATIVE PREMISES

When the renovations are finished in the end of September, Teekkaritalo is supposed to function as before. However, the freshman events in September might cause some trouble, as traditionally many of them have been held at Teekkaritalo.

One alternative option, according to Marin, was to start the renovation already in April.

“In that case, all the Wappu events would have had to be moved somewhere else. We had to choose the lesser of two evils.  The summertime has always been very quiet, so we had to time the renovation somewhere around it”, Tero Marin explains.

Teekkarilupi has suggested that student organizations could, for instance, rent the guild house of the architecture students, located in Pikisaari.

 

Translation: Joonas Pelttari.

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Sanna Häyrynen

Tiedeviestinnän maisteri, joka tykkää kuunnella, kun asiantuntija puhuu. Twitter: @sannahayrynen

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Sanna Häyrynen

Women in Science: Why Are There So Many Guys in STEM Fields?

What is commonly used as a joke among students actually reflects a sad truth: If you want to hook up with the opposite gender during your studies you have to select your university carefully. A school heavy on engineers signals to mating-willing students “There are just guys!”, and they might want to migrate for parties to the part where education and social sciences are studied. Sounds like the beginning of yet another American Pie movie? Sadly this is how gender is distributed across study fields even in the 21st century.

In English

TEKSTI Bianca Beyer

KUVAT Alisa Tciriulnikova

The idea for this article struck me during an exam supervision. Staring at poor students who are suffering to solve their tasks for three hours is not exactly one of the most entertaining things about working at a university, so I involved them unwillingly in my next research project for this magazine.

Soon after they had started writing I realized something: The room was overpopulated with guys. There were three different exams from technical and sciences faculties and still, in 2017, this seems to be the main determinant for gender distribution. I quickly evaluated the boys-to-girls ratio and concluded that there were approximately two thirds guys and one third girls in the room.

The population in Finland is more or less equally distributed among men and women and considering that Finland is one of the most balanced countries when it comes to gender equality, it seems very odd to me that there is still such a huge difference in STEM-fields between men and women. STEM is short for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, and can historically be thought of as rather male-dominant fields of study. Apparently this is still the reality!


Guys like technical stuff, girls like humans and arts

Finland, just like its Nordic neighbors, has always been very forward-thinking in terms of equality. After all, there’s not even a distinction between masculine and feminine in the Finnish language. Could this whole exam-gender-distribution maybe be attributable to a coincidence and the other girls who study engineering and chemistry just took the exam on another day?

I checked the official statistics to be sure and the results are sadly not too surprising. The results suggest that when it comes to applicants on fields like natural sciences, engineering, sports and even economics, boys outnumber girls up to 2.5 times.

The numbers for the University of Oulu compared to the whole country vary only slightly. Opposing, or rather complementing, this stereotype is just another stereotype. Girls outnumber boys, beating the aforementioned ratios, in fields such as education, social sciences, and humanities. Five times as many girls as boys are interested in health science!


Boys are evaluated better than girls 

On the search for an answer for this odd phenomenon I stumbled into more questions. Eileen Pollack, author and one of the first two women ever to graduate from Yale with a Bachelor of Science in physics in the 1970s, looks at the problem in an article in the New York Times Magazine.

Pollack refers to a Yale study where two made-up candidates apply for a position. Their training and skills are the same, the only difference is their gender. Yet, all study-participants favor the male applicant in almost every category, and also offer him a higher annual salary. Study participants were both women and men. Apparently we are all sexist.

There seems to be something deeply rooted within our subconscious beliefs that makes us value a man higher than a woman, and consider men more fit for technical fields like engineering, mathematics and natural sciences. On the other hand women are considered to be better at creative and social field of study.

Perhaps the answer lies in biology. Boys and girls develop and behave differently, but this cannot entirely be explained by our society. If you try to find a gender-neutral congratulations card for the birth of a baby, you’ll fail most probably and have to decide for pink or blue. But it is hardly believable that the baby already cares about that.

According to an article in Psychology Today, infants already show differences in development, such as being interested in social stimuli versus being interested in things and systems. Could the explanation really be this easy?

 

What went wrong in our own youth?

When thinking back to my own childhood and school time, I have no reasonable explanation for not having been interested in natural sciences and technology more. Now, today, I have developed an interest towards those fields. Back then, I couldn’t have cared less. This can neither be explained by a lack of support nor by some other external and sexist cruel force: my mother constantly and unsuccessfully tried to get me interested in chemistry, and we had feminist teachers fight for equality in almost every field throughout high school.

One interesting argument that keeps coming up is how boys and girls deal differently with challenges. While boys seem to be confident, almost overly confident, girls seem to need external approval and encouragement in order to proceed when studying becomes harder. When boys fail, they tend to think they simply did not put enough effort. Girls quickly believe that their abilities are not sufficient.

Eventually this could be explained by upbringing and society rather than biological differences. The famous difference between a fixed and a growth mindset is that those with a growth mindset know that they can develop and improve their skills. After all, the beauty of a mindset is that it is just another belief.


Future resolutions towards more equality

Perhaps there is a difference of biological nature between girls and boys and their interest in different fields. But most certainly this difference can be emphasized or dampened through education, upbringing and a change of our viewpoint.

We need to constantly keep on encouraging kids to pursue what they are interested in and offer them a wide range of the things they could become interested in. We should try to eliminate stereotypes as much as possible and raise boys and girls in the same encouraging way that boosts self-confidence. We need to constantly check within our own mindset if there is some hidden and subconscious, implicit sexism or some other discriminative thoughts going on in our thinking.

Implementing a women quota to get more equality doesn’t make sense if we don’t encourage more female students to actually take on studying the fields where women are missing.

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Bianca Beyer

When I don’t sit over plans to erase all evil and meet unicorns, or dream of eating cotton candy, I believe in hard facts and science, doing my PhD in Accounting at the University of Oulu. Using writing as an information transmitter, outlet for creativity or simply for mere entertainment, I believe I am totally living the dream with all my current jobs. Blog: beapproved.wordpress.com

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Bianca Beyer

Hi, 5 things to look forward to during Vappu

Vappu, or Wappu as engineering students call it, is a public holiday on the 1st of May. Vappu signifies the beginning of spring, but for students, Vappu is a two-week celebration with different day and evening activities and parties.

In English

TEKSTI Marcelo Goldmann

KUVAT Alisa Tciriulnikova

  1. Something to do every day

Vappu has no shortage of events for you to attend during April. Already weeks before the 1st of May there are different events cooking up. There is something to do every single day: Hot B**ch Party on the 19th, Vappu Openings on the 20th, Ööpinen publishing party on the 22nd, Rowing competition on the 23rd, BBQ on the 24th, Beer pong on the 25th, Rave on the 26th, Joyhouse party on the 27th, Picnic on the 28th, Vappu eve’s eve party on the 29th and Vappu eve party on the 30th. The reality is that there are so many events that it is likely you might not be able to attend them all, so choose wisely.

  1. Overalls everywhere!

If you thought there were times when there were a lot of students in overalls, you haven’t seen anything yet. During Vappu there are overalls as far as the eye can see. You get to see the wild students in their natural habitat, usually prancing around random places with a drink in their hand. These creatures are notorious for banding into groups with overalls of similar colors and singing very loudly. So sew some patches, put on your overalls, and join in with your friends. Just remember that whatever happens, you’re not allowed to wash your overalls.

  1.  The Water Bus

The Water Bus, Vesibussi, or Wessibussi, is one of the highlights of Vappu. Bus number 69 rides from Linnanmaa to the city center and from the city center to Linnanmaa. It has a capacity for about 100 people and it is magically insane. In the bus you will be able to party as the bus makes is way through traffic. As an added bonus you get to travel between Linnanmaa and the city center or the other way around. Inside the bus you can expect loud music and friendly people.

  1. The death of freshmanship

For freshmen (Finnish: fuksit) Vappu serves as an important rite of passage. Once they have experienced their first Vappu they are no longer freshmen. This is especially true for engineering students who take a dip in the waters of Åström Park. The students dive into the water as freshmen and come out as engineering students (Teekkari). The next morning, they receive the engineering caps. The dip happens on the 30th of April starting at 13.00.

  1. Vappu Radio

During Vappu, there are special broadcasts made by students in different cities of Finland. In Oulu the radio called Rattoradio, which literally translates to Pleasure Radio. Starting on the 2oth of April and ending transmission on April 30th, Rattoradio broadcasts at 98.1 MHz. Most of the programs are in Finnish but there’s at least one in English: Goldmann and Saksa in Your Mama’s House by UUNI’s own Bianca Beyer and yours truly. Find out more at rattoradio.fi.

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Marcelo Goldmann

A Doctor of Chemical Engineering from the University of Oulu. "Life is like a rubber duckie, you gotta keep it afloat to see its splendor." Instagram: @marcelogman

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Marcelo Goldmann