• Frontpage
  • Bloggers
  • Archive
  • About
Inside

Hyunjee – About Finland

22.04.2016 Student Life

Hyunjee Kang, a last-year student in International Business from South Korea, borrows the Arcada Communications blog for a few weeks to write about life and studies in Finland. 

Hello again and again!

How was this week? I hope that it was good for all of you who read my posts. For me it was kind of busy days, so I’m happy that today is Friday and the weekends begins soon :D.

Today, I want to talk about Finland a bit as a international student.

Finland?

Before I came to Finland, I had some images in my head about Finland: Good quality of education, welfare country, Santa town, Nordic design, and Xylitol. Finnish Xylitol is super popular in S-Korea (as well as the words “Hyvä hyvä”). If you are curious you can google “xylitol korea” and find some Korean TV commercials from 2006 for xylitol gum.

But here I want to make a short list of things that I’ve felt and noticed during the last four years in Finland.

  • Bilingual country: Finnish and Swedish are both official languages in Finland. The majority of the population have Finnish as their mother tongue. But still 5% of the population have Swedish as their native language. Furthermore, most people speak English very well.
  • Long winters and beautiful summers: The winter in Finland is honestly cold, dark and long. I am still afraid for when winter is coming (okay, wintertime is cold in many countries, but the thing I still haven’t gotten used to here is that it is so long). But after a long, dark, harsh winter – a beautiful summer awaits you. Sunny, bright nights, a warm but not humid weather – and the green forests, blue seas and lakes are super beautiful. So, just walking in a nearby park and enjoying the sun is nice.
  • Peaceful and a quiet county and people: Finland is a peaceful, relaxed, and quiet country in general. (Compared to S-Korea which has a 10 times larger population but 3 times smaller total area, obviously yes!). And it is well known that Finnish people are quite shy and quiet. Yes, it’s true in general, and the Finns’ shyness can make it come across like they are cold. But, I would rather say that it really depends on the personal character (some Finns are really outgoing and some are not – like people in every country). They are just not afraid of being silent and those kind of moments.
  • Drinking and sauna: Even though Finland and Finns are quiet, it doesn’t mean that they are boring. In general, Finland’s atmosphere is calm but actually they like partying, singing and enjoy sauna. Sauna? Yes, Finns love sauna. Before I came to Finland I thought that Sauna is more an Asian thing (I don’t know why). But here, Finnish enjoy sauna so much that they even have private saunas in their bathrooms or in their community buildings.
  • Student discounts: As a welfare country, Finland has good student discount system! Students (at universities) can get a 50 percent discount on municipality travel-card tickets, school meals and Finnish railways and bus tickets (in this case, a student card is needed).

There are more things to say, but this is enough for today’s post I think.  Have a nice weekends! and see you next post 😉

To be continued..
/Hyunjee

 

 

 

 

 

Arcada Communications

The communications team at Arcada is involved with everything from press releases and events to student recruitment and marketing (as well as everything in between). Our blog posts will without a doubt be just as varied.

Contact details

  • E-mail: inside@arcada.fi
  • Facebook (External link)

More by the same author

  • 21.12.2021 Winter adventures in Helsinki
  • 17.05.2021 2020: The start of a new normal
  • 09.10.2020 Alumnporträttet: Språkkunskaper och utbytesstudier ledde till Alex Reinikkas nordiska jobb
  • 05.10.2020 Alumni Portrait: Michael Ringlein is motivated by freedom
  • 09.04.2020 Alumnporträttet: Yasmine Owusu värdesätter människomötena på familjecentret
More posts by Arcada Communications

AuthorArcada Communications

Meet our bloggers

Business / Business / Liiketalous

  • 28.04.2022
    Vem köper mat på nätet i framtiden?

Arcada 25

  • 22.06.2022
    Förstavårdens arbetsdag är variation, utmaningar och krav – men de går att bemästra
  • 19.05.2022
    Hur kan teknologi främja tillgängligheten i samhället?
  • 21.04.2022
    Därför är innovativt entreprenörskapstänk en framgångsfaktor

International Student Ambassadors

  • 03.02.2022
    Arcada – A Truly International Experience in Helsinki
  • 06.12.2021
    Why I Chose Finland as My Study Destination (and Would Do It All Over Again)
  • 09.02.2021
    Two Things You Should Know About Studying in Finland and at Arcada

Arcada Research News

  • 15.06.2022
    News from Arcada’s Laboratory for Trustworthy AI
  • 21.10.2021
    Märi-projektet framskrider och når delmål
  • 01.06.2021
    Lohkoketjuekosysteeminen tarkastelua hallinnan ja adoption näkökulmasta

The NURED Project

  • 28.02.2020
    Ending the NURED Project: final products, and final thoughts.
  • 30.09.2019
    The NURED Final Seminar – WELCOME!
  • 13.06.2019
    The NURED Roadtrip – Discussions about developing nursing curriculas across the Baltic Region

Kultur och media / Culture and Media / Kulttuuri ja media

  • 18.05.2022
    How can small museums innovate on digitalisation?
  • 30.11.2021
    Boom-boom-boomer – kolla hit, detta är politik!
  • 29.11.2021
    Silmän liikkeiden tutkimisesta – osa 2

Cookies Availability statement

© 2022 Yrkeshögskolan Arcada